As some Surrey Hills riders will know, the long planned extension to the end of BKB is now very nearly a reality (the trail was temporarily detoured 3 or 4 years ago).

The below is a press release from Hurtwood Control Trust, the charity who manage Holmbury and Pitch Hill (Peaslake) in the Surrey Hills. The release is intended for the local press/parish magazines and so doesn’t really focus on how the trail is also being built to create a more pleasurable and engaging experience more in keeping with the awesome woodland singletrack that the area is popular because of.

If you want to help with the efforts to improve the existing trail system on the Hurtwood there are 2 things that you can do.

1. Become a Friend of the Hurtwood by paying an annual amount to support all their activities http://www.hurtwoodcontrol.co.uk (click on Donate Now at the top of the page)
2. Send an email to mtb@hurtwoodcontrol.co.uk if you would like to volunteer to help with trail building and trail maintenance on the Hurtwood.

Now Barry Knows Better – making mountain biking work in the Hurtwood

Barry Knows Best, or BKB, as the Hurtwood trail is known to the mountain bikers who love its steep cliff face and knotted roots, is about to be made a lot safer for everyone. Now Barry Knows Better.

Thanks to a grant from the Surrey Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty’s Sustainable Development Fund, a major realignment of the trail as it joins Ewhurst Road in Peaslake is now possible. The trail will still be a challenge for riders, but it will no longer be dangerous for bikes meeting the road, cars and other road users and people living in nearby houses.

The project will also prevent damage to the woods caused by bikes trying to find a safer alternative to the old route and reduces conflict with other users by avoiding a key bridleway.

The BKB project is another example of the Hurtwood Control Trust and the mountain bikers working in partnership to manage the increasingly popular sport in this much- loved piece of stunningly beautiful countryside. The success of this cooperative approach can already be seen on Holmbury Hill Fort, where trails have been redesigned and rerouted to protect sensitive archaeology and ensure the bikers can have fun without causing damage.

The challenge for the Trust is to accommodate all the users of the hill safely – walkers, horse riders, children, dogs and all the different types of bike users. Working with a small group of dedicated mountain biker volunteers is proving the most successful way to achieve harmony.

BKB is on of the most popular single-track trails on Holmbury Hill, with up to 50 bikes an hour riding it at peak times but its exit onto Ewhurst Road has always been a problem. At first it was too close to the houses and caused disturbance, but when the exit was moved further away, it proved too steep and dangerous for bikes and traffic. Braking caused damage to the hillside and bikes created myriad side-tracks as they tried to control their descent to the road, causing still more erosion.

The mountain bikers have investigated possible solutions for BKB. The exit can only be along a short stretch of road because of houses, and needs to be technically challenging to engage experienced riders and dissuade them from going off-piste. The answer is to make the trail longer by creating switchbacks that will provide interest and challenges, while ensuring the trail is sustainable, and will also mean that bikes join the road in a far more controlled manner.

Such major trail construction is beyond the scope of the Hurtwood Control Trust, but with the expert help of former Aston Hill trail builder Ian Warby of the Cyclists Touring Club (CTC), a bid for Sustainable Development Fund money was successful and an experienced digger team from Wales should be on site soon to sculpt the new section of the trail. The volunteers should finish surfacing the trail by the end of the year.

This initiative is being monitored closely by the Surrey Hills AONB as a possible prototype for a wider initiative right across the Surrey Hills. It is recognised that mountain biking is growing in popularity, and management in partnership with volunteer mountain bikers is necessary both to protect the environment and prevent conflict between bikers and other users of the countryside.

For more information on the progress of the BKB project, visit the Hurtwood website
http://www.hurtwoodcontrol.co.uk/.

Ends

that sounds like excellent news. I am looking forward to riding it.

switchbacks was the only way to go!

that's good news although I could find nothing on the link that related to this.

Excellent news. Great to see the 'working together/taking responsibility' methodology working so well. Can't wait to ride the new trail

bialled_dikes – Member

that's good news although I could find nothing on the link that related to this.

