I'm very lucky to have a bunch of riding right out of the door – not bad for southern England. It's not very technical but a pleasant set of bridleways, wooded tracks with public access and official BOATs (byways open to all traffic) with lots of steep ups and downs interlinkable with a very minimal amount of country lane. It makes for a good variety of lung openers when there is not the time to search further afield.

This morning on a 2hr loop I got back to the next village north of mine on the way back home and my heart sank. Parked in the village were about 25 very muddy 4x4s that according to the stickers all over them were from some London based off road club clearly down for the weekend on a club rally. From that point back to my home is 4 miles of BOAT. Strangely this boat is the most tricky part of the whole ride with a couple of spots I am yet to clean without dabbing. It's now **** – it looks like the **** Somme! What was a rooty dust bowl only a few weeks back is now unrecognisable and quite impassable with massive trenches. The really tricky section on a severe gradient with substantial chalk drops and pits now stinks of diesel – one of them must have slipped on the chalk and ruptured their tank or a fuel line on the rocks (got to say I was quietly impressed they attempted it- it must be massively tricky to drive).

Upshot – I think that'll be it for that route until the spring now. I know they were perfectly legally entitled to be there, share and share alike and all that; but why not come here when it was nice and dry for weeks on end and not wait until after 2 weeks of rain to **** it right up for the rest of us.

They are entitled to be there, but they have damaged the trails making them impassable to cyclists and difficult for horses and pedestrians. Map, date and photograph all the trail damage. Find out which club it is. Suggest to your council that the trails are repaired, but that they should bill the club for the repairs to the trail.

Worth a try innit!? 😛

Yes, we have our share of similar c-nts up in the Shire. Typically of the 'Garage Owner' type…ghastly….was having the exact same conversation with fellow mtber only yesterday.

If it has an engine then it shouldn't be there…I don't accept the by-road/law thing as the situation has changed to the almost extreme.

On a safety issue,

Was returning to car prk from Stanage High Neb end with my lads (5yrs) couple of weeks back when we all had to stand aside AGAIN for yet another group of 'Off Roaders' (Off-enders if you ask me…)to pass us by. As the lead 'wreck' passed us a large stone shot out across from under the tyre and into the trees….approximately 2 metres away. Could have been an A&E visit for someone.

Don't get me started on the groups of Moto-crossers!! And I used to be a biker!!

Can’t they just stick to designated circuits? I mean the levels of horsepower they’re blasting is simply too much for these old Pit-pony trails.

convert – where exactly was this? I think the problem is the reclassification of some BOATs to Restricted Byways so therefore they have less tracks to use which means overuse/trashing of existing ones.

I do however feel that is pretty shocking of a club to publicise an event involving 25 vehicles. They just drive in, do their thing, then drive out again – no personal responsibility at all, no thought of other folk using the trail.

We really do need a voice to represent us.

Have you seen my recent post re Hampshire Trailwatch?

http://www.singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/for-hampshire-and-surrey-riders

Trailwatch seems like a good idea. I know some 4×4 owners who meet regularly in groups of 2 or maybe 3 vehicles so 25 seems excessive .

i was chatting to a rambler about the mess MTB tyres do on footpaths, boogy bits widening paths trying to go round , churning up the grass …well you have all seen it done eh …suddenly when someone does something legally to a trail you are outraged ..perhaps we should get our own house in order before demonising others legitimate use of the countryside?

+1 for Junkyard's comments above (Poor grammar notwithstanding!)

I very rarely ride on footpaths so will not dismount from my very high horse. 🙄

All other trail users are affected by the mess that 4wd's and MX'ers leave behind. Try talking to horse riders and ask them what they think! Try talking to ramblers and ask them what they think, dog walkers etc etc.

They make far more mess than any other user, apart from my horse's ar$e obviously. 😉

know they were perfectly legally entitled to be there

I ride a lot of the trails you do Convert and I expect I'll see the evidence of the 4x4ers big day out tomorrow when I go for a ride. I steer clear of the BOATs for most of the year as it's just ridiculous (though legal). What saddens me more is seeing the channels cut by the motorbikes on the bridleways at 7am on a Sunday.

IME mtbs do nothing like the damage of motorised vehicles (or horses) – maybe I'm lucky in riding relatively lightly trafficked trails (and not FPs).

what pisses me off most is how slow the f'ers go, there is one old paved road in Lancs that I was alongside a landie leaping over rocks just to get past, it may have made them feel very small to see a bike flying past

A few years back, a load of 4×4's were busy trashing a local techie BOAT, with a load of them blocking the way whilst they each waited their turn to try and clear / trash it. As I struggled to push my bike past, I made a special effort to run my bars down the side of them. Sadly its now been graded over losing the lovely rock steps, no doubt in part to thwart the 4x4s using it.

