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I've been wondering about the subject of trail wear and tear and how people perceive it.
I'm going to pull an occam's razor here, and choose the hypothesis that has the least amount of assumptions: in elementary terms, I just see it as "energy" (layman's term, not scientific/technical term) being transferred to the trail surface. This "energy" could be inertia gained from accelerating through gravity or pedaling. Decelerating transfers that energy into the ground, which includes not only slowing down but also making direction changes.
- A hiker's boot transfers over half the weight of a person and their gear, spread over a small foot print as a footfall impact.
- A horse's hoof does something similar, but there's more weight and a smaller area to spread that weight across, so it appears to do more damage.
- A tire that's pumped up to 40 psi has a smaller contact patch than one pumped up to 10 psi. This would mean that a fat bike's 3.8+ tires, which are rideable at such low pressures, are spreading the weight of a person and the bike across a wide area, and less likely to tear it up. Spreading the force into a rolling force, over the same distance traveled, should make the wear and tear seem less impactful.
Okay, so that's where the hypothesis based on facts stops, and opinions and observations need to fill in for the rest of the big picture:
I see people perceiving fast riding on heavy bikes, such as extreme gravity riding, and motor vehicles as being a source of high wear and tear. I'd like to differentiate between wear and tear, using gravity riding as an example. When you can visible see large particles of the ground being moved, such as a roost, it's undeniably seen as erosion (or tear). Would wear then be the gradual erosion that is less noticeable, or tolerated as normal wear that you can't do much about?
What is the difference between a newbie rider, and average rider, and an highly skilled expert rider in terms of wear and tear? I suspect that their wear & tear is comparable overall, based on the amount of energy is going into the trail, but the difference is where the wear and tear happens and how spread out it is.
- A newbie rider is putting a lot of energy into the ground through braking, and regaining energy through pedaling (and gravity) after braking, and putting such energy back into the ground through braking, for the sake of caution and survival. Their wear and tear is perhaps carving in the newbie/trap lines, that may have resulted from low speed over-corrections. Per run, the novice might cause significantly more wear, but per outing it may be no more than the others, due to endurance running out sooner.
- An average rider who's ridden the trail dozens of times, probably brakes the least, and may be reluctant to pedal if it just results in wasted energy going into braking. They're essentially riding in the mainline with their wear and tear, and I daresay that this is a good kind of wear and tear, like breaking in a set of jeans that felt rough at first.
- An expert rider is probably looking for an extra challenge, and scoping out creative lines and creative ways to get through the same sections, but they probably brake as much as the average rider, but tears their tracks into the trail. Average riders might begin to take such lines if it's worn in enough, and penalty for failure reduced to a tolerable level, and wear it in to be an optional part of the main line.
Opinion: looking at the condition of trails after a lot of traffic from various users, I wonder if there's anything to complain about from user wear and tear. A few rainy days does more damage than weeks/months of riding in my area, to make any sort of criticism about riders moot. I only have a narrow perspective of the stuff I most frequently see though, so I want to hear from others and learn a bit more about this whole subject's controversy, rather than just going "it's not a problem based on my experience", and using such weak reasoning to be willfully ignorant of the subject as a whole.
In short, what's the kind of user wear and tear that you see, preferably in your area, that bothers you? Got some trail fairies altering the trail to your dismay? Does anyone believe that gradual wear is not only bad, but also good? Is the good side of gradual wear actually good enough to be consider desirable?
I'm going to pull an occam's razor here, and choose the hypothesis that has the least amount of assumptions: in elementary terms, I just see it as "energy" (layman's term, not scientific/technical term) being transferred to the trail surface. This "energy" could be inertia gained from accelerating through gravity or pedaling. Decelerating transfers that energy into the ground, which includes not only slowing down but also making direction changes.
- A hiker's boot transfers over half the weight of a person and their gear, spread over a small foot print as a footfall impact.
- A horse's hoof does something similar, but there's more weight and a smaller area to spread that weight across, so it appears to do more damage.
- A tire that's pumped up to 40 psi has a smaller contact patch than one pumped up to 10 psi. This would mean that a fat bike's 3.8+ tires, which are rideable at such low pressures, are spreading the weight of a person and the bike across a wide area, and less likely to tear it up. Spreading the force into a rolling force, over the same distance traveled, should make the wear and tear seem less impactful.
Okay, so that's where the hypothesis based on facts stops, and opinions and observations need to fill in for the rest of the big picture:
I see people perceiving fast riding on heavy bikes, such as extreme gravity riding, and motor vehicles as being a source of high wear and tear. I'd like to differentiate between wear and tear, using gravity riding as an example. When you can visible see large particles of the ground being moved, such as a roost, it's undeniably seen as erosion (or tear). Would wear then be the gradual erosion that is less noticeable, or tolerated as normal wear that you can't do much about?
What is the difference between a newbie rider, and average rider, and an highly skilled expert rider in terms of wear and tear? I suspect that their wear & tear is comparable overall, based on the amount of energy is going into the trail, but the difference is where the wear and tear happens and how spread out it is.
- A newbie rider is putting a lot of energy into the ground through braking, and regaining energy through pedaling (and gravity) after braking, and putting such energy back into the ground through braking, for the sake of caution and survival. Their wear and tear is perhaps carving in the newbie/trap lines, that may have resulted from low speed over-corrections. Per run, the novice might cause significantly more wear, but per outing it may be no more than the others, due to endurance running out sooner.
- An average rider who's ridden the trail dozens of times, probably brakes the least, and may be reluctant to pedal if it just results in wasted energy going into braking. They're essentially riding in the mainline with their wear and tear, and I daresay that this is a good kind of wear and tear, like breaking in a set of jeans that felt rough at first.
- An expert rider is probably looking for an extra challenge, and scoping out creative lines and creative ways to get through the same sections, but they probably brake as much as the average rider, but tears their tracks into the trail. Average riders might begin to take such lines if it's worn in enough, and penalty for failure reduced to a tolerable level, and wear it in to be an optional part of the main line.
Opinion: looking at the condition of trails after a lot of traffic from various users, I wonder if there's anything to complain about from user wear and tear. A few rainy days does more damage than weeks/months of riding in my area, to make any sort of criticism about riders moot. I only have a narrow perspective of the stuff I most frequently see though, so I want to hear from others and learn a bit more about this whole subject's controversy, rather than just going "it's not a problem based on my experience", and using such weak reasoning to be willfully ignorant of the subject as a whole.
In short, what's the kind of user wear and tear that you see, preferably in your area, that bothers you? Got some trail fairies altering the trail to your dismay? Does anyone believe that gradual wear is not only bad, but also good? Is the good side of gradual wear actually good enough to be consider desirable?
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