Smilie discusses the terrain we ride and how it was created

Something riders don`t often think about outside reading the latest copy Nuts or Zoo, or whatever. I`m talking terrain here and on the surface it looks obvious: centres and those triangular shaped pointy dirt jumps the dirt bikers have built in the woods are made by someone getting creative with a JCB or shovel and all that shredable leaf and grass covered freeride terrain was put there by the loving hand of mother nature. Simple. But as time, riding and reccie-ing has gone on I started to wonder is this really is the case? For example, take Court Farm MBC. This is one of the country`s leading centres and is built on steep hill with first Maxtrax and then locals over the years adding features and tracks for us to ride. So that`s a bit natural, the hill and then a bit man made. But once while chatting to Nikky (Court Farm MBC owner) she mentioned that the hill is really a large spoil heap from the local quarries, which means the whole centre is man made. Not that unexpected I guess, after all the felids around centre are very flat and hills like that don`t often pop up on their own.

Then there is my local spot which is a place of historic woodland preserved for north Londoners to be able escape the urban environment and enjoy some of what nature can provide (it is also a very protected site special scientific interest or SSI for short). Some how this patch of woodland has managed to escape the 1000 years of development London has under gone. But one day when out riding I got chatting to one of the local bikers. It seems the bikers have spent the best part of 20 years building and shaping this woodland jib park. Even without this the natural terrain is pretty good to start with though and it still would have made a fun place to ride. We were talking about the risks you run and what you might be prosecuted for if you get caught taking a shovel into the woods. He mentioned if they did feel like throwing the book at you then it would be under a 150-year-old law covering quarry rights on the heath. Because before this place was a woodland it was know as Sandy Heath and the then locals quarried out all the good sand and gravel to build roads and houses in the surrounding area, about a hundred years or so a go. So this piece of what I thought was ancient woodland of old oaks and beaches, the once hiding place of England`s most notorious highwayman, where I go to escape the stress of a hard day at work, is really the product of some 17th century industrialist taking out all good aggregate. If only they knew what they had created.

This leaves us with the last burning question, how much of the natural terrain we spend so much time of our time searching for and shredding on our freeride missions is untouched by man and his shovel? Thinking about it you can pretty much guarantee the hills have always been there. It`s just whether the best spots are good because someone else has been there in the first place moving soil about, and has unwittingly left us with some amazing places to drag our board to.

Ok we can all see the effects on the landscape from different groups of digging and shifting soil about over the years which have given us some sweet spots to ride. But other very important man-made additions to the landscape which we must not forget about are footpaths, bridleways, biketrails, forest roads and ancient rights of way. I guess the makers didn`t have mountain boarders in mind, but without these things freeriding would be a lot more hassle than it is. They give us clues there something worth scouting out when you are browsing an OS map. Then they give us access to the hills around us. Of course some paths are more interesting than others but at the very least they give us hard packed trail to follow down through the trees and at best they can provide the holy grail of a `natural` half pipe or deep gully. These are mostly formed 1000`s of years ago by ancient man trudging about between hill forts (another man made relic left for us to play on). My own personal theory is that ancient man was mountain boarder, but that`s another story!

So what about other favourite spots? Were the Tanks trails really created as a place to try out military hardware sixty years ago and is Cleeve Hill really covered in natural tracks and features we think it is after all? Well from my extensive research (bearing in mind when I say extensive I really mean spending some time on google and wikkipedia) Cleeve seams to have benefited from great natural terrain as it is the highest place in the Cotswolds. I guess this might have drawn brothers Tatham and friends to the spot in the first place, before discovering legendry runs such as Breakers and W`s. But this is where man steps in again as these lines are more than likely the products of the lime stone quarry which the hills surrounding Cheltham are known for.

Tank Trails seems to be as the name suggests especially as one of the Canadian Armoured divisions was based in East Sussex and used the South Downs as a training area. My guess is that back then the landscape looked much as it did now and much like us the military types noticed the shape of the ground and realised that with a bit of shaping it would be a good place to let rip.

It does seem that all man has affected most of our freeride terrain in some way or another, whether it was from the constant quest for natural resources or just the impression left by our forefathers living on the land. With all this said, man and Mother Nature combined has provided us with some of the best shreddable jibnige out there, so get out and ride it!

By Smilie