nah, it is another factor in soil erosion, just don’t think anyones been organised enough to do any proper tests.

Ironically, the St Ives estate is home to the Sports Turf Research insitute. Seems a shame not to use the number of cyclists passing through for more grass info gathering- http://www.stri.co.uk/

Realisticaly, If the reporter belives it plausible that Mountain bikers would ‘ram’ horses, then it is also entirely plausible that walkers would be able to ‘ram’ cyclists, it’s ludicrous.

[img]http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view1/1328669/homer-being-a-jerk-o.gif[/img]

Pook – Member

‘An historic’ is correct. Sorry sbob.

Poppycock.
It’s only correct if you mispronounce “historic”.

Looking at the posts above, is there (or was there) a MTB group liaising with ‘The Friends of St Ives’?

SingletrAction were invited by the council/Airedale partnership to put forward a proposal for bike trails in the estate. It fell thru when fosi threatened to fight it in the local newspapers. I presume The lead councillor with the portfolio for leisure etc decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, it came to nothing. They never actually got to the point of doing any liaising as such.

A horse does perhaps chew up the ground significantly more BUT

The Tracks left by bike leave a clear channel with no obstructions that water will flow freely down, that can wash a path away and destroy it for quicker than a horse.
having seen the damage inflicted on what were fairly stable bike trails maintained by myself and mates i know which i would rather deal with. horses make a ****ing mess of trails.

Research I’ve seen (sorry I don’t know where, so no links) suggests that the amount of damage done by an individual walker is similar to the amount of damage done by a single biker – the walker has higher ground pressure, yet the biker makes channels which water can run down. Which is worse depends – on average it’s pretty similar. Both are utterly dwarfed by the damage done by a single horse. Of course there are also more walkers, so the cumulative damage done by walkers is more than by bikers.

We are ‘new’ to the trails – compared to walkers and horses anyway. We often have a smile on our faces.

It’s easy to see how miserable folk who wander around looking to be offended find us so vexing.

As soon as you accept this, it becomes apparent who has the real problem. Doesn’t do anything for the situation on the ground (so to speak), but it does help to put thing in perspective.

Most types of extreme weather has a detrimental effect on the countryside, perhaps they should ban weather from the moor too. Might have more luck than trying to ban cyclists from using bridleways.

‘An historic’ is correct. Sorry sbob.

Poppycock.
It’s only correct if you mispronounce “historic”.[/quote]

They’re both correct. As with rather a lot of linguistic nuances, it’s a stylistic matter, not one of correctness. Which, to borrow Stephen Fry’s ironic deconstruction of your retort, is actually tough shit for the dogmatists 😉

Research I’ve seen (sorry I don’t know where, so no links) suggests that the amount of damage done by an individual walker is similar to the amount of damage done by a single biker

Yep. And the mechanisms by which erosion occurs usually have far more to do with the siting and gradient of the trail than its users.

https://www.imba.com/resources/research/trail-science/environmental-impacts-mountain-biking-science-review-and-best-practices

Looking at the posts above, is there (or was there) a MTB group liaising with ‘The Friends of St Ives’?

SingletrAction were invited by the council/Airedale partnership to put forward a proposal for bike trails in the estate. It fell thru when fosi threatened to fight it in the local newspapers. I presume The lead councillor with the portfolio for leisure etc decided it wasn’t worth the hassle, it came to nothing. They never actually got to the point of doing any liaising as such.

Thanks for the info. Real shame that this came to nothing.

Seems a bit lop-sided how FOSI can oppose bike trails being built via consultation and then on the other hand moan about MTB riding in the estate (if true – abusive comments to other users agreed as not acceptable).

jambalaya – Member

Horses do more damage to trails/footpaths than a bike ever will

Not so sure about that[/quote]

Don’t know about overall damage, but f’ck me if I’m able to ride or even walk on a well horse ridden track.

Main problem from bikes is trail creep by going around instead of just riding through the middle of the sloppy bog. Though horse riders just ride two or three abreast and make it as wide as a motorway.

Curse of the bridleway in fact to me. I have to look for signs that the bridleway is in a horsy area before heading along it.

