BACK TO OUR ROUTESIt’s not that there’s anything wrong with
riding trail centres – far from it. In many way’s
it’s just like going to a well laid out ski resort
but for me that is exactly what’s lacking in the
experience, disorganisation.
The last time I ventured onto a hand carved
trail was during a passing visit to Coed y
Brenin in Wales. This was perhaps the first
full-scale trail centre ever to be conceived
and is hosted in a remote forestry area on the
southern fringes of the Snowdonia National
Park. All these years on and it really does still
smuggle in some of the best non-contraband
singletrack you’ll ever find and not have to
think about.
Time was short on this particular occasion
and so I elected to cut together a couple of
shorter trails. Within minutes of arrival I outed my
retro 26inch hardtail and rode off into the big
green and along an all-promising and ‘money
back almost guaranteed’ twisty grey line.
It had been a fair few years since I’d ridden
here and within minutes I was pinned to the
sidewalls and begging for more suspension.
Things had moved on and the trails had
seemingly been laced with steroids by the
builders. Even so, one and a half hours later
and I was back at base. It had been a goodride for sure; I’d had a workout and a dose of
adrenaline to boot.
But it hadn’t been an adventure, not by a
long chalk.
Somehow I felt as though I’d let myself down
and felt guilty that I’d left my sense of adventure
and exploration locked behind in the car on a
hot day, with the windows fully closed.
Strangely enough the four guys who were
on the car park putting together their big-rigs
when I left for the ride were still there when I got
back, fine-tuning their trimmings. I overheard
them talking about the trails as if they could
ride them blind and on further investigation I
found that they were in fact “trail centre riders”.
They’d come into mountain biking purely
through the lure of these guaranteed to thrill
and contained environments and had ridden
nothing more than back roads to work outside
of their weekend hits.
I couldn’t quite get my head around this
and I had a real longing to drag them out
into the wilds on a misty day, with nothing
more than a banana and a map to get them
through the ride. Then again, maybe I’m just
and tough-love kinda old git.
Hours used to be spent drooling over
detailed maps of new and remote regions,
plotting and planning potential routes,
get out options, water pick ups, dodging
bogs and estimating weather and light, and
then packing what was needed for
the adventure ahead.It was all part and parcel of it, getting out
into the great unknown and having an ‘epic’.
It didn’t always need to be an eight-hour-ridge
traverse (but they are the best); it could be an
hour or two on new trails.
As our sport leans more and more towards
the man made trails I can’t help but wonder
just how much of the mountain is slipping
away from mountain biking. There are riders
out there who’ve known nothing but these
railed rides, and who probably wouldn’t even
be able to fold a map let alone read one – or
even want to for that matter.
Of course, this isn’t bagging the trail centres
and bike parks – they have brought a whole new
and welcomed influx of people to the sport, along
with a good degree of safety and responsibility
too. I mean; could you imagine dragging a
newbie biker out through the boggy wilds for a full
day – they’d never want to see a bike again.
Take them to a trail centre on the other hand
and the chances are they’d find something
they enjoyed and may well get hooked. Trail
centres have also gone a long way towards
the regeneration of jaded regions and
communities (such as Derby in Tassie) and
have breathed drastically needed new life into
ever warming ski resorts too.
There’s a lot to be said for them, and they’re
definitely playing a huge and healthy part in
the present and future of mountain biking.
Perhaps trail centre riding appeals to a whole
different sector of bikers and maybe they’d have
absolutely zero interest in picking up a map and
planning an adventure, and vice versa.
I guess that as much as I still lean strongly
towards natural riding and adventure over
the man-made stuff, there is a place for both
out there. I just can’t help thinking that we
should all mix it up some and reconnect with
the original sense of fun and adventure that
was all about back in those distant days when
there was only one genre of mountain bike.
Getting out there and sensing that may well
change your life for the better.“Somehow I felt as though I’d let myself down and
felt guilty that I’d left my sense of adventure and
exploration locked behind in the car on a hot day,
with the windows fully closed”
Top From Left To Right:
Trails sure have come a long way.
Nothing like planning a day's adventure.