Sheffield's Steel City Downhill Track has Been Vandalised
Steve Peat has revealed on Instagram that the Steel City Downhill track has been partly destroyed by vandals over the past weekend.
The trails which have been built using money raised from the annual 'Steel City Downhill' race are found in the Wildlife Trust owned Grenoside Woods in Sheffield. The trails are fully supported by the trust with mountain biking recognised as a supported form of outdoor activity in the area. The news has of sabotage has, therefore, come as a surprise with Steve Peat saying: "I'm fuming and just don't understand the mentality."
The damage seen in Steve Peat's Instagram post shows the destruction of the trail surface on multiple berms and jumps with large parts of one berm being completely removed.
 | Some nasty people in this World! Steel City Downhill track has been pointlessly wrecked. If anyone knows anything please let us know. This track is enjoyed by a huge range of people from kids to pensioners and has been built on charity money from our little race. I’m fuming and just don’t understand the mentality! |
We hope whoever is responsible for the damage can be found and if you have any information regarding the destruction of the trail then please report it to the relevant authorities.
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285 Comments
I may not agree, but in a sense, what we do to modify nature for trail riding is not unlike what we do to modify nature to build roads, shopping centers, etc...
Granted, when a trail is legally built, it's kinda crappy to trash it without permission.
Two sides, just saying.
Did your nature first “neighbor” give you a blowie in exchange for propagating nonsense?
I sure hope so.
Nope?
Then he can f*ck off.
www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2018_wisdom001.pdf
I'm still personally struggling with what I think is ethical regarding mountain biking. Downhill and ski hills is great as it reuses an already impacted space. Similarly, trails close to town have a minimal impact on wider wilderness fragmentation. But when it comes to constructing new trails in the backcountry, I'm becoming a little more leery, even though I love the idea of bikepacking etc.
There is obviously a place (a big place!) for mountain biking in the outdoors, but it shouldnt be considered "no impact" or even necessarily "low impact" just because the trails can be reclaimed by wilderness quickly.
So looking forward to catching up with these idiots in the act .
Obviously there's a difference between sanctioned and unsanctioned trails and sabotaging trails is pretty sketchy.
The issue is and always has been competing interests, those who want trails and those who don't. It can be a NIMBY issue or it can simply be an ethical issue, no such thing as right or wrong.
Young people tend to be the most reactive because they have a great amount of entitlement, so yeah, that's PB for the most part
Our little local trails are currently overrun with Joeys on Halfords bikes, saddles up, no lids and not social distancing. There's nothing huge there (well except for some fairly sizeable doubles, which fortunately seem to be too imposing for this lot, er and me) but even on the mellow but techy trails there is still potential to get hurt, especially if you aren't wearing ANY protective gear. Then there are also dudes on XC bikes riding down the trails then back up the same trails. It's not looking good.
Its as easy as just looking at the features before you send them, or just send them anyway and enjoy yourself
but stick your fingers in your ears and loudly scream, “LAH-LAH-LAH-LAH-LAH ...” while clicking the down-vote button because They are doing that exact same thing too.
if it’s your personal property or a dedicated bike park/trail that’s different. So this article isn’t the same as your complaint. Otherwise you’re no different than who you’re complaining about. The entire world is selfish and has been since the beginning of time, it isn't just you. How do you think it is that you even live there in the first place? Because way back when some smart, entitled people came along and decided to have the land for themselves without any regard about who was there before them. The more things change, the more they are the same.
It’s more like building a shopping centre than creating a trail by simply walking through the woods is.
Did it ever occur to you that the dog wasn’t trying to shit on your landing on purpose? Like maybe the dog meant no insult?
Maybe you build your trails out of ignorance?
What gives you the right to go tear up nature in the interest of your mountain biking?
Even the fine folks who publish this site have may images of their beautiful dogs out riding...running jump lines and on and on. Um, not on a leash. So, BTBO (bite the big one)
So you believe dogs should only be off leash in dog parks? And you don’t think dogs should run free in the woods? So taking your dog mountain biking is out of the question?
