Walker had near miss with biker.
I fought our corner a little…several views since I posted by no response as yet…haven’t a clue what welshwiz is on about…or on.

http://www.walkingforum.co.uk/index.php?topic=33469.0

Every right to be there.
Doesn’t give them the right to ride like ****.
Speed Perception of walkers can be skewed.

Llanberis route is sooo dull!!! If she liked that she’ll spaff all over the Pyg/Miners

I’ve seen a few hammer down Llanberis when there were plenty of people walking on it – really dum-ass behavoir. Not least cos Rangers is waaay more fun and less populated.

Grumpy person meets idiot. Nothing to see here.

Of course the bikes shouldn’t be walked down, both sides need to be considerate (in this case the riders should have waited for the walker to pass, or at least slowed right down as they met).

All you have to do is shout STRAVAAAAAA

I sit on the steering group that monitors the Voluntary Agreement, and therefore by definition, MTBing on the mountain and even in the NP in general, and incidents like this damage all the good work that has been done by mtbers on Snowdon.

If people don’t know the history, it is simple, the Brideways on the mountain were going to receive a TRO (traffic restriction order) and cycling would have been banned – end of. The voluntary agreement saved the situation and has worked well, and now the National Park look very favourably at mtbers. But it won’t take many of these incidents to turn that round again.

Sadly, the mountain has got busier and busier over the last few years (since the agreement was put in place), and now it’s just not worth going up on weekends outside of roughly the agreement times eg down before 10 or up after 5. It’s not that it’s inconvenient for walkers, it’s just not worth it as it becomes unrideable – up or down. If someone can host it, I’ll post a picture of the summit on Oct 2 last year. You can’t see the mountain for people – it’s like looking at a busy shopping mall.

The forecast was awesome for this saturday and it was obvious it would be busy and that there would be trouble up there.

I think sadly, we all need to realise how crazy things are on Snowdon these days and plan our trips for weekdays or if we can’t do that, for first thing/last thing in the day. And it would be great if we could try and spread this kind of message rather than having these debates after the event.

I’ll post a picture of the summit on Oct 2 last year. You can’t see the mountain for people

Not a realistic view as anyone can go up on the train. Even fat people.

Clump

Snowdon has had an excellent, objective view that everyone can use the mountain with a bit of give and take. A few nobs being nobby will put paid to that.

But it’s too busy to be much fun, and I can’t see the point in doing it just because it’s high. There’s more fun to be had in other parts of Wales that don’t have the crowds.

Sorry dude, but it’s seriously realistic view from well below the summit and out of range of the train. I work as a walking guide on the mountain all year round and see just how many people walk up there. I agree it’s too busy to be fun, at weekends, especially during the day. At 6 in the morning on a weekday, it’s awesome…

One path for bikes and one for walkers. Or is that too difficult?

I was thinking it wasn’t that busy when I was last up there:

…and I was alone when I was on the top

Though that was a Friday evening in March about half an hour before sunset!

Sadly it is too difficult, a legal right of access exists for pedestrians on the mountain and in general it’s not abused and unlikely to be taken away from them. A right of access also exists for cycling on some paths (the bridleways), where this access is shared with pedestrians. If this right is abused, which is what this thread is about, then this right will be taken away… Worth remembering the numbers here, this is almost certainly the world’s most climbed mountain with over 500,000 people standing on its summit each year… it’s amazing there isn’t more conflict, but there needs to be less…

Idiots need to stop being idiots, obviously, but out of curiosity, if half a million people go up there each year, how often do these incidents occur?

Clearly not nice for the walkers involved, but some perspective on the scale of the actual problem is always useful.

I’m not sure how these one off events should effect the current access rights which mtbguiding mentioned.

For a starters, to take the views of a forum write up as evidence of what actually occurred is crazy in itself and to base that as a ‘situation’.

You don’t know the actual scenario, what actually happened. Plenty of people I come across jump 20ft to the side and panic unnecessarily even though you’ve shouted with plenty of warning and slowed down to their approach to a considerably low speed >5mph.

What do they consider fast, how much warning did they have, where was it? What was the vision like.

You get idiots in all walks of life, lets not take a few sentences as the truth and make far fetched judgements.

One path for bikes and one for walkers. Or is that too difficult?

Yes, lets build a trail centre on the mountain 🙄

Idiots need to stop being idiots

Good luck with that one.

Was it last year or the year before when some chump kept driving a Frontera to the summit and leaving it there? It doens’t matter what the rules are, there will always be some clots.

I did it years ago and got a good reception up and down from walkers and train peeps and it was all very friendly.

