a while ago CG posted about her local council making bridleways useable for veryone and i said it was a bad idea as it would sanitise the trails, well today on a ride i found my local council has had a similar idea, this being the result, the project is on going

never the gnarliest of trails but with a shortage of bridleway near me it make a nice pootle on some genuinely rare for this area, singletrack, i'm a bit shocked really, so we've gone from 2 tyre widths track to a motorway
DON'T LET THIS HAPPEN TO YOUR TRAILS!!

Cambridge are mad for this

something about a 2m thing

cheer up, it looks just like the peak district now…

……… and there was me thinkng that he councils didn't have enough money! Obvously they've got loads gong spare if they can afford this sort of 'thing'.

It looks better than half the roads round here

Where's that RD?

Councillor Ron Davies has recently done a bit of this around our way on trails we've been using for years, and gets a bit stroppy if he sees bikers on them.Probably worried we might catch him and his mates "looking for badgers".

Bizarre that the landowner would agree to it.

interesting, no crossfall, the vegetation on the low side is higher than the track and no use of dgalumps (drainage lumps) to get the water off……it'll be in a worse state by the time you've had a few summer downpours!
Hey ho money well spent, just spent an afternoon visiting a site thats already showing signs of water erosion after only being down 3-4 months!

who is this supposed to improve things for?

I would have thought the local horse riders would be up in arms about that, long open grassy stretch to gallop up and down on replaced with hard crushed stone?
Is it a farm access track?

You're looking glimpse in to the future! Take heart in that once built they will never maintain it and nature will eventually do its thing.

Cambridgeshire County Council have done lots of this round here.

One particular bridleway used to be just a nice grassy lane, with a muddy section at the lowest point.

They had some money to improve countryside access for the new town of Northstowe. So they ripped it up, dumped a mixture of rubble, bits of plastic and general crud on it, covered it in gravelly crud and earth and then waited for Winter.

Winter duly came and it's now a churned up mess. I used to be able to cycle along without putting a foot down (it's only a bridleway next to a field) but that's impossible now. The middle section after some rain is just glooptastic mudfest madness.

This is a photo of an earlier section where it's actually passable. It's just ugly.

I've come to suspect that the people who work in Cambridgeshire County Council actively dislike the countryside.

EDIT: they cause way more damage than MXers ever could.

it starts as an access track then just becomes a bridleway, out of the 8 miles length i'd say 1/2 of it is now like the above with plans to make it 100%, i spoke to 2 folks walking it and both were a bit bewildered by it, there's been no consultation and it's not a sustrans cycleway or anything, must have cost 1000'S!

Have something similar up Edinburgh way recently – they've been tarmac-ing the Union Canal towpath near Hermiston. Used to be compacted gravel/earth with grassy bits, nicely drained – now flat ugly tarmac – no doubt soon to be covered in glass courtesy of the locals. Not sure who I should be complaining to, I'd rather they fixed the roads than mess up the paths.

I found something similar happening on one of 'my' trails on Wednesday. Its a bridleway, well used by horses, well drained as its chalk underneath, and not particularly rough, just what you'd expect given the horses. But they are busy covering it with a chalky rubble, and cutting back the trees. Looks like the're planning to get larger traffic along it. Of course, come winter the new surface will become a horrible gooey mess, far worse than at the moment. 🙄

hampshire cc have done something similarhere

i'm assuming it's unfinsihed seeing as the digger is parked blocking the BW 🙄 but it was barely ridable last night; imagine 4 inch deep uncompacted chalk rubble. it was a bit muddy/ churned up before but it didn't need this!

Classic council rules – "we've got £150k left in the ROW budget, if we don't use it by 1st April we lose it"

Edric 64

so cripples and window lickers can have access….This inclusive access thing has gone to far the government need to realize that some people are just not able to do some things

like realise some people are less fortunate than they are, maybe a reasonable point but nil points on style

That path is so cripples and window lickers can have access .They will tarmac the path up Snowdon next and put in a handrail.This inclusive access thing has gone to far the government need to realize that some people are just not able to do some things

delicately put. 😆

If that was my local riding RD, I'd quite possibly kill myself anyway, so a bit of hardcore covering the track would be of little consequence.

Surely it's predescesor can't really be described as singletrack. Can it?

Interesting piece of 'singletrack' you've got there…what with all those rocks, roots and….turns.

You are a lucky guy.

😉

IGMC

better read the original post guys 🙂

anyway, roots and turns etc???

dictionary.com says…

sin·gle-track? ?/?s??g?l?træk/ Show Spelled[sing-guhl-trak] Show IPA
–adjective
1.(of a railroad or section of a railroad's route) having but one set of tracks, so that trains going in opposite directions must be scheduled to meet only at points where there are sidings.
2.having a narrow scope; one-track: He has a single-track mind

I did. It's just the edge of a muddy field.

It is a local authority's responsibility to maintain bridleways to ensure that all users can access them, so they are stuck in a tricky position there. 'Improve' it and annoy some riders, or leave it and get hit by the wrath of the red socks.

It is a local authority's responsibility to maintain bridleways to ensure that all users can access them, so they are stuck in a tricky position there.

Is it?, I always thought it was the responsibility of the landowner to maintain bridleway/footpath so that it was 'useable' i.e. free of obsructions, not ploughed up etc. Rights of way team are just to ensure this is being done.

