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Flow is a concept that is difficult to describe but everyone thinks they can recognize it when they experience it. How can you be sure to incorporate flow when designing new trails? More importantly, what is flow actually?
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Flow, to me, is when you find your groove on a trail and are able to tear it up to your highest potential. For me that is when the trail points at a slight decent with heels and jumps that have the perfect spacing between takeoff and landings. Some XC guys find their groove when climbing. (Nut-jobs) 😮
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Flow is a lot like pornography. It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it. 😆
Check out IMBA’s trail building resources on their web site, be sure to look at all the links on the right. http://www.imba.com/resources/trail-building
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I agree, flow is a rather nebulous concept. To me, part of flow is having a well-constructed trail that doesn’t have you decelerating rapidly or having to go crazy anaerobic for short spurts (and incorporates all of the features listed below). Most importantly: flow doesn’t equal "easy." I’ve ridden very technical trails that have had flow to them… it just takes a talented rider to find it, sometimes.
Sometimes you may think a trail doesn’t have flow the first time you ride it… it might not be until later on down the road that you start to realize you have found the trail’s "flow," that it was just hiding all along.
Oftentimes "flow" is more of a mental state, how you approach the trail. Philosophically speaking , the state of "flow" is generally described as a purely natural state, where the brain stops to function and you almost seem to be unaware of what you’re doing–you are so intensely focused on the task, so engrossed in your experience that you seem to step outside of yourself for a moment. (See Daniel M. Haybron’s [i:35qjrcfu]The Pursuit of Unhappiness[/i:35qjrcfu] for more info.) Personally, one of the only places that I experience this type of flow is on the mountain bike–and I love it! While Haybron might disagree with me as to the degree but agree with me on the basic fact, I think that "flow" is one of the most important aspects of our happiness… and that is one of the reasons I ride mountain bikes.
+1 to dgaddis’s IMBA recommendation: There are many things that you can do to ensure your new trail has flow, such as:
1. Not making the hills too steep, up or down
2. Not making any of the turns too sharp.
3. Run the trail along the contours of the mountain.
4. Perfect spacing between turns, and between takeoffs and landings (like dozzerboy said).
5. Don’t be afraid to build a technical trail… tech trails can have flow too, it just takes a talented rider to find it sometimes.
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