That sounds unfortunate.
So you’re building jump trails.
Yet there’s a bylaw requiring dogs to be on leash?
I’m not trying to talk to you.
Take your unfortunate opinions back to you senseless covid debate.
I’m sad to imagine you being in a position of caring for others while having such a shitty view of this whole pandemic situation.
I think you just said that being gay is wrong?
But, with the exception of sexual assault, folks with HIV were asking for it, these days.
Also, "folks with HIV were asking for it, these days" is such an unhelpful, damaging, stigmatizing, and un-factual statement.
www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/hiv-stigma/index.html
in this first list of examples of HIV stigmatization:
"Feeling that people deserve to get HIV because of their choices"
My father, for instance, two packs of cigs a day and too much booze. Died @ 51 from a stroke....huh, who would have seen that coming? I once met a redhead girl at a Florida beach...oddly, she got sunburnt....crazy, no?
I know, these things must be stopped. Time to watch Wall-E again...
But, please, keep taking a ton more Muslims there....they are a peaceful bunch.
Oh, we also have a far better health care system. For so, so many reasons.
I guess, at least I am not an ignorant, uneducated prick on the internet who has no clue about the mean realities of life. Plus, soon as I let a Canadian bug me I know I need to ride more miles (on closed trails).
As for HIV, yes, you must be deviant, you must stick something someplace that it should not be stuck. You however need to get over your penis fetish. Most HIV cases have nothing to do with a penis.
What is even sicker, if a Canadian is in a US ED, they get treated, period. If a US citizen with out paying for insurance goes to a Canadian ED...no issues what so ever streeting them. It is disgusting.
An estimated 88,0005 people (approximately 62,000 men and 26,000 women5) die from alcohol-related causes annually, making alcohol the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States. The first is tobacco, and the second is poor diet and physical inactivity.
My god, people are so pathetic.
(on a different note, just left a clinic, no cases of COVID this week only three last week and they were asymptomatic, plenty of people demanding free treatment for things they do not even have however).
Besides, if you do, should you not have taken a Time Out in your Safe Space to decompress and hug the other person?
(edit: also, the female to male infection is generally via sex other than vaginal and will also require you to have an open sore or wound on the said penis, in that case, two idiots are involved. Transference is more common among uncircumcised males).
I did get into a fight in third grade with Kenny G (seriously) over a kick ball. Not the famous Kenny G.
What causes someone to mock other peoples suffering? What causes people to insist that those who disagree with them are pathetic? What does it mean if they think having your feelings hurt only carries value to children?
Arguably, the two things that tie all of humanity together are: 1) the universality of human suffering, and 2) the ability of humans to empathize with the pain of others.
All people experience a deep, existential pain regularly. It might be layered under other feelings. Anger. A retreat from acceptance of the pain of others. A desire to exert power in an attempt to mitigate that pain.
But we all feel it, at some time or another. The background noise to the human condition. The knowledge of suffering, and the feeling that it is inevitable.
So the question becomes, how does one handle these feelings? Even the famed Stoics didnt recommend ignoring pain. They said one should accept all emotions, feel them thoroughly and deeply, but to then act in a rational way unburdened by those emotions. To accept that we will always FEEL things we dont want to fell, but to disentangle feeling from action.
And of course, the rational thing to do is to show empathy and try and reduce the suffering we see in the world. To be kind when possible, firm when necessary, and to be always conscious of the wide-ranging power of our actions.
All of this is to say, @RoadStain, that while you're obviously an a*shole in the most basic sense of the term (and I sense you take pride in it!), I recognize that somewhere inside you are suffering. And while you have spent your time an energy belittling others in an attempt to mitigate that pain, I also recognize that it doesnt work. And that makes me sad. Even though you make every effort to be an absolute dick, I still feel a responsibility to you, simply because you exist.
Also, dude, seriously, just shut up.