Apologies – it's currently only in the Friends only Forum. I'll post it in the 'Trail Conditions' forum which is open to all. There are no updates yet but we'll post up in there as we go.

erm.. the above forum (Trail Conditions) is no longer public and I can't post to the Guests forum (trying to get that changed)

good news – looking forward to the results. Hopefully Rowan Sorrel will be along to create some fun!

Yeah, good news.

Might be a numpty question but are trails like BKB and Yoghurt Pots open to other countryside users and not just mountain bikers?

They are, came across twenty or so ramblers on BKB once.

Not a silly question at all – actually very important… All of the Hurtwood is open to all, so even where we have dedicated mtb tracks you can never be 100% certain that there aren't walkers/kids/dogs/horses around the corner/over the drop. Obviously that isn't the intention, but it is the reality.

I was having a nice quick roll down Yog a while back and came upon some good folk standing in the singletrack picking blackberries. Fair enough.

It's mushroom season at the mo – not at all unlikely to find people on foot paying close attention to the ground and no attention at all to oncoming bikes.

Plus kids frequently push their bikes back up BKB.

Anyhow – riders beware!

Thanks cf and glen…that's good to know. Seen various folk strolling along the trails and always slowed down/stopped as I was never certain whether they were allowed to be there or not; given they are,
I'll continue as before. 🙂

nuke – Member

Yeah, good news.

Might be a numpty question but are trails like BKB and Yoghurt Pots open to other countryside users and not just mountain bikers?

Good question. Yes. the Hurtwood is full open access so no segregation. The closure (just small signs) of trails to horses has been discussed following some damage to a trail… There is a no signs policy on the hurtwood which helps keep the natural feel of the place in tact.

You do often find walkers on Yoghurt pots becuase of its proximity to the footpath and fort but we do try and design this out as an issue (benchcut swoopy lines that walkers can't won't follow, some banks hiding the trail and trail features to make it clearer that it is intended as a MTB trail)

At the end of the day it's not a trail centre which is a good thing. Works to the trails comes just as much from the stance of preventing erosion, conflict with users and proliferation of trails as it does from providing a buzz for us!

good to see this happening despite all the selfish unsanctioned building of jumps and north shore that's gone on in the past

I agree that the end of BKB isn't sustainable as it is, and the increased number of bikers are catered for,so making the changes is obviously needed and for the better.

I do worry about the hills though. I think its really important that the area keeps its natural feel and doesn't end up too sanitised. The place isn't a trail centre after all.

Good to get some trail improvements, but I really liked the end section that "proved too steep and dangerous" for some.

"Steep and dangerous" huh? – come on, this is Surrey, not Whistler.

My wife and 12 yr old rode down that regularly without problem.

To improve BKB make the whole of it like that last section please!

"To improve BKB make the whole of it like that last section please!"

Couldn't agree more!! Well actually a few more jumps and some drop off wouldn't go amiss.

I really liked the end section that "proved too steep and dangerous" for some.
"Steep and dangerous" huh? – come on, this is Surrey, not Whistler.

Actually, Mr I'm-so-gnarly-and-so-are-my-family, if you read the original post properly, it's not the track that is deemed dangerous, but the ending of it in a road.

I quote: but when the exit was moved further away, it proved too steep and dangerous for bikes and traffic. Braking caused damage to the hillside and bikes created myriad side-tracks as they tried to control their descent to the road

🙂

So you're saying that expert trailbuilders from Aston Hill along with Sustainable Development Fund money and an experienced digger team from Wales is all required to alter an exit onto a road???

Yeah, right….

Such major trail construction is beyond the scope of the Hurtwood Control Trust, but with the expert help of former Aston Hill trail builder Ian Warby of the Cyclists Touring Club (CTC), a bid for Sustainable Development Fund money was successful and an experienced digger team from Wales should be on site soon to sculpt the new section of the trail. The volunteers should finish surfacing the trail by the end of the year.

have heard of lots of people flying down the fall line section at the end, being unable to stop and ending up on the road, either with or without bike.

So, the answer to your unconvinced argument is….YES

But, if it's fast and swoopy and lacks the potential for numpties to straighten the corners, I'm all for it!

Just want to encourage everyone to watch this space and reserve judgement. When the new line is finished it will more or less double the length of BKB, with the ending having a similar character to the top section.