As munrobiker says above though, it takes 2 chumps in each direction and it’s suddenly an issue. Helpfully blown out of proportion on a Red Sock forum.

Whereas on here it’s all constructive 🙂

Snowdon’s a waste of a ride if you’re on a bike TBH, unless you’ve never done it and you’re desperate to tick it off your list, I wouldn’t bother on a weekend, there’s just far too many walkers to make it worth it. Especially if you want to go down Rangers as its harder if you have to continually stop to let walkers past

The other thread still only has replies from a cyclist hater and the OP, so it’s not exactly creating a huge storm.

We did it in the depths of winter and it was busy enough to need to sop occasionally but still fun. Can’t see the point riding it when busy and that’d be no fun for you or the walkers.

Problem with situations like the OP is that we don’t know both sides. I can comfortably ride at moderately high speed and pass by someone missing them by a few inches, its not a hard skill if you can ride a bike. I don’t partly because they might suddenly move but mainly because it’ll feel unsafe to them even if it isn’t. A few times I’ve slowed down to not much more than walking pace, shouted my excuse me or hello and been ignored then passed with a massive gap and still had the walker jump out of their skin or mutter something about danger. In this case was it some crazy loon hooning by at great speed or an oversensitive walker who didn’t want to share the path? I suspect somewhere in the middle

Sad truth is, we don’t need to know both sides, all we need is people complaining directly to the NP… and it happens. Like I said, I reckon that considering the numbers, there are amazingly few issues, but if we want continued access, and even better, increased access to other parts of the national park, which is on the cards, then we could really do with fewer… The real moral of the story I am sure, is not to ride it during the day on a weekend.

FunkyDunc

Yes, lets build a trail centre on the mountain

YES Lets do that. There’s already an uplift installed. We just need to ban all walkers from the mountain and build some trails.

At last – a response on the walker forum:

Same here I was there in August and the Llanberis route was very busy , and 3 mountain bikers came down at some speed and walkers had to part in the middle to let them by. Ive nothing against mountain bikers but they are asking for it really arnt they? If they come off there bike then they only have there self to blame, or if I was in a big group personally I wouldn’t move over for them I would let them dismount there bike and walk round us.
Why choose this route when its so busy when they could cycle anywhere in the area.

That’ll be the walkers that don’t really want to co-exist. Can’t argue with the last point though.

Sigh.

Whenever a story like this pops up, it’s always that the rider “almost” knocked someone over. “Almost” sent someone flying. “Almost” threw a bus-load of toddlers over a cliff to their deaths.

There is very little “actual” harm done by MTBers to…well…anyone. Because if there was, we’d never **** hear the end of it.

Of course people should ride courteously. It’s just that even the most tolerant and reasonable of walkers would rather not have to share “their” byways with people on bikes. So they tend to exaggerate the most innocuous of incidents.

YES Lets do that. There’s already an uplift installed. We just need to ban all walkers from the mountain and build some trails.

And why don’t they……Oh lemme see is it because they don’t give a gnats chuff and would carry on regardless like they did when they had their little strop of a mass trespass?

Maybe we should have a mass bike ride on Snowdon, do you really think if we said OK lets have half and half custody rights you can have the little hill Monday to Weds and we will have Thurs to Friday, there wouldnt be a public Shit fit about access.

I have said this before on the topic a voluntary ban?? What’s voluntary about being told you cant do something between certain hour?

I have said this before on the topic a voluntary ban?? What’s voluntary about being told you cant do something between certain hour?

I guess you didnt actually read the thread then.

it is simple, the Brideways on the mountain were going to receive a TRO (traffic restriction order) and cycling would have been banned – end of. The voluntary agreement saved the situation and has worked well, and now the National Park look very favourably at mtbers

Why choose this route when its so busy when they could cycle anywhere in the area.

Funnily enough with the right to roam that is true for walkers but not true for cyclists.

At the end of the day there are way, way more people who walk up and down the mountain than there are people who cycle. So if one group has to go in the interests of the majority then it’s not too difficult to work out which one it’ll be. I was up there a week ago on a cold, windy and wet (at the top) Sunday and the mountain was still very busy. We rode down slowly and conscientiously when people were around and had narry a problem. One lad even offered to help push/carry the bike up the staircase (offer politely rejected due to pride). At the end of the day we are tolerated on the mountain and given the number of people who choose to walk it that seems to be fair to me. So we have to be considerate and accept that if we’re going to ride down it when busy we’re going to have to compromise how we ride.
In fairness the thread linked to isn’t all bad and not really a rant per se, just an aside. Anyway, I’ll be walking up and down it this weekend, keeping a sharp eye out for any riders blatting their way down in my general vicinity.. 😉

I presume the TRO would be issued by the council. Im sure the locals would be thrilled with a chunk of their customers being banned from the area

The problem is that walkers all go to the same place as they have no imagination. They have all the summits in the area to choose from but most choose the same hill. Legitimate Mountain Bike access is very limited in North Wales and if you exclude Snowdon there are very few other tracks outside the trail centers.