We as a people are supposed to not KNOW that homosexuality IS, by definition the end of evolution. Not passing judgement on the activities of individuals, just the fact is that homosexuals of any species (but for a few that are truly cross-sexual such as eels and some fish), simply, if every man and woman decided to be gay humanity would end.
We are supposed to NOT think that more often than not people get what they deserve? Do you think I feel bad for a person in the modern world with HIV? Not a chance. Do you think I feel bad for a smoker with emphysema and high blood pressure? Not a bit. How about a drunk driver who causes his own massive brain injury driving into a tree (and then sues the MD's who treated him)? Simply, too bad the crash was not fatal.
Do you want a true victim in this COVID thing? It is the millions of people who work day to day to pay their bills from month to month. It is the business owners large and small who go to work every day knowing that their business feeds the families of all of their staff. It is the CEO's who take the lead in times that in the USA are absolutely a violation of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Then, the ignorant plebians blame the successful people for achieving what they could not - financial wealth and power.
The true victims are not our dead friends and family members, that happens every day in every city on every continent. The real victims are victims of mankind and our inabilities to get over the fact that we are all mortal, and now are punishing the living in some delusional world idea of panacea. I'm just waiting for someone to want to make Esperanto the International Language.
As for the people in the US who are staying at home? Check out Hobbs (1951) - as for the rest of the world, well, unless we step up and DEMAND our rights, the USA is no longer the land of the free.
The Hobbs Act, codified at 18 U.S.C. § 1951, is a U.S. federal law enacted in 1946 that provides: (a) Whoever in any way or degree obstructs, delays, or affects commerce or the movement of any article or commodity in commerce, by robbery or extortion or attempts or conspires to do so, commits, or threatens physical violence to any person or property in furtherance of a plan or purpose to do anything in violation of this section shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than twenty years, or both. Extortion is a crime in which one person attempts to force another person to do something against his will. This applies to all American citizens, including Governors.
American business owners: Open your doors tomorrow. You have a legal right to.
Its just not. Its a natural variation in the population in the same way that any variation is. I already saw some of your earlier comments about "survival of the fittest," which is a fundamental misunderstanding of Darwinian theory. There are rodents out there that, when its time to reproduce, spend all of their time mating and then die of exhaustion. Its literally NOT survival of the fittest. Evolution requires merely that, on the whole, organisms with certain traits pass those traits on more frequently than those without. Theres a great Radio Lab about the effects of female sexual choice in driving evolution, you should check it out!
It could be that a set of genes controlling very important behaviors also rarely leads to homosexual offspring. From an evolutionary standpoint, this may be the normal equilibrium. Unfortunately, this is a sort of complicated subject, so its hard to distill down in a pinkbike post. But the main point is that there is plenty of space in evolutionary theory to account for a small percentage of a highly social species to be homosexual.
As for the place for homosexuality for our understanding of social behavior, its just not well understood yet. Homosexual behavior in animals is well documented. Its a natural trait arising from variability in the population. So many people want to make homosexuality out as some unnatural choice, when in reality its common in the animal kingdom, in organisms we wouldnt even say make conscious "choices."
Look, I can see you're trying to wrap your arguments in a cloak of rationalism, but you fail to explore upstream evidence. You're clearly angry that people dont accept the arguments you make, but they arent arguments rooted in actual evidence. Of course its not racist to say most of the prison population is black. Thats a fact. Its racist to suggest that black people therefore are inherently "more criminal," as it ignores all of the evidences that shows that black people are treated unfairly by both our economic system and our justice system. (To be fair, this is not an argument you have explicitly made, although it certainly feels like an argument that is waiting to come out of your fingers based on the other things you've said).
All of the things you say are things that sound perfectly reasonable when observed in a small bubble of isolated information AND when viewed through the lens of radical individualism, suggesting that people are perfectly rational and show excellent risk assessment. The problem is 1) people are actually inherently bad at risk assessment, 2) we are constantly influenced by those outside of us with more power that ourselves, 3) even on the best days we arent perfectly rational.
You're not presenting an actual argument here. It falls apart under any serious scrutiny.
Hey, on the internet we are only as right as we pretend we are!