What you won't get is a steep scrabbly cut-up ever-changing fall-line like there is currently. That can never be sustained – the rain just finds all those skidded-out channels and its then game over. The only thing that it is worth the volunteer time and Sustainable Development Fund money, and which will be acceptable to everybody, is nice flowy Surrey Hills singletrack – the kind of thing that gets more involving if you ride faster but doesn't have the penalty for failure that the steep ending has.

The state of that fall line is a sad indictment of the negative impact a high frequency of mountain bikes can have on the land if left unmanaged. So irrespective of what kind of trail different people want to ride, it needs fixing if we want to be accepted as responsible trail users. Thanks to Hurtwood's positive and inclusive approach, we're about to get a better, longer trail and the damage we've done will be allowed to recover.

The fall line looks like someone's been strip mining there, it really is an appalling eyesore and adds to other "interested parties" calls to reduce or ban our access to this area.

"The fall line looks like someone's been strip mining there, it really is an appalling eyesore and adds to other "interested parties" calls to reduce or ban our access to this area."

This is true.i rode it at the weekend, and whilst its challenging and fun as it is, it wont last many more months, let alone years as it is.the ground is so soft and cut up that each rider is bringing more and more of it down the hill side.

Yep, it really does look like an eyesore and as brooess says doesnt give us a great reputation….

will they be fixing up the upper trail to stop all the straightlines that have appeared? or just concentrating on the new bit,.

looks like work started yesterday
http://hurtwoodranger.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/bkb-work-started/

Things like running repairs to the old top section (including restoration of proper twisty lines/blocking of "desire" lines) will be done by hand by the volunteer group. There will also be some hand-finishing of the new stuff. I think there will be one or more volunteer days in the near future if anyone fancies a friendly day in the country doing a slightly different kind of exercise.

When the new line is finished it will more or less double the length of BKB, with the ending having a similar character to the top section.

😀

Big thanks to the Hurtwood guys for letting this go ahead. Hope more people join up and make a donation. Remember it's all run by a small charity so every little helps. 🙂

I became a friend this week on reading this thread although I've never ridden there.

I've been intending to ride there for years.

Any chance of a forum ride?

splendid idea mandog!

Happy to show you around, but be aware I'm no whippet! Why not start a new thread suggesting the idea?

AndyRT – I've posted a similar thread on the Hurtwood friends forum. Could you guide me on Sunday 15th November?

I'd prefer not to personally start a thread for a forum ride when I don't yet know the area myself.

Happy to help.

have you got a email address, so we can arrange the meeting up?

Yes it's:

descretionassured@googlemail.com

thanks glen – yes all swoopy stuff that this area is known for and can sustain and that the landowner will allow – Not Wales or a downhill track.

Talking of swoopiness, heres a view of the end looking down. Just a little taster for you…

i realise that the above could be quite misleading – that is just the very end. there's a whole load before that.

Liking the look of that, can't tell from the pic but bigger berms could be fun – when will it be officially open? I want to check it out once it's up and running.

Should be great, I can understand peoples concerns when a trail they love is changed in the name of sustainability. I too like the steep bit at the end but more trail and less road is always an improvement. I look forward to a future visit to Peaslake stores via the new BKB.

Bobster – I'm going up there the weekend after next (15th) assuming its open if you want to join me 😉

Would post it on SMTB but as I'm sure you know its been hacked again 👿

That looks superfast Staffy 😈

Although it all going very well, and on schedule, I don't think it will be open this weekend unfortunately.

Just a little more patience! It is looking mighty fine though – the picture above looks good enough, but I can assure you it is doubly impressive in the flesh.

It'll need a little while (and a bit of rain) to bed in so, please keep off until Southernstaffy gives the all clear. It's tempting to ride it right away, but doing that could cause a fair bit of damage before the trail is ready. Think of it like a fine wine…

The Trailbuilder has informed Hurtwood that the new end section currently under construction may need up to a month to settle before it can be ridden.

So, please: DO NOT RIDE THE NEW SECTION UNTIL IT'S READY!

It's taken a lot of effort, so please don't damage it.