As has been said numerous times they'll never maintain that, it'll be back to normal in no time!
Why don't they spend there money (and the same team of people!) fixing bloody potholes instead!!

Gary – The council did the same to a bridleway near me about 18 months ago. They widened it and covered the surface with a gravel made up of stones as big as a raspberry. The difference with this track to the one in your picture though is it points downhill and there are twists and turns along the length. It's a popular BW with local riders and because of the gradient and the turns the bridleway surface has cut up nicely to make it entertaining again.

The bridleway now has berms in the corners with braking bumps before you enter the corners, imagine the sort of surface you find at trail centres.

It seems to me that somebody must have permissive access to drive along the bridleway in your picture that has been 'improved'. A few trips across that in a Disco and it wont be so flat and feature-less.

Have you considered that it may have been a local farmer or resident who has done this and not the council?

i don't think it's for vehicle access as i counted 6 brand new metal gates (the type easily used by horses/walkers/cyclists etc, but not a vehicle) that have replaced the rickety wooden "style" type ones that were there before

FFS do they learn NOTHING?!?!

They destroyed the ridgeways (archaeologically significant) original state like this.

After they graded (like above) it you could drive a normal passenger car along it, people did and it was not uncommon to then find burnt out cars all the way along it. oh and then rave culture sprang up and to prevent illegal raves in the middle of nowhere they had to make the routes impassable…

So then they had to find a way to make the route still passable for agricultural traffic but impassable for passenger cars. The "softened" areas, dug them down, buried porous matting and they tried different soil types, where the Ridgeway joined any metaled road.

Then after some years had passed and these works blended in a "walking group" pronounced these areas to be "unacceptable damage" and used this and other examples* to ensure that 99% of the UK's national trail network be closed to motor vehicles.

*yes some areas were damaged by irresponsible use, there's always a few idiots in every pursuit.

Now I no longer drive a 4×4, I used to and sometimes I'd take less able bodied mates out in it just so they could get away from the urban environment, go and eat lunch miles from anyone or anything and feel just a bit free, it was good. That said what you're witnessing is the selfish, greedy, bureaucratic, boys own club bastardization that is slowly and doggedly going to make an ugly mess across what we once knew to be the countryside. And then in time when people start to think "oh that little road has always been there", say in about 20 years, planning permission won't be too hard to wangle as access won't be an issue and all those cronies will be able to retire from westminster back to a 'sanitized' countryside in their nice new hideaway safe in the knowledge that they have a couple of ransom strips set aside.

not that I'm bitter, oh no, vogon bastards.

+1 Mr Nutt, Ridgeway has been a joke for a long time.

BTW were you Mad Mac McNutty in a former life?

I'm not Scottish if that helps? 😀

That's a pretty good rant there Mr Nutt, but I think you need a few more mis-spellings and a few choice swear words to really show you mean it.

2/10

Who are 'they' btw? Are 'they' the same people that did the work near Cambridge and 'they' also did what you describe on the Ridgeway some years ago? I didn't think Cambridgeshire County Council did work for Berkshire.

It's all a massive conspiracy 😉

That's Warwick to Kenilworth, isn't it? Actually, Kenilworth to Warwick in the direction of the photo. It's part of one of my regular rides, which used to be a real fitness challenge in the winter just because of the soft going – now it's just like riding along a road. A huge waste of money in the current climate (in any climate really) – and when we are being told that councils are strapped for cash it just beggars belief.

yup Warwick to Kenilworth, as you'll know there is a dearth of rideable stuff in the area and even as said above it's not exactly trail centre standard you ride what you have and make the best of it, now even that is being taken away.

btw where else do you go on your rides, be cool to make a loop rather than out and back

its all tied into the highways agency… …the truth is out there 😉

See if you can find out what materials they are using – there have been reported instances of carcinogens leeching out of cinder paths and the like…

Have something similar up Edinburgh way recently – they've been tarmac-ing the Union Canal towpath near Hermiston. Used to be compacted gravel/earth with grassy bits, nicely drained – now flat ugly tarmac – no doubt soon to be covered in glass courtesy of the locals. Not sure who I should be complaining to, I'd rather they fixed the roads than mess up the paths.

That would be British Waterways rather than the council though surely? I avoid the canal as I can't be bothered battling with walkers at weekends, but I know another cyclist who is looking forward to a clean smooth surface on his hybrid.

It'll be back to singletrack in a year. Unless you've got thousands of people using it the grass will grow back (happened near me).

The biggest tragedy is the complete waste of money that could have been used so much more constructively. Well I suppose that's what councils are for.

We've had the opposite in South Warks / North Ox. Last autumn a number of the well established and hardened up field edge paths were ploughed up right to the hedge – completely in contravention of the country code. I complained to the council, who are pretty responsive on path maintenance, but not much they could do really as the damage was done. Thank goodness it was a well frozen winter, and now there is enough crop showing to make it rideable even in the wet.
And one of our favourite single track sections in the woods on Edge Hill has been ripped up by forestry work. I tried to report this also, but on checking the map found it wasn't even marked as a ROW. Oops. I think we'll carry on using it though 😈

Damn, I always thought MTBs were morally superior as we don't need someone to lay miles of tarmac to facilitate our sport. But this sucks ass!