Surely a club would ensure that they do not hack people off and keep their numbers to a reasonable level? Or are they so arrogant that the thought had never crossed their mind, cos they can get away with it?

convert – did you see the Club name? I seriously think you should inform them of your views if you are able to make contact. They must adhere to a Code of Conduct or something similar?

Remember, we will have to endure their trail-trashing for the next six months. 👿

Unfortunately they have a right to be on boats and rupps and will fight their corner the same as we do over countryside access,they may view us the same way we view ramblers

Unfortunately they have a right to be on boats and rupps and will fight their corner the same as we do over countryside access,they may view us the same way we view ramblers

But we don't fight over countryside access – we do not have a voice!

And I don't have a problem with ramblers, just occasionally. 🙄

We'll have the Roadies on next, complaining about cars on their roads…

>i was chatting to a rambler about the mess MTB tyres do on footpaths, boogy bits widening paths trying to go round

Of course ramblers never walk around boggy bits on a trail do they 🙂

Some time ago, whilst chatting to a horse rider, she told me she didn't like road cyclists cos they got too close to her horse whilst on country lanes. She couldn't hear them.

My Hope hub has its uses!

Outstanding level of hypocrisy on this thread.

From who druid?

the mess MTB tyres do on footpaths

About the same impact as boots. I ride lots of little used paths and my tyres have not trashed them. It's just that on popular paths, the MTB traffic has added to the existing foot traffic, wearing the trail.

That's a general erosion problem and not the same impact as 25, 2 tonne, 200 horse power machines. I hope you can see that difference. Impact and rights get muddled. While they had every legal right, what they did caused serious impact. While I have no rights to do what I do despite having negligible impact. It's a funny old world.

is this near Walbury Hill. I did a ride at easter going from reading over over ridgeway to avebury and the next day back various routes including over walbury hill. The hard art was the boat will up to walbury hill. After 2 days riding it was very tiring either my pedals would get stuck in the ruts or I could nt stay up on the bumps. I know you could say I need to improve my skills but the whole point is this was marked as a boat and the land was quite flat and dry however so i assumed it would be an easily traversable route but as I say it was really really hard going.

Im not saying the 4×4 should not be there but if something is marked as a boat surely the route needs to up to supporting a 4×4. You would imagine hard rock base is needs not chalk and mud.

I think the differce between 4×4 and mtb is the mtb dont want to destroy the route. I think most MTB would prefer the route if it were sustainable and most southern mtber prefer riding in the summer when the mud, clay and chalk bake hard. Obviously we can cause damage riding in the mud in the winter but we dont want to do this.

However 4×4 arent interested in this. If the route had baked hard there would be no challenge it would be like driving on a road. Have to note the 4×4 are out after the rain last week. Surely for them the challenge is the difficult condition which also unfortunately lead to them destroying the road.

i was chatting to a rambler about the mess MTB tyres do on footpaths, boogy bits widening paths trying to go round , churning up the grass …well you have all seen it done eh …suddenly when someone does something legally to a trail you are outraged ..perhaps we should get our own house in order before demonising others legitimate use of the countryside?

Usually its the walkers who go wide first. Also if its that sodden the bikers tend to be off and walking.

Passed a convoy of 4wds heading towards roych clough today. Funny there seemed to be less of them about when everything was bone dry a couple of months back. Now everythings sodden and really could do without being chewed up the heards are out.

scu98rkr – avoid Walbury Hill all year, assuming you mean the Western end?

What I would really really like is for 4wd's and mx'ers, when they reach the end of a trail, to try and walk back along it, as ramblers have to. Perhaps then they will appreciate the damage they have caused.

convert – do you mean around the Petersfield area?

balls to it I was gonna post a long rambling reply about the rights of a 4×4 owner, but I've had it STW'd out of me.

RNP – go for it!

Hi, back again…..

Yes CG out the back of Petersfield – between Hawkley and Steep up to and over Ashford Hangers. I'll have a read through the other post too.

Junkyard – I was thinking about that when I wrote my initial post. You have a point to an extent but I'm pretty good about riding responsibly (I won't ride areas that prone to cutting up badly in the winter and ride where I'm meant to by law). It is interesting to have the boot on another foot though and be the "victim" when other user groups often portray us (rightly or wrongly) as the villain.

convert – from what I hear, and indeed, have seen for myself, it is a problem in that area. There's a lot of chalk down South!

cinnamon_girl – Member

RNP – go for it!

no I really cant be bothered to defend the rights of a 4×4 owner/user especially on STW.
At the end of the day, walker/ramblers want everything fume/tire track free-even the remaining 2.8% (or whatever low percentage) of vehicle access is available. NERC bill has crammed more and more vehicle users into less routes/areas so damage increases. Rouge/idiot 4×4 owners will chew the countryside up because they can-£30 fine IF you get caught.

