Looking after our great outdoors all together

“They’ve had a lot of hammer, and we haven’t really been able to look after them,” said Henry Norman of local mountain bike group Ride Sheffield. “Over lockdown they’ve barely been touched.”

So in the drizzle of last Saturday, a team of 20 or so local Ride Sheffield members were cheerily shifting damp aggregate onto one of the more eroded trails to restore it to its former glory, as well as building drainage channels to keep the trails usable for the winter months.

“My joy is seeing so many people out, doing such great work,” said John Horscroft. “Look at this lovely berm,” he added, pointing to a beautifully smoothed out corner beckoning riders to roll round at speed.

Ride Sheffield have been inviting their members to join their ‘trail days’ for the last 12 years. Across the city are special mountain bike trails (at Grenoside, Parkwood Springs and Lady Canning’s, for example) that have been maintained by Ride Sheffield members, along with help and support from landowners like the city council, the Eastern Moors Partnership and Sheffield and Rotherham Wildlife Trust. The hot summer this year has also delayed work, as the ‘trail crews’ have to wait for the ground to become wet before they can start work.

Two years ago, Ride Sheffield won a ‘Pay Dirt’ grant from Californian mountain bike company Santa Cruz to set up and train voluntary trail crews across Sheffield to help maintain and repair both specialised MTB trails and public bridleways, used by walkers, cyclists, runners and horse riders. There are now 18 trail crew members heading out in their spare time, some of them every week, to look after city trails for the benefit of all users.

“It’s brilliant isn’t it?“ said Henry, managing the soup refreshment stand (supplied by Cafe Adventure in Hope). Around him, damp trail crew members were raking, rolling and hammering down the restored trail. It’s important for riders to remember that mountain and gravel biking is 50% bike, and 50% trail, said Henry.

“Everyone has an impact on trails, whether you’re a mountain biker, a walker, a runner or horse rider, and we should all be thinking about how to minimise that impact,” said Steve Hardcastle. “I think if you go and buy a bike, everybody should be doing something to put back into the sport.”

Veteran trail restorer Elaine Barber recently set up a women-only trail building crew to encourage the growing number of female off-road cyclists to set to work too.

“It’s quite mild today,” she observed in the drizzle, noting that she and her group were often out working in the snow and the storms of last year. After proper training, women can shift rocks and mud around just as well as burlier male counterparts, she said.

“Out work is mostly on bridleways, and it’s nice to talk to people, who often say: ‘Wow that’s brilliant.’ But I do occasionally get a man walking by as I’m shifting a fallen tree who says: ‘You shouldn’t be doing that, it’s a job for man.’ I generally just laugh and carry on.”

Henry hopes to grow the Ride Sheffield subscription model (where local riders and companies make regular donations to support the trail work), so eventually staff can be employed to improve and build more trails.

Although some people still think of mountain bikers “as a blot on the landscape” says Elaine Barber, helping maintain trails shows that many off road riders are thinking about their responsibilities as well as their rights to ride, she said.

John Horscroft looked along the trail, where teenagers and pensioners were finishing off their work for the day. “This really is the spirit of mountain biking,” he said.

More info: http://www.ridesheffield.org.uk