We’ve just received this picture from long-time BMer Kevin Hodgson. It’s of the freshly resurfaced Walna Scar Road near Coniston in the Lake District. Walna Scar is something of a classic route, well known for its boulder fields, rocky outcrops and drop-offs. It’s also one of the highlights of the Coast-to-Coast ride. Well, as Kevin reports, it’s not quite the same now, having been resurfaced and graded…

There’ll be much wailing and gnashing of teeth over this one. But it’s perhaps unsurprising that local councils and park authorities get a bit carried away with these things. It’s easy to forget that mountain bikers who like a technical challenge are a niche within a niche, although it’s fair to say that they constitute the majority of riders who’d take on Walna Scar.

What this kind of resurfacing really shows us, though, is that the powers that be don’t really understand mountain bikers’ needs and wants. And why should they? Sure, they haven’t asked, but who would they ask? Some areas have MTB clubs or other established representative bodies, but many don’t and even those that do haven’t always got the ears of the right people.

To us this looks like just the sort of stuff that the fledgling UK wing of IMBA could really get its teeth into. After all, what we’re looking at here is essentially a trailbuilding problem – how to make a sustainable, low-maintenance but interesting trail. It’s not easy, which is probably why the people responsible for this one have just gone for two of three, but it can be done and IMBA are the people with the expertise…

In the meantime, if you want to see a return to the Walna Scar of old, we suggest you go ride it, lots. It’s rare that we come across a resurfaced trail that stays resurfaced for very long…