Ultimatly there's too many people jostling for the rights of too small an area.

RNP – many mtb'ers have come from an MX'er background. I'm trying to be open-minded here (ex horse rider/runner/dog walker/walker) and am keen to hear views from mtb'ers with other interests.

Agree with you though about the small area! All the more reason why we have to work together.

given that the 4×4's have access to less than 1% of the ROW network I'm not surprised there's congestion and heavy use on the very few areas THEY ARE ALLOWED to be on.

As far as I'm concerned everyone deserves the same access rights and people should stop being so small minded and greedy.

Yep they're allowed to be there legally, the question is should they contiunue to be allowed access and what does that mean for mountain bikers if people start losing access rights?

Ultimatly there's too many people jostling for the rights of too small an area.

RNP rather hits the nail on the head there really. I my experience walkers cause the least amount of damage individually but where you get lots of people walking they can do some quite serious damage and are certainly pretty unaware of the damage they do (Junkyards point about trail widening whilst applicable to bikers is even more true of walkers).

I reckon mountain bikers are the next in the damage / intrusion stakes although there are fewer of us we do do more damage per journey than a walker. Horses are next, they can really rip up a surface when it's wet but again there are fewer of them. Next comes the MXers and then the 4 x 4 brigade. The last two have even smaller numbers of users but cause huge amounts of damage.

You have to draw the line somewhere and for me personally it's anything with an engine. The level of damage, danger to other users and generally disturbance to the countryside jumps massively as soon as an engine is factored in. Just my view and of course it's biased because I ride.

As far as I'm concerned everyone deserves the same access rights and people should stop being so small minded and greedy.

Nice idea, in reality it won't really work will it. The whole point is the activities of some impact disproportionately on others robbing them of their access rights. It's a judgement call, I've made mine above.

The whole point is the activities of some impact disproportionately on others robbing them of their access rights.

To 1% of the ROW network.

In fact, less. I'm sure the entire 1% of ROW's open to motorised traffic aren't trashed.

Additionaly, lumping all motorised vehicles into one lot isn't quite fair. I trail ride and I've yet to see a trail that's been trashed by trail bikes. It's like mountain bikes skidding, lighting up your back wheel is pointless and not done very often, if at all.

Surely a club would ensure that they do not hack people off and keep their numbers to a reasonable level?

Londoner's innit. Don't care about nobody but themselves

Its a bugger the way this group decided to run totally anti social and counter productive groups that spoil the countryside for other users. hang about , isn't there an enduro the FoD this month? Hmmmm
as an ex 4wd green laner ( ex because a city based government screwed my local and traditional recreation) and current landrover owner, as well as an active m/c trail rider I can only defend their legal right to be there. You as a cyclist have umpteen times more access. Why ride on a road? Did you complain when the local pothole were filled thus making your bumpy tarmac less fun.
However I would also love to have the personal opportunity to hurl abuse at any group that uses more than 3 or 4 vehicles in one trip. (Please name them and I will.) And thats not 3 or 4 followed by 3 or 4 10 minutes later. The whole idea is wrong and is not used by groups representing the larger responsible grren land organisations. I am afraid that your observation that they were a London group is not isolated. yet another group of totally uninformed outsiders who care nothing for the countryside or their hobby in the long term. Not unlike cycling really is it?

Finally I am afraid that this is another example of the pointless post that needs to die soon. It gets no where and causes to much ill feeling. Why not talk about positive things instead?
Anyone got a nice rigid forked 29er to show me.

It is interesting to have the boot on another foot though and be the "victim" when other user groups often portray us (rightly or wrongly) as the villain.

This was my point really. I agree lots of conflicting interests here. Even on Bridleaways hand on heart I wish they were walker/horse free so I could go even faster downhill without having ot be bale to stop for walkers blocking the entire route. We need more tolernace on all sides, wlakers, MTB, MXers 4×4 etc.

Surely a club would ensure that they do not hack people off and keep their numbers to a reasonable level?

people I give you the socially responsible ,ride where I please in any conditions with any number ….yes STW's very own, Simonfbarnes

Think there is a point that they do far more damage than any other user but walkers say this about us dont they.
there is no easy solution when one groups use impacts on others.

Can’t they just stick to designated circuits?

Sounds horribly familiar to the ramblers oppinion of trail centers?