Pinkbike Poll: Flow Trails vs. Technical Trails

The term 'flow trail' is a relatively recent addition to the mountain bike lexicon, a phrase used to describe a trail, usually machine made, that's full of berms and rollers, a dirt carnival ride that almost any ability level can make their way down without much trouble. They seem to be popping up with increasing regularity, and part of their growth may be due to the fact that more trails are being built specifically for mountain bikes (that's a good thing), as opposed to riding on paths that were originally constructed for foot and hoof traffic. The increasing number of flow trails could also be a side effect of the pumptrack craze that began roughly ten years ago. If a backyard pumptrack is fun, imagine how great a supersized, gravity-fed one out in the woods would be – or at least that seems to be the train of thought behind the construction of these swoopy, wide, and above all, smooth, trails.

Crunchy vs. smooth.
That smoothness is one hallmarks of a flow trail, and most of them are nearly completely devoid of roots, rocks, or anything that would require the use of knobby tires. That's part of what makes it easier to get one through the bureaucratic red tape that comes with building a legal mountain bike trail – it's like getting permission to build a sidewalk in the woods, a task that's much simpler than trying to explain to a non-cyclist why that jumble of boulders in the middle of the trail doesn't need to be removed.

The growing number of flow trails combined with increasingly capable bikes makes for an strange juxtaposition, especially since the ideal bike for these trails would be something along the lines of a dirt jump hardtail or a slopestyle bike, rather than the 160mm enduro bikes that are currently en vogue. In a perfect world, a riding area would have a mix of trails, with rugged, natural singletrack interspersed between the machine built options. This certainly isn't always the case, but perhaps the focus on more rugged trails will return once the wave of flow trail construction subsides.

Personally, I like my trails to be served raw, full of spiderwebs of roots, chunky rocks, and sections that take a concerted effort to unlock the secrets. Don't get me wrong, I like railing through a double overhead berm as much as anyone, but if I were forced to choose, I'd pick a rough and raw trail over a sculpted sidewalk any day. But I'm genuinely curious about how other riders feel - maybe the demand for flow trails truly does outweigh that of natural, technical trails, which is the premise for this week's poll.

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