Trail Conditions for Calgarians

PB Forum :: All Mountain, Enduro & Cross-Country
Trail Conditions for Calgarians
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O+
Posted: Jan 29, 2020 at 13:24 Quote
Thanks, this is all good info!

Posted: Jan 29, 2020 at 14:06 Quote
husstler wrote:
Thanks, this is all good info!

No problem. Have fun. I'd push GO if I were you. Again, check on the ice......unless there's an expert out there on this. Always bugs me a bit.

and if anyone has any High Rockies intel.................

O+
Posted: Jan 29, 2020 at 15:47 Quote
aka-bigsteve wrote:
d-man wrote:
aka-bigsteve wrote:


More moto- yes, that's what we need.
Although it's not my thing, I don't get worked up by low powered, pedal assist e-bikes, used by those who need the help.
Funny thing is though- mostly I see healthy looking people roughly half my age (I'm 64) riding e-bikes on local trails.
Last spring in Bowmont, I encountered an outdoor ed class of teens, all on e-bikes. Made me feel a bit sad actually.
Is that the future of biking, and outdoor activity and fitness in general?
Why is it sad? What is sad is your elitest opinion that you have to "earn your turns" at least the kids were outside not behind a screen.
I garuntee once you ride one you will buy one.
I rode 30km on my bafang fat bike conversion, average 13 km/hr and my legs were pretty worked.

So are you saying we should encourage a population that's even less fit, that doesn't learn that hard work can be rewarding, and where everyone gets a gold star?
You're right, we should piss on anyone trying to have fun. Biking is serious business, we should all strive to be Olympic athletes such as yourself.

Posted: Jan 29, 2020 at 16:01 Quote
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

O+
Posted: Jan 29, 2020 at 19:00 Quote
R-M-R wrote:
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

I argue the point of wear and tear and mileage. most trail damage is done on the down, ebikes(legal ones) do not put out enough power to do any damage on the up.
More mileage is no different than introducing more regular powered bikes to trails like races.

O+
Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 7:17 Quote
d-man wrote:
R-M-R wrote:
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

I argue the point of wear and tear and mileage. most trail damage is done on the down, ebikes(legal ones) do not put out enough power to do any damage on the up.
More mileage is no different than introducing more regular powered bikes to trails like races.

Even legal ones put quite a bit of additional power out to the rear wheel, I will agree that it is not enough to be doing burnouts and spinning out. there is more force going into the ground over an average riders output, that is just simple math.

And yes, they damage the trails the same way introducing more riders would do, but that in itself is where the challenge lies. if everyone was riding one, basically it would be like the user group impacting the trails doubled or tripled in size, yet the amount of users is remaining the same. When going in for proposals to stake holders they use user numbers to gain funding and help to build these networks and if the user group remains the same, its unlikely they would double their maintenance budget. And the extra wear on the trails does not seem to be garnering extra volunteer dollars to fund the extra maintenance either.

Personally I am still on the fence about e-bikes. I like the idea of them, I like the idea of them being marketed towards some of the older guys who built half of these trails and have blown out knees or heart conditions. but more often then not, the people riding them are mid 30s, healthy people that just want to get a few extra laps in a day...which I can also see the pros of. at the end of the day, I dont think pedal assist bikes are going to ruin our chances at having trails, and I dont imagine it will cause that many more conflicts. I think everyone can agree shit like the bike that spurred this discussion is a different world and would be more like a electric-mx bike.

Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 7:42 Quote
d-man wrote:
R-M-R wrote:
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

I argue the point of wear and tear and mileage. most trail damage is done on the down, ebikes(legal ones) do not put out enough power to do any damage on the up.
More mileage is no different than introducing more regular powered bikes to trails like races.

The average e-bike ride is longer than the average ride by the same rider without assist.

I disagree about e-bikes doing far less damage on the climbs. This is only marginally true for human-powered bikes and I've seen plenty of e-bikes on full assist spitting rocks out the back. 500+ watts is enough to change the balance of where the damage occurs.

O+
Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 11:43 Quote
Anybody ride high Rockies from north end ? South section from peninsula is not worth it in the winter now that the bridge is closed , pretty short ride with out it.

Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 14:25 Quote
R-M-R wrote:
d-man wrote:
R-M-R wrote:
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

I argue the point of wear and tear and mileage. most trail damage is done on the down, ebikes(legal ones) do not put out enough power to do any damage on the up.
More mileage is no different than introducing more regular powered bikes to trails like races.

The average e-bike ride is longer than the average ride by the same rider without assist.

I disagree about e-bikes doing far less damage on the climbs. This is only marginally true for human-powered bikes and I've seen plenty of e-bikes on full assist spitting rocks out the back. 500+ watts is enough to change the balance of where the damage occurs.

Sounds like a bunch of people eating hot dogs at their annual trail days worrying about what others are doing for fun in the forest and the minimal impact it has kinda talk.......don't worry about what others are doing, go build a trail for yourself.........always good input for my mountain bike punterism thesis

CM!