As our argument goes when it comes to rights of ways – bikes are not horses!

Most of the riding up there is on well used bridleways that are pretty well surfaced so damage surely can’t be the issue. There’s one bridleway that is a bit of a bog fest in the winter but I’ve never seen any maintenance take place on it apart from the clearing of logs and branches I do when I walk my dog up there.
Granted there’s some footpath riding up there but there’s probably 4 that ever get used regularly and they are well sighted and not particularly interesting.

Was just reading the thread linked above to the fell running site.
Not wanting to doubt the story but if he was hit hard enough to get thrown 10ft, the biker must have been in the hospital right next to him.
That is an enormous amount of force

Not wanting to doubt the story but if he was hit hard enough to get thrown 10ft, the biker must have been in the hospital right next to him.

He quoted 10yards (30feet). If true both the runner and the biker would be dead.

Is there a Strava for horsists? I know you can Polar make Heart Rate monitors for horses, do they do GPS/strava as well.

I’ve never heard of someone threating to Ram a Horse, or even threatening to Horse a Ram.

I once did an involuntary extreme endo in front of a yorkie dog, I have no desire to cut a little dog in half any more than I want major surgery to my face when it hits the deck. The owners just looked at me with utter disgust, didn’t say a word, they were probably as shocked as I was but the dog just walked in front of me and stopped.. I can’t have been doing more than seven or eight miles an hour, about the speed of a jogger I guess.

Made a double post some how.

Tatty rag, that.

Print anything….

http://singletrackworld.com/2015/11/the-battle-of-bingley/

Great to see Singletrack taking an interest.

The runner on Ilkley Moor is a friend of mine, he’s not prone to exaggeration but I think he means he ended up ten yards from the point of collision. I was unfortunate enough to be hit by a car once and landed about five yards away having been thrown over the car I was stood next to so the forces required are pretty large.

I’ve been on Ilkley Moor when one of the fell races is taking place with lots of people milling about and seen a biker take a jump across a path where there was no chance of him seeing anyone on the path beforehand. There are some idiots about.

The singletrack story seems to have been pulled???

Nah, it is another factor in soil erosion, just don’t think anyones been organised enough to do any proper tests.

https://www.imba.com/resources/research/trail-science/environmental-impacts-mountain-biking-science-review-and-best-practices

Someone was organised as far back as 1994.

Environmental degradation can be substantially avoided or minimized when trail users are restricted to designated formal trails. Many studies have shown that the most damage to plants and soils occur with initial traffic and that the per capita increase in further impact diminishes rapidly with increasing subsequent traffic. Many environmental impacts can be avoided and the rest are substantially minimized when traffic is restricted to a well-designed and managed trail. The best trail alignments avoid the habitats of rare flora and fauna and greatly minimize soil erosion, muddiness, and tread widening by focusing traffic on side-hill trail alignments with limited grades and frequent grade reversals. Even wildlife impacts are greatly minimized when visitors stay on trails; wildlife have a well-documented capacity to habituate to non-threatening recreational uses that occur in consistent places.

So basically, on built trails the impact is minimal on the soil and even beneficial as animals will go there as nobody is trying to hurt them.

Aah, brings back memories of that loon Mike Vandeman on Usenet.

The singletrack story seems to have been pulled???

Oh yeah, does seem to have vanished

The singletrack story seems to have been pulled???

So it has, wonder why. #fearthefriendsofstives

Its back, removed so Singletraction could add comments.

http://singletrackworld.com/2015/12/the-battle-of-bingley/

Some mtbikers are a bit antisocial, but essentially there is a vexatious minority of other users, usually equestrians, who absolutely reject our access to the countryside on any level, who have an astonishing level entitlement and are apparently more than able to subvert our dysfunctional local government institutions for their own irredeemably selfish outlook.

Look at what the BHS did to the trails on Leith Hill.

Look at what the BHS did to the trails on Leith Hill.

The whowhatnow? What did they do? Not been up there for a while.

About a year ago, when the extension to summer lightening was opened, there were threats of legal action as some horse riders claimed it was dangerous as the trails were above a bridleway.

Obviously nonsense; especially as it has planning permission and cyclists have a legal right of way on all bridleways!