naming trails, a bit of a rant.

You know, we nicknamed our local downhill run Repack, because after one run BITD Fred Wolf used the kick back rear brake on his Klunker so much that it got REALLY HOT and the grease inside was toasted, thus needing to be repacked with fresh grease. Around here, local riders come up with nicknames for fav. spots on the Mountain-I have a whole list of nicknames that we use all the time to reference places to ride and or meet up...

Years ago cannock chase was nothing other than pathways and every so often you would see a tyre track heading off into the trees, you had no idea where it headed.

We had a trail we did called the figure of 8 over towards Seven springs what a great track. There are loads about still and its fun now trying to find them all before the forestry block them off.

This is partly why the zaskar will be my main ride along with a hint of a hans rey rep for my good old trails days .

Ant

highlandsflyer":3pxdta7v said:

lewis1641":3pxdta7v said:

Oh, I forgot how boring most seem to find cross country cycling! Everyone wants to get rad and gnarly to the max.

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Because getting gnarly to the max sells bikes, you too can do that 30ft drop to flat with this awesome 16" travel machine and there will be hundreds of pre moistened women waiting by the landing zone just waiting for you to drop in....

As a spectator/televised sport dh or dual slalom has it over xc, short courses lots of action and a chance of carnage. The recent report on PB of the race across the mongolian steppe was a case in point, most of the comments were along the lines of 'god that is soooooo boring. Quite sad really that a great test of endurance and determination is seen a yawn worthy. Whereas the vid of someone hitting the north shore prompted comments of woah, dude and brah and what forks do you need to hit 50ft drops to transition ? and which rear shock will get me the most chicks ?

I must admit too that here it is pretty much all downhill and it's not rare to see people physically unable to ride uphill for more than 50m without vomiting with the effort.

@Retro Cat

Yeah that video, why bother with suspension at all, it looked like a cycle path, did look quite fun though.

Agree with OP.........i ran a shop for a while then went to work for a rival shop in coed y brenin for a season.........the old centre was friendly and blended into the woodland and the food was good value, then we all got moved over the road to the new centre and a very small hire shop (very small) while a local tender got the new cafe and charge a small fortune for a piece of cake...........and all the trails get fancy gateways like giant horns and sus forks...........it's just bad taste and over hyped for the actual trail you will end up riding...............yer all that i rode the ''horns of death'' crap....jeez :roll:

Chute55uk":1cax2ea6 said:

why has mountain biking changed into the equivalent of the 18 hole sunday golf round? just wondering and slightly off topic

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or as mentioned on another forum pony trekking.

Anyway back to the naming game, as far back as I can remember and I'm talking skateboarding and BMX we had names for everything, mostly they had a personal feel, possibly named after someone coming a cropper or such. Same when we moved to mountain biking, it was alot easier to describe a route by names rather than description. In fact we still name some bits on road rides as well. As well as all that trail centre design and operation seems to be closely related to ski centres which all have names too.

greenstiles":3u1oo7ep said:

Agree with OP.........i ran a shop for a while then went to work for a rival shop in coed y brenin for a season.........the old centre was friendly and blended into the woodland and the food was good value, then we all got moved over the road to the new centre and a very small hire shop (very small) while a local tender got the new cafe and charge a small fortune for a piece of cake...........and all the trails get fancy gateways like giant horns and sus forks...........it's just bad taste and over hyped for the actual trail you will end up riding...............yer all that i rode the ''horns of death'' crap....jeez :roll:

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Agree with that, the old centre at Coedy was friendlier and better value grub but I did think the massive forks at the new centre when it opened were pretty cool

kaiser":1w344ba4 said:

Chute55uk":1w344ba4 said:

As well as all that trail centre design and operation seems to be closely related to ski centres which all have names too.

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All this talk of car-park snobbery, all-the-gear dudes, getting rad, etcetera, is totally in line with ski & snowboard culture. Trail centres sound like the new dry ski slopes / snowdomes.

I'm not personally sure what 'mountain biking' is any more. All I know is that the videos that make me smile usually involve people going big & technical off-road on bikes that may or may not have suspension.
Some of it might be 'dirt jumping', some of it might be 'DH'.
What's Red Bull Rampage? DH, or 'Mountain Biking'?

There's a group of blokes near me who discovered mountain biking a couple of years ago. This was after several years of incredulous piss taking on winter evenings in the pub after me and my mates came in at the end of a ride.

Anyway they now call themselves 'The Black Run Boys' after a trip to Llandegla.
They've also given stupid names to many of the trails in the limited area they ride in.

Most of them can't ride for s***.

1210tech indeed those forks are cool......but i think they were either £16,000 or £22,000 can't remenber...it was a lot anyway..........i'd rather a £300 wooden gate and etra cash on more trail meters...........edit what's more is for that price you would have expected an un-cut steerer tube !

We used to have names for all the different tracks up to the peats. Human nature, especially when you spend time repairing/extending them.