I am all for trail building, but honestly know very little about it. However, my common sense says that if a popular section is being altered, some notice or warning might be good. Case and point, I was taking a quick spin after work and was rockin’ My Humps/ Six Pack and zipped around the berm at the bottom with decent speed, expecting the two small bumps followed by the straight section that has always been there, including yesterday. Having ripped this countless times, you can imagine my surprise when the two small bumps are now two large mounds of dirt which are uneven and soft.
After hitting the first, catching my front tire on the second causing a major endo, taking a trip to the ER and coming home with a grade 3 shoulder separation that takes me out of action for up to 6 weeks, I am left with the thought that I would have ridden the section far more carefully had I known work was being done, either by a sign or flag or something,
I feel for the OP. I have had several cycling crash related shoulder injuries, no fun at all.
It would be nice if all trail changes were marked/flagged but that isn’t realistic.
Something we need to remember is that this could just as easily been a downed tree, or another natural occurrence. If you are riding at a speed that doesn’t allow you to stop safely…
I hit that “jump” yesterday, and was dangerously close to going over the bars. By some stroke of luck I had a bad feeling right before the berm and hit the brakes. Otherwise, I’d probably have ended up in pretty poor condition too.
I’ve got no problem with people adding features, but at least don’t put them right at the exit of a high speed blind turn.
Sorry to hear of your crash Spelham. I think it was last year we rode Spider and fortunately I went down the six pack first and was slower so I could stop when I got to the bottom and saw that someone messed with the humps. Later in the year we were talking about our rides at Spider with a friend and he said he had a friend who lived close enough to those trails to ride to them and that he knew he was building some jumps or gaps. We quickly encouraged our friend to tell his friend to stop doing that or post signage because alot of riders go down the six pack fast knowing what is at the bottom and if they aren’t aware of any changes to the trail, they could seriously hurt themselves. I can’t say for certain it is the same guy so I guess we should be aware of any changes we see in the trail and be sure we are getting the word out.
@spelham Sucks you got hurt, best wishes for a speedy recovery! Sounds like some less than good trail building- something like that (especially if it’s a work in progress) should be marked with caution tape or something…
Yeah, coming out of that bottom corner is nasty, they’ve made the ramp overly sharp, like something you’d tackle on a BMX at low speed. I could definitely see it putting you over the bars. There’s a narrow smoother line between the overly steep ramp and the log thing, like someone kicked out some of it with their feet. Whomever is building it, if reading this, easy does it. Give some options.
I suppose if it was widely known that BNS was trying to do something there like secure a Land Use Agreement, this kind of building might not happen. PR with the broader MTB community has always been a weak point with BNS, how are a few kids supposed to know what agreements are in place. Of course they should also know you shouldn’t build without land owner permission. Or at least somewhere where people wont find it
