Why?!

Hey there.

So lately I've been out on the bike scoping out great places to ride in oslomarka. Which by the way is absolutely awesome! And I've found this lush peice of bush 5 minutes bike from my home. Its a tiny peice of land sandwiched between a motorway and civilisation, its not like its full of endangered animals or plants, or that its ecologically unstable. Its just an A-4 peice of land with some "svaberg" and singletrack. So every evening possible after work and in the weekends I've been out there just tweeking the track, I built a few berms and ladder bridges just to add flow to the trail and so I could ride it all in one go with no stops.

The ladder bridges are rather astheactly pleasing. They are made of dead tree trunks and a few new (as in "living") wood. but its not like I've been hacking up the entire forrest. I haven't dragged a goddamn stack of "europalls" into the forrest and made jumps with them that are going to rot in 2 months. I've built ladder bridges that look organic if you ask my and blend into the forrest. They have strips of chicken wire on them for grip in the wet so they aren't slippery for walkers or hikers, its not like anyones gonna get injured walking on them.

The berms are nicely made as well with dead logs stacked up on each other and rocks piles ontop and them dirt piled on top again.

There is NO rubbish lieing about and I have cleared the trail so it is easier to walk there.


So today I ride down there to rip up the trail a couple of times and some cunthook has destroyed it!! They've ripped the bridges apart and started destroying the berm!!?

And I ask why? Why would destroy something so cinstructive (in my eyes) that every one can use? I understand that hikers arn't gonna rip up the berm walking there, but they certainly can use the bridges to walk on.

I met a lady there once while building and she was thrilled that other people wanted to use nature, and wondered when I would be cycling there so she could watch! Nice old lady
I even asked her: don't you mind me building here? To which she replied: there are so many forrests and trails here anyway. I can share she said.

This track was never meant to be a full on DH track that was going to host NM, it was just a cool hobby I suppose and a place for me and my mates to hang out after work. Rip it up 3 times then go home for a bbq and a couple of beers?


What do you guys do about this? Do you build your trails """leagally""" or don't people really build trails in Norway?

Cheers Danny

Sorry its a bit jumbled up but I'm a bit pissed right now and I would like to vent my anger a bit. Ha ha.

And you guys (mtb forum) might not be the place as questions like this as you're rippin it up like me aswell. But I'll try.

I totally understand your frustration! Dont know where or how you built it but sounds like you did it in style. Its always a dilemma to build or not but sometimes it just has to be done. Now that someone has destroyed your creations, they could atleast clean up after themselves, if not their actions is nothing but vandalism. Im betting its a member of nikkersadelen that did it.

Hi Danny!!

That was really pity! Hope those punk will burn in hell!!!

Where was the trail? People build sometimes new trails, but here in Norway the trails have been there for, maybe, century. So must of the time is normal upkeeping.

Look into your own rights, see if you can get an approval from the authorities. If you can, then you might be able to police report the matter if it happens once youve build another trail with approval. Build another one and this time advise the authorities first, by doing so you accieve som kind of safety.

Good luck Danny...

I am under the impression that we generally do not build trails in Norway. We have so many good, natural trail that adding/making them smoother is redundant. We do, however, clear trails where logs and bushes are blocking the trail way. Some of our forests are owned by private owners, and we have a law giving us the right to utilise the woods for recreation. This is based on trust, and that people treat the trails well.

Ok yeah. Thanks for the tips. I wasn't trying to turn into the next Northshore or anything, but I wouldn't mind a few Berms and jumps to practice on, which nature hardly ever dishes out to us for free

But yeah, I'm totally for the trust based system, otherwise it would probably end up like USA with rangers patrolling eveywhere.

And the trails here are real nice btw!

The trail wasn't very far from Hvervenbukta. Sort of hidden in the forrest.

yeah I'll look into that. Cheers!

I don't like to modify the natura so much, jusk clear falling trees and cover holes or move some rocks.
Sounds that you did properly so, people don't understand so much and of course they don't want many bikes that fucked up the tracks. It's dificult but that's life, ride more and don't worry!!!

Don't let them get you down dude!
I wish there was more of it here!! If we keep the rubbish to a absolute minimum and respect the forest then I don't understand why it is such a problem. There is a lot of bitter old people here so maybe some guy has been walking there for 70 yrs and thought he wasn't gonna have some little bike junkie ripping some filthy tracks through his piece of paradise.
Enjoy the summer dude!!
Oh also some kids have set up a little run in the forest out the front of the cafe at frognersetern up on holmakollen which you can belt down and take the tram back up so maybe that is a better bet for you so you don't have to do so much work:)