That said, we can all try to dissect the human condition and even get into Marx and the Theory of Conflict. Or, even that no human has ever done anything "wrong". Even robbing a bank, one is willing to take the risk of jail time for the potential reward of free" money.
And, your reply is 100% correct on all accounts, but for the fact that in the US blacks are NOT treated equally. They are not often given the same chances as other races. We now can go so far as to say that Asians are getting screwed because no longer is "the best" candidate chosen for a particular thing - it is now the candidate that best fits into the mold society is deeming it needs to fit.
I work with one guy who is the most racist and hardest on blacks I have ever seen. He is a Neurosurgeon who is black. He hates the fact that most PT's think he was/is an affirmative action hire. The only African (born) person I work with is white (MD). I spent the day today with an "Indian" (India) woman who is Muslum...and born in South America.....
Removing unsanctioned trails is part of the job description for a ranger from the Forestry commission. If you've been reinstating said trails after they were removed, you're both in the wrong.
The booby traps are unforgivable so they should lose their job and probably get a visit from the police. I hope that's your plan of action rather than trying to exchange tools for your silence on the booby-traps. That would leave the Ranger to continue being a psychotic danger to all mountainbikers.
Leaving tools out in the middle of a forest, no matter hidden or not, people will take them as they just been left out in the open seemingly unclaimed.
For my part, I've reported back to my superiors that this group can be trusted and that the long term strategy should be to work towards a formalised approach for these trails that provides a bit more protection and greater freedoms.
Having said that other builders who are not keen to listen and who want to build something that they can ride that day or even within that ride, often want to get in on the action, it almost seems that their ego demands that they get some of the reflected glory from what has taken a great deal of time and effort to achieve.
One such rider, added a series of shonky jumps made from logs and sand on a fast, steep trail that slalomed through trees, we've had jumps that are pinned to trees, all tend to have massive borrowpits close to the edge of the trails and the feature they built, these are all the things the FC cannot and will not tolerate, it puts others at risk and in this instance puts the future of this site at risk. So for those reasons I will remove them.
Recently I discovered that the wannabe builder had installed a camera (on somebody else's land, filming other people, young and old without their consent) to find out who had been demolishing his efforts. He then proceeded to make aggressive threats across social media (is this the kind of person we want to trust with our trails?). Let me make it absolutely clear, there were NO BOOBY TRAPS, the trail was left intact, only he jumps removed and the holes filled in.
I contacted the builder and offered to have a chat and explain the long term strategy for the site, what the risks are and the FCs liability. So far he hasn't responded.
Is the guy building the jump held together my luck, with a side order of borrow pit, who's only qualification is he's a capable mtbr and owns a shovel, prepared to to stand up in court next to the landowner and defend his build, with the added pressure that no matter what the outcome, greater constraints will follow?
I doubt it.
Work with the landowners/managers, not against them.
Does anybody remember this?
The trail marker at the top of Espresso was burned by vandals too.
Who walks 4km up a trail to vandalize?
But being NYC, we've had to come to our own terms with another historic group that uses the deep woods - male hustlers. Over time we've had our features destroyed if they ventured too far into their territories, but usually a balance is met and kept.
Getting back to the main point of the article - we've definitely seen an upsurge in newcomers to the woods, but thankful that the worst they seem to do is stand pointlessly on top of tabletops or landings - for now. But seeing this article makes me realize it doesn't take much to destroy days, weeks, months of work. Shout out to everyone who puts love into their spots, and best of luck keeping them rolling.
Don't tell anyone about this secret research website
when you can go to a store and shop but can't be outside...that's not about the virus.
When you can't buy seeds or paint but you can buy liquor...that's not about the virus.
When you can be shoulder to should with people in line to get in Walmart, but can't be in a national park with millions of acres...that's not about the virus.
Talking to people who are in healthcare, our hospitals are empty, and they are laying off employees left and right. Social distancing also severly cuts down on the amount of car wrecks, but I don't think we want to be doing it for the rest of our lives...it's "an answer" but not The Answer.
