SA's trail difficulty rating system

[Philip Varen]

I'm putting together a blog article on this topic (see title) -  on what to expect from each trail rating and the level of skill each rating demands. 

There are 2 systems that I think are in use in SA- based on the strong suspicion that our trails are rated green, blue, red, black and double black.

The IMBA system uses (white), green, blue, black, double black. 

The Forestry and Land Scotland system (UK system) uses green, blue, red, black, orange.

So it seems likely that we would typically use the IMBA system, with the red from the Forestry and Land Scotland system, sometimes, if not rarely, thrown in. I've been riding for almost 30 years; I've seen red trails but I've never seen an orange trail. 

Any thoughts on this?

Philip

 

Edited October 25 by Philip Varen

[ChrisF]

Two pitfalls we experience :

 

1. The rating does not account for wet or dry.  Mostly not an issue.  But some trails are on clay types that becomes super slippery when wet ....  When a new rider relies on "blue" and encounters "black" unexpectedly, it questions the systems.

 

MAYBE - a notice board at the trail entrance .... "Due to current weather, and trail wear, the rating is elevated from Blue to Red.

 

OR - Normally Blue trail, expect Red/Black in adverse weather conditions.

 

The tricky bit being that a good many trails are built to deal better with rain, and the rating does not change significantly, thus you just know until you have tried the trail in different conditions ... and is this not the exact purpose of a trail rating system ?

 

 

2. Maintenance .... or the lack thereof ..... some straight corridors where where highways never mind green has become so eroded that pedal strikes become common place.  Once spot that used be a corridor with "the odd tree route", is now washes away to the point that most tree routes are above ground level ... what ever rating they had is no longer applicable.   (Protea corridor, Tygerberg club, just as one example).  SURE, I actually enjoy this routed section, but also mindful of all the new riders that might find this intimidating.

 

 

 

A different issue, and one for which I dont seem to understand the ratings, if it exists.  Sometimes to you see three red arrows, noting a dangerous section ahead, typically just a particular feature in an otherwise blue or red trail.  Saw this sign at an event, and treated it as such, except it was nothing more than a section of farm road, slightly loose surface at worst.  Around the bend one more of these tripple red arrows, but clearly just the same farm road.  After the third bend it became apparent what was happening ... we climbed to the top using single tracks, and was now simple speeding down a road .... and overheating the brakes !!  My brakes eventually glazed over, bike speeding up, and I ended in the medics tent for a few hours ... for what was no more than one enormously long very steep downhill.  And here I thought the tripple red arrow was just "for an obstacle".  In a case like that a printed board stating "steep drop next 3km" might have been more appropriate.

[Headshot]

Jonketshoek uses what you refer to as the forestry system. A red is a blue in IMBA speak. Maps may differ and for instance on Trailforks a double black is shown as a red trail on the map but described as a double black. This is to differentiate it from a single black diamond on the map. It can cause confusion.

[MORNE]

Meh. Who decides? Is it then a subjective assessment?

perfect example:

cobra at hoogekraal… vs Red Phoenix, armageddon at jonkers. ‘Red trails’ vs a ‘black trail’ 😅🤣

Plumber is underated…should be tripple black diamond: :”hi chances of certain injury or possibly death”, “not here to be enjoyed, but to be survived”. the sign at the start says it all: “if at first you dont succeed, this trail is not for you” 😁

Edited Saturday at 11:45 AM by MORNE

[Robbie Stewart]

50 minutes ago, MORNE said:

Meh. Who decides? Is it then a subjective assessment?

perfect example:

cobra at hoogekraal… vs Red Phoenix, armageddon at jonkers. ‘Red trails’ vs a ‘black trail’ 😅🤣

Plumber is underated…should be tripple black diamond: :”hi chances of certain injury or possibly death”, “not here to be enjoyed, but to be survived”. the sign at the start says it all: “if at first you dont succeed, this trail is not for you” 😁

I was going to say the same thing. Saw a clip on YouTube of W&M riding Plumber. Kudos to them for going. Then in the comments I read someone comparing Black Rhino, Plumber and DH0 in the same sentence...

Three "Black" trails, of which only one is ACTUALLY Black? The other two are marginally grey, more like dark blue.

[Adeeb SSZA]

3 hours ago, MORNE said:

Meh. Who decides? Is it then a subjective assessment?

perfect example:

cobra at hoogekraal… vs Red Phoenix, armageddon at jonkers. ‘Red trails’ vs a ‘black trail’ 😅🤣

Plumber is underated…should be tripple black diamond: :”hi chances of certain injury or possibly death”, “not here to be enjoyed, but to be survived”. the sign at the start says it all: “if at first you dont succeed, this trail is not for you” 😁

I’ve also asked this question, but I recently found out that the rule states in the case of Hoogies Cobra, if the trail has big/Dangerous feature on it with no clear B line around it it has to be rated black, cobra has a few also the width of the the trail also plays a part in the rating narrow trails generally get a red/black rating especially uneven, loose rocky terrain. 

