Familiarity with the trail is a huge help. Some
people consider our Flumeline Trail to be scary, but it's at least 4' wide, and
there is a lot of brush below, so if one did fall, the brush would help stop the
fall. I was un-nerved by it at first, but now I could take it at a
canter. I consider a 3' trail fairly reasonable, but narrow down to a
couple of feet and I don't like that at all. I like at least 4'
wide. The kind of trails my brother-in-law builds are wide enough to
drive his quadrunner over. That's why he builds them that wide...so
they can access any damaged areas or places where trees have fallen across the
trail.
Lud and I hand-built a trail down into a deep
canyon. It is no more than two feet wide and I am uneasy, but I'm getting
better with it. It's in the deep forest, so I'm looking down the side of
the hill with big trees here and there. It also has very tight
switchbacks. We don't offer this as a public trail.
I will grant you that perception is a big part of it.
There are some trails that I ride that might be considered "narrow", but
there is a slope to them, or the narrow section is very short. I'm also
familiar with them, and that does make a difference.
-- Riding Shadow on a trail that got narrower and narrower until it was
barely 3 feet wide over a sheer dropoff down to the desert floor, at least 500
ft below - I think more. No slant to the dropoff -- straight down.
Way too narrow to even attempt turning around. No room at all, and
I was scared to death the trail was going to peter out completely.