You gotta eat. You don’t have to get in line with people to see Old Faithful
It isn’t too hard to figure out why sites are closed if you realize how many people don’t take social distancing seriously. A lot of public land is open right now, just not the places everyone wants to crowd onto. We just can’t have nice things...
they have closed all of Pisgah (supposedly through August)...it's literally mostly a wilderness area.
Not to mention that they have proposed a complete campfire/burn ban, regardless of the fact that we have received about 4.5" of rain in the last week.
The rangers are out and about keeping people off the trails...yet we don't have the Staffing to "maintain the trails"?
The excuse is "you'll expose emergency responders, or rangers or park staff and then overwhelm the hospitals..."
Except the problem here is the most counties of Pisgah have 0 cases of CV and all the hospitals in NC are laying off workers.
This seems more like bureaucracy and less like common sense.
Hopefully a lot of that messaging will adapt in the coming weeks. Some things probably will open, others will stay closed.
Looking at the Pisgah NF website it looks like most other NF closures. The forest itself is not closed, just some areas and all of the developed sites/trailheads. Hopefully that will not last all through the summer.
There’s a lot of moving parts to enact burn bans and it is probably much easier in terms of messaging to have a ban in place for an extended period of time than to enact it, rescind it for a single weather event and then put it in place when things dry out. Suppressing wildfires means bringing hundreds (if not thousands) of people all together to work in close quarters with each other in relatively unsanitary conditions. Fires are going to be a problem this year.
Y’all have fun at the book burning later
0 cases means lack of testing, not 0 cases.
you realize that CV19 isn't going away. This Social distancing that was supposed to flatten the curve has done it's job. But the virus is still there, we have done nothing but postpone our exposure to it. Eventually we will have to have "Herd Immunity" unless by some miracle there is a vaccine, However those take years to develop. In your own state today they released the fact that there were 55x more cases in LA county than they originally thought, yet not accompanied by deaths/serious side effects.
Its way more likely that you and i will know someone who loses everything financially, than someone who will die from this.
Bless these millennial virtue signallers .....
There, there....it is okay....
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uq734_nZ7Eo
disrn.com/news/california-skate-park-filled-with-sand-backfires-as-dirt-bikers-show-up?fbclid=IwAR2Uu41KvUChJw3140cMzrODKAcG_CDro9Kzw3inQSAl9Q56hq-z9wsvVMA
www.wish.com/product/5b73de51e4a9131425611d68?hide_login_modal=true&from_ad=goog_shopping&_display_country_code=AT&_force_currency_code=EUR&pid=googleadwords_int&c=%7BcampaignId%7D&ad_cid=5b73de51e4a9131425611d68&ad_cc=AT&ad_lang=DE&ad_curr=EUR&ad_price=38.00&fallback_cids=5b8fb3aa3be4f6088aed4f2e5d11c2081113dd11f0fa6f6c5d299c4626e12b17246719575c0de49c0d700b6c2f3311785d60b1872b205204bf62ddb55be268662787f31a88a55acc&campaign_id=9527731191&gclid=CjwKCAjwkPX0BRBKEiwA7THxiDC_CjBgqYYOcOB2UmjLKZhKd1sEJ_zRU3kFIdTwV1uoLQHoUhFoXBoCwyMQAvD_BwE&share=web
Maybe bigfoot will be captured on camera as well!
thats the love of MTB.
I dont ask for the sympathy through Social Media
Trails being trashed has been like an iceberg in the distance for weeks now, we really don't help ourselves at all. And yes they were bang out of line for destroying them but this has been coming (certainly where I live in the south of the UK) for a while
It's not young Turks speeding down walking trails and mowing people over, from what I can gather.
Teenage guys in all walks of life in all sports have a tendency to do wankerish things, it's not anything to do with mountain bikers. It's about adolescence.
www.ridesheffield.org.uk/greno-woods-crowdfunder
Going now on trails/make new trail, destroying nature
Too many with the 501 , loam must splash, style
Too many idiots going in the wet
But with googles
Reflect a bit! Its not just the others
EarthFirst promotes direct action against environmental destruction, usually pipelines, timbering, oil extraction, mining, etc.