O+
Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 15:02 Quote
R-M-R wrote:
Yikes.

We'll never come to an agreement on the virtues of either system, so how about just looking at the actionable issues of trail sustainability and user management:

• e-bikes allow riders to cover multiple times as much distance in a day, resulting in more wear-and-tear and more user encounters.
• e-bikes put out several times as much force at the rear tire's contact patch, resulting in more rapid trail erosion.
• e-bike riders travel faster than the same riders on human-powered bikes, producing potentially more dangerous encounters.

Regardless of whether we think people should or shouldn't be on e-bikes, the bikes are here and these issues are unavoidable.

Yeah, some of these are points that sometimes get lost but are worth looking at.

You get to a point with trail usage and maintenance where the usage starts to overwhelm the ability for maintenance to keep up. For an example, the popular loops in west bragg. And, like you said, the effect per rider is potentially a fair bit larger with ebikes vs. regular bikes.

There's also an argument that we have some more sensitive, non-maintained terrain in this province that stays somewhat protected by virtue of it being hard to access. Take away the difficulty of getting up into alpine regions, and all of a sudden they're ridden like regular trails.

I dunno, it's all hypothetical at this point. I love the idea of getting people into the back-country - especially if this is the specific tool that allows them to do it. That said, 9 out of 10 ebike riders I see in Kananaskis are dudes in their 20s. Personally, I think part of what makes mountain biking enjoyable is that it is hard. I don't expect everyone to feel the same way - but it is too bad if they don't get a chance to see if they enjoy the challenge or not before the salesperson pushes them towards the ebike.

I'm remaining indifferent. But the moment I see a gaggle of ebikes up on the top of Cox doing laps, I'm gonna form some strong opinions Wink

Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 15:36 Quote
jmercier wrote:
Anybody ride high Rockies from north end ? South section from peninsula is not worth it in the winter now that the bridge is closed , pretty short ride with out it.

Thanks!! Do you know why they closed that bridge?

Like he said - any word on the north end ? Any word on anything else? I was told CNC was ok.

Posted: Jan 30, 2020 at 16:10 Quote
kenny99 wrote:
jmercier wrote:
Anybody ride high Rockies from north end ? South section from peninsula is not worth it in the winter now that the bridge is closed , pretty short ride with out it.

Thanks!! Do you know why they closed that bridge?

Like he said - any word on the north end ? Any word on anything else? I was told CNC was ok.

Snow on the bridge renders the protective railings too low during the winter.

Posted: Jan 31, 2020 at 7:39 Quote
lazyname wrote:
kenny99 wrote:
jmercier wrote:
Anybody ride high Rockies from north end ? South section from peninsula is not worth it in the winter now that the bridge is closed , pretty short ride with out it.

Thanks!! Do you know why they closed that bridge?

Like he said - any word on the north end ? Any word on anything else? I was told CNC was ok.

Snow on the bridge renders the protective railings too low during the winter.

ah I see. Crossed it a few times last winter...or maybe it was the winter before... That end of the trail was a pretty fun fat bike ride.

O+
Posted: Feb 3, 2020 at 8:58 Quote
TLDR; Bottom of Snakes and Ladders is postholed and pretty rough, don't follow our tracks at the bottom of S&L thinking you can get to Bobcat, Bobcat doesn't have much traffic and was quite drifted in spots, needs a top to bottom run of about 5 guys to wear in the trail.

We rode a Snakes and Ladders/Bobcat loop yesterday, kinda. With the fresh snow the top of Snakes and Ladders was in pretty good condition and there was one set of tracks down. As you got closer to the bottom, the trail was quite postholed and rough, probably from some kind of foot traffic when the temps were higher last week.

We found tracks at the bottom of Snakes and Ladders that led us to believe that we could loop around to Bobcat so off we went along the creek. Turns out the tracks were one lone rider that pushed for a ways then turned back. There wasn't a very good packed trail, so it was unridable and mostly unwalkable (the foot traffic had packed a pretty narrow trail and there was lots of knee deep pushing as you fell off the packed trail). We pushed on past the end of the tracks until we thought we could shortcut up to the big switchback on Bobcat. We pushed our bikes up through the cutblock/meadow in ankle-knee deep snow and did in fact find Bobcat.

From the big switchback on Bobcat, it was mostly hiker traffic, with a combination of rideable hardpack, rideable and unrideable postholed snow and mostly unrideable drifted snow all the way up to the Sugar Mamma junction. From the Sugar Mamma junction it was easily rideable up to the top. With enough guys, you could probably do an out and back from the top on Bobcat and have a fairly good packed line for the return climb.

Both Ranger and Strange Brew were in really good shape for the start and end of the ride.

O+
Posted: Feb 26, 2020 at 21:05 Quote
Tried out Husky tonight, it's pretty far from ready. The road might be passable but even the bottom of Shoulda looked like a disaster. Looks like a few cm of fresh snow last night or this morning? I rode back down the road after climbing for a bit.

Maybe the next few days will help.


 


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