I hope that got you attention for a bit of research. Please read on if you ride Trail Centres in Forestry Commission estate.
I am talking with the Forestry in Wales who had the Welsh Assembly make their forests 100% go where you fancy areas for the bobble hats. One would think with all that choice they would find new paths to benefit from the new opportunity that did not impact with other forest uses.
Not so I have had a number of local riders here in North Wales who ride the trail centres a lot and approached me to report / complain that they have encountered very near misses with individual or groups of pedestrians hiking against and with the flow of a route hoping I could do something to stop the danger. These reports appear to specifically identify the Marin as the most likely trail to find this. It of course does not mean the ramblers are deliberately choosing to walk mtb trails they might be walking other paths they find and stumbling across the unmarked mtb trail may choose to follow the line of least resistance unaware of the folly. However in a number of incidents riders say that they having narrowly missed a serious accident stopping to talk to the walkers some will argue because of open access they can go where they want. The Forestry claim they have had no reports of such incidents so do not know how wide an issue it is.
To be fair to FC the Marin trail is in one of the most intensively used forests anywhere. We gave up running mtb xc races in the area to the back of Gwydyr back in the 90's because every man, his wife dog, kids and transit van full of outdoor pursuit centre clients seemed to have every right and reason to pass back and to through the course during the race and the forestry appeared powerless or unwilling to control it.
I would be interested if any riders reading this who have encountered walkers on dedicated MTB trails on 'Forestry Commission' land could name the trail/forest, numbers of walkers, if you stopped to talk, were they aware it was a mtb trail, did they consider they had made a mistake being there or was it their right of way as well. Other stuff like approx date and if you formally reported it to FC would be helpful. This is of specific relevance to England and Wales I believe Scottish Access law has measures to ensure that the rights of access do not apply to dedicated mtb trail.
cheers