It's like saying that training used for self-protection leads to murder. Maybe in some cases, sure, radicalism results in a multitude of outcomes, but usually outdoor recreation sabotagers are bitter about crowds, an unfortunate negative interaction in the past, or "user specific" trails that they aren't supposed to be on.
Then we have local trail idiots out taking pictures (note: THEY are also on the "closed" trails) to try and tear people apart on Facebook. Stupid. Simply, this 'stay at home' garbage is not proven to save a single life in any city in any country. It has torn apart families, destroyed small businesses and also, as another side effect allowed vandals to destroy some of our trails.
As for the folks susceptible to Corona? Well, trust me, it WILL be waiting for them when they go back out in public. Your 40k deaths STILL have not matched one season of the typical flu...so....quit watching the scare tactics on TV and try to get educated on the reality.
What I really like is how they (on the news) were saying that "six patients died of heart attacks, who MAY have been saved". Hell, six PT's dying of a cardiac incident is EVERY DAY at a trauma center. More so in a trauma center with a dense population base, a demographic of addicts and stagnant morbidly obese humans. The trauma center I was at before I moved - easily, EASILY 40-50 "fatalities" a day on average. Simply we were an entry door for the morgue. Guess what sport, mommy and daddy are mortal, so are you (and I).
Simply, you have no idea what the realities are, and, they are not on the news.
Simply, I feel no pity for folks with peanut allergies, nor COVID. It simply is thinning the herd and only the weak are dying. Heck, 90% SHOW NO SYMPTOMS!!!!!!
Soon enough COVID will need its own college fund and protected class. Plus, even at X# of weeks, the flu is JUST as deadly. Quit watching CNN or MSNBC and being so afraid of your own mortality.
I bet that if you had a family member who was suffering day to day after delaying an "elective" procedure you would feel different. Hundreds of people will die due to COVID but not with COVID (don't worry, they will count as COVID thanks to the new system the mass media is using).
Here you go, we need to have this story put out there again....Imagine the "Social Distancing" and cleaning that will be needed so we are safe.
www.reuters.com/article/uk-usa-health-hotel/tv-remotes-among-dirtiest-items-in-hotels-study-finds-idUSLNE85I00L20120619
As for the new coronavirus? On March 20, the death toll in the United States was 225. By April 20, the coronavirus had killed more than 42,000 Americans."
You are a terrible, terrible person. Literally the worst.
You lose.
I would guess a good portion of the civilized and sane humans on the planet would find that to be so utterly unacceptable as to deserve banning, shunning, etc. You don't agree? Or, you actually agree with, or find his statement to be acceptable?
Anyone who promotes dangerous practices shouldn't be given a platform here.
Stick to bikes @roadstain
Just as in the work environment, not ever was your workplace a democracy nor a "free speech" zone. Fortunately, I am now in a state where if I want to get rid of a staff member because I do not like a shoelace color, t-shirt design, or bumper sticker, any reason I want to get rid of someone, well, I can.
On forums such as this, it is a slippery slope. While you may think that someone is mean for pointing out realities, and or obtuse for not agreeing dogmatically with an obtuse and ignorant view on the realities of life in the "real world" as opposed to some delusion concocted by the likes of AOC.
Unless someone was to go out and say something that is a direct threat to a direct person - it is tough for a forum such as this to deride as a policy the opinions of its members. See, as soon as they limit what can be posted by Trump fans (such as myself), or the realities of the days of the medical professionals (such as myself), or a factual comparison of care types and facility types....well, how long till someone limits YOUR opinions? If you want a, for instance, check out the comments on news sites. CNN, MSNBC, CBS, and such do not allow any comments. Fox, who does is ripe with idiot liberals who think for some convoluted reason they are going to change anyone's opinion on anything via a web forum. Fox could ban them....but, then there would be no discussion.
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