[Adeeb SSZA]

3 hours ago, Robbie Stewart said:

I was going to say the same thing. Saw a clip on YouTube of W&M riding Plumber. Kudos to them for going. Then in the comments I read someone comparing Black Rhino, Plumber and DH0 in the same sentence...

Three "Black" trails, of which only one is ACTUALLY Black? The other two are marginally grey, more like dark blue.

Plumber is definitely not the same level as DH0 and BR1, but I would classify plumber as Double Black the other 2 is definitely especially DH0 at tokai albeit very short compared to the other 2 the drop in gradient is -45% with not place to stop and get off is you uncomfortable. That’s just My Opinion tho 

[MORNE]

44 minutes ago, Adeeb SSZA said:

I’ve also asked this question, but I recently found out that the rule states in the case of Hoogies Cobra, if the trail has big/Dangerous feature on it with no clear B line around it it has to be rated black, cobra has a few also the width of the the trail also plays a part in the rating narrow trails generally get a red/black rating especially uneven, loose rocky terrain. 

Anything on that trail is only big on a rigid hardtail😅. Still fun though, dont get me wrong, but i’d call that a red at most. Red phoenix before the recent maintenance was bordering black imo.

[Philip Varen]

7 hours ago, Robbie Stewart said:

I was going to say the same thing. Saw a clip on YouTube of W&M riding Plumber. Kudos to them for going. Then in the comments I read someone comparing Black Rhino, Plumber and DH0 in the same sentence...

Three "Black" trails, of which only one is ACTUALLY Black? The other two are marginally grey, more like dark blue.

According to the IMBA system, and I assume the UK system, a black trail includes "unavoidable obstacles" and since there a few such ones on DH0, and with the gradient of the initial part, it falls into black. 

[Philip Varen]

11 hours ago, Headshot said:

Jonketshoek uses what you refer to as the forestry system. A red is a blue in IMBA speak. Maps may differ and for instance on Trailforks a double black is shown as a red trail on the map but described as a double black. This is to differentiate it from a single black diamond on the map. It can cause confusion.

But as far as I know, there is no "orange" trail. Plumber is black and there are no double blacks? There is another european system based on the IMBA - the ITRS which, like the UK system, has 5 trail grades of the same green, blue red, black and orange (with 2 orange diamonds). 

I said in the OP that I'd never seen an orange rated trail in SA - nor have I heard of one mentioned, but there are reds - relatively few but there are reds. I know of double black. So are we not, when using red, using a hybrid of the two systems i.e. throwing a red in between blue and black - because this is useful when a trail isn't deserving of black. 

[Philip Varen]

4 hours ago, Adeeb SSZA said:

I’ve also asked this question, but I recently found out that the rule states in the case of Hoogies Cobra, if the trail has big/Dangerous feature on it with no clear B line around it it has to be rated black, cobra has a few also the width of the the trail also plays a part in the rating narrow trails generally get a red/black rating especially uneven, loose rocky terrain. 

Although my original question relates to which rating system we're actually using, your comment does raise a mind boggler to me... Cobra's black feature is a red feature, but if they're using IMBA, there's no red available. But why on earth is Armageddon 8 still black, when they're using reds there? I mean surely 8 is really blue? 

[Philip Varen]

21 hours ago, ChrisF said:

Two pitfalls we experience :

 

1. The rating does not account for wet or dry.  Mostly not an issue.  But some trails are on clay types that becomes super slippery when wet ....  When a new rider relies on "blue" and encounters "black" unexpectedly, it questions the systems.

 

MAYBE - a notice board at the trail entrance .... "Due to current weather, and trail wear, the rating is elevated from Blue to Red.

 

OR - Normally Blue trail, expect Red/Black in adverse weather conditions.

 

The tricky bit being that a good many trails are built to deal better with rain, and the rating does not change significantly, thus you just know until you have tried the trail in different conditions ... and is this not the exact purpose of a trail rating system ?

 

 

2. Maintenance .... or the lack thereof ..... some straight corridors where where highways never mind green has become so eroded that pedal strikes become common place.  Once spot that used be a corridor with "the odd tree route", is now washes away to the point that most tree routes are above ground level ... what ever rating they had is no longer applicable.   (Protea corridor, Tygerberg club, just as one example).  SURE, I actually enjoy this routed section, but also mindful of all the new riders that might find this intimidating.

