Yorkshire might be God’s own country for cyclists, but not everyone feels that way. In recent weeks, riders in the Aire Valley have come under attack from a local park group and a councillor over their use of St Ives Estate, Bingley. But as ever, the headlines don’