forkbrayker

@iamloz: yer no wrong theres definitely better uses of my time....but lifes a funny thing where we are allowed to care about more than just one thing , and (for me anyway) those various passions are expressed in a lot more physical places with tangible outcomes than they are in digital places without substance.

@betsie: well at the moment I can guarantee you they are all at the new Glentress stuff. lol. The FLS reckoned over 1000 riders on the opening day . I went a week after and counted 100 folk in the queue for the main red descent . I'm acutely aware of my anti ebike stance , half of that is my age refusing to accept change and doing mental gymnastics to justify the hate , the other half is however embedded in my own very real experiences. I don't intend to create division or fuel hate but there is a historic problem that is 10x worse than it was a decade ago. Thay said, It looks to me that the North East has an incredibly good scene , with respectful riders & landowners alike. This creates leaps and bounds forward in progress due to that. Whatever you guys are doing keep doing it.

@betsie: as stated before you are not the problem . You are an in an absolutely tiny minority of highly talented + highly motivated people.... another would be Ray at 'Feldy. Trailbulders are few and far between, Ebiking ones even less so. Whilst EBikes ..... like guns, are not the problem directly, they do lower the barrier of entry to biking down to the point where folk are smoking whilst cycling up hill .... where are those fag butts going. In my litter bag a few weeks later is where. .....ad infinitum on other bad habits . If you think this is the Hollywood version then come down to glentress or the golfy on a weekend ....the numbers are upwards of 500 riders a day , 50% eebs 50% bikes all the overweight, smoking , vaping litter dropping ones cutting straight uphill lines are in one category . It's not the experienced riders that's the issue..... its the inexperienced, uneducated riders ( both eeb and bike riders) new to the sport in their hordes that is the issue. We hold public dig days ... theres over 440 riders on the FB page for this one little forest I ride & dig at , if i turn up on a sunday yer looking at up to 100 folk riding the majority on Ebikes party lapping a cluster of 1 min natural DH tracks .......if we get 5 people turn up for a dig day it's a minor miracle . ... both eeb and bike riders will turn up , but the most telling factor is not the type of bike they ride but the age and/or experience of those few that come to lend a hand . Its slowly changing though last week we had 2 dad's bring along 3 young teenagers agers with them .... so like always the future looks promising

Whilst Strava most definitely started this , Ebikers are 100% perpetuating and amplifying the problem. Now before I get lambasted by experienced mtbers who now ride Ebikes ... you arent the problem. The problem is the massive influx of new unskilled, uneducated and by definition lazy , riders who haven't a scooby about any mtb etiquette . I'm talking about the cigarette smoking , litter dropping vape hitting, boiler suit inbreds that barge past you on the climbs to then mince and skid back down whichever trail they deem to be rad. I've been building & maintaining trails for over 20yrs in numerous areas and the speed of natural trail destruction is at levels never ever seen before ........one Ebiker doing 3 party Laps to one biker's single lap is causing its own problems , but add inexperience , a multiplication of rider numbers by a factor of 10, on 55lb bikes they cant handle, riding in all manner of shit conditions then we have a serious issue escalating at a rate of knots that trail associations cant even keep pace with. Having personally witnessed 3 slow riders on full fat Ebikes straight-line through the brash after me spending days fixing the corners they're missing, and me stopping them to say waddafukyedoing , they looked at me like i was insane and replied "but that's what we always do its easier than the tight corners" .... ive seen this numerous times in umpteen places , and its not just natural techy trails getting the moron treatment, trail centres with winding uphill sections are also getting the moron straight-line treatment , within weeks Scotland's flagship new trail centre at Tarland had to put social media posts out begging folk to stop straight-lining the climbs they'd spent a year beautifully forming. I wonder what sort of bike can go straight up a hill that requires sustained 500watts My only hope now is this is just a blip caused by the huge uptake on biking during Covid The lazy folk will eventually fuk off and the one's interested in the sport will learn as they personally witness the destruction of their own trails. Eventually the rate of new uneducated/ still learning riders will go back to a more manageable level. ..... I hope.