 

 

 

A different issue, and one for which I dont seem to understand the ratings, if it exists.  Sometimes to you see three red arrows, noting a dangerous section ahead, typically just a particular feature in an otherwise blue or red trail.  Saw this sign at an event, and treated it as such, except it was nothing more than a section of farm road, slightly loose surface at worst.  Around the bend one more of these tripple red arrows, but clearly just the same farm road.  After the third bend it became apparent what was happening ... we climbed to the top using single tracks, and was now simple speeding down a road .... and overheating the brakes !!  My brakes eventually glazed over, bike speeding up, and I ended in the medics tent for a few hours ... for what was no more than one enormously long very steep downhill.  And here I thought the triple red arrow was just "for an obstacle".  In a case like that a printed board stating "steep drop next 3km" might have been more appropriate.

Thanks for the comment. I've covered subjectivity (variability based on who decides) as well as mixed difficulty trails and the suggestion that feature signage should be in place for these, for e.g. "Black diamond feature ahead", if the trail builders/management want to rate the trail "blue" or if a blue feature has become a black feature because of a recent event - like a storm. 

I suppose there are those features, like the Boomslang drop on Tokai's Snakes trails - well you can roll that drop if you go super slow or you can clear the landing if you launch it - so do we make it a black feature, or is it a black feature - should the trail management not cater for the worse case scenario? Heavy questions I know 

[openmind]

https://escapecollective.com/grading-cross-country-how-to-define-modern-mountain-biking-trails/

[MORNE]

6 hours ago, openmind said:

https://escapecollective.com/grading-cross-country-how-to-define-modern-mountain-biking-trails/

Good link. I read this and personally agree with how it is captured there. 

especially this part under double black:

Not only are features challenging, but the result of making an error is far higher leading to a psychological element of riding trails at this level. Complete confidence in your riding ability is required on a double black trail.

This is so so true. If a trail lives in your head rent free, you aren't ready to ride it well or consistently, and you need to be very cautious.

I ride with people a lot more skilled than me and one of their biggest critiques of my riding is the fact that i don’t have confidence in my own ability yet. I've gone for skills training and i’ve leaned to ride things at my own pace over the past 3y. Ive surprised myself many times when they just force me to do things, but i still struggle with the mental bit.

Like probably most of us, Ive been riding an xc MTB since i was 7y old, some road and gravel along the way..but only got into gravity riding around 2020. Growing up I always wanted to get into DH but my parents couldn't afford getting me a bike.

i digress. Anyway, gravity riding is a different animal, especially once you start going faster. I’ve had some pretty bad falls along the way with consequences too, and that doesn't help with the head game. i can pretty much match my sendy friends on trails im super confident on. But i fear i’ve reached a point in my life where responsibilities mean i cant NOT think about consequences. Currently, my happy place are faster red trails. For some reason technical ‘speed’ bothers me less than technical ‘steepness’. Im comparatively fast on these types of trails and ride them with full commitment. Im getting there with the blacks we have, but some of them still make me think too much. 

Crazy how your head alone can my you so slow haha.

[Robbie Stewart]

14 hours ago, Adeeb SSZA said:

I’ve also asked this question, but I recently found out that the rule states in the case of Hoogies Cobra, if the trail has big/Dangerous feature on it with no clear B line around it it has to be rated black, cobra has a few also the width of the the trail also plays a part in the rating narrow trails generally get a red/black rating especially uneven, loose rocky terrain. 

When last have you been down Cobra? That entire last "dangerous" section pretty much rides like a b-line currently. The challenge is gone. It got groomed recently and is perfectly rideable by by people who don't normally ride that kind of terrain. 

[ChrisF]

7 minutes ago, Robbie Stewart said:

When last have you been down Cobra? That entire last "dangerous" section pretty much rides like a b-line currently. The challenge is gone. It got groomed recently and is perfectly rideable by by people who don't normally ride that kind of terrain. 

 

Perfect example of the maintenance I referred to.

 

The level of maintenance going both ways ....

 

A "natural" red/black trail can be tamed by too much maintenance, as apposed to simply providing a B-line around certain spots.

 

On the flip side, I have seen blue lines with red/black sections simply because of erosion and lack of maintenance.

 

 

A trail is designed for a market segment, i.e. blue/red trails.  And people pay their fee to get their buzz ... all too often it turns into a jouney of descovery .... washed away sections ramping up the rating, and then causing all kind of mind games for the rest of the ride .....  and on the odd occasion you get there just after maintenance and the red is barely green rating ....

 

 

In an ideal world ... post the intended trail rating.  Show which has B-lines.  And then be open about maintenance/erosion ....