Some people are just grumpy gits who don’t like seeing other people having any fun, or sharing the trails with people who use a different mode of transports to themselves. It’s the same old with walkists/bikist/horsist/motorists. Have see it time and time again over the last 30 years as a hill/mountain user from all viewpoints (except on horseback, they are hateful things).

FunkyDunc – Member
One path for bikes and one for walkers. Or is that too difficult?
Yes, lets build a trail centre on the mountain

So, they take an already busy mountain and put a **** train on it, but the idea of putting a nice trail, free from walkers, down the side of it that MTBers could enjoy with minimal conflict is ridiculous?

The incident could have been anywhere from a one off incident from a normally courteous biker to someone who doesn’t get out of the way and expects bikes to walk past them because why should they share the path, to a biker that got annoyed at all the numpty redsocks and decided to buzz a few of them shoutint “STRAVA” at the top of his lungs, but it’s one incident, with zero injuries and no proven blame, so WGAF?

The incident could have been anywhere from a one off incident from a normally courteous biker to someone who doesn’t get out of the way and expects bikes to walk past them because why should they share the path, to a biker that got annoyed at all the numpty redsocks and decided to buzz a few of them shoutint “STRAVA” at the top of his lungs, but it’s one incident, with zero injuries and no proven blame, so WGAF?

Did you read the linked post? or the one from the guy on the access group? You should care.

3 mountain bikers came down at some speed and walkers had to part in the middle to let them by

I liked this comment….must have been a right chore to move to the side of the path for all of 2 seconds…

The problem here is the ‘them’ and ‘us’ mentality that seems to pervade every aspect of our lives these days.
It can’t just be ‘people out for an enjoyable day in the countryside’, it has to be ‘us walkers’ and ‘those mountain bikers’….

I wonder how many times that day the bloke having a moan had stopped to let someone past on foot, or moved out the way of a faster walker/group of walkers etc. But that’s OK because “we’re all walkers” – they’re one of us……but that bloody mountain biker, riding his bike down the mountain; we had to get out of his way…..and he might have almost but not quite got close to very nearly being in danger of brushing my arm, but he didn’t because he was miles away….but it could’ve happened….

😐

Did you read the linked post? or the one from the guy on the access group? You should care.

And yet, as someone who hasn’t ridden Snowdon, but will if the mood takes me regardless of the rights of way present, I don’t care. (I would of course follow the voluntary agreement at the moment).

Really; even if doing so helps lead to all bikes being banned from it? Go you!

Remember, we only have ourselves to blame if we fall off our bikes

We did it as a large group the other Saturday (20 of us with bikes!!!) . It was busy, Much busier than I imagined. However the majority of people we passed all greeted us with smiles and giggles. (even whoops and claps on the way down 🙂 ) there were a few grumpy faces but as we were not any where near where these people were walking they were just those sorts of folks I guess.

It’s a great ride down (imo) and something to be ticked off. Take it for what it is and not a trail center or a remote pass and you’ll be fine. If you want to thrash it down, pass people closely or any other such nonsense then I cant see why people would want to do it on snowdon? Walkers shared laughs with us as I (admittedly pushed a lot of it) on the way up. It was good.

But then again you get some people that are like “I will ride it whenever and a ban wont stop me”. Or “I can ride as fast as I want its not my problem”. Possibly these are the same people that end up running over folks at high speed on local “trails” I put these sorts of people firmly in the selfish knobbers camp. Its give and take. If its not your thing then don’t do it but don’t bloody ruin it for the rest of us.

Really; even if doing so helps lead to all bikes being banned from it? Go you!

Exactly…

I can comfortably ride at moderately high speed and pass by someone missing them by a few inches, its not a hard skill if you can ride a bike.

You are kidding, right? 😐

No wonder most of the populace thinks we’re knobends.

You are kidding, right?

You trying for ‘Selective Quoter of the Day’ or something? He said he could if he wanted, but that he doesn’t.

I can comfortably ride at moderately high speed and pass by someone missing them by a few inches, its not a hard skill if you can ride a bike. I don’t partly because they might suddenly move but mainly because it’ll feel unsafe to them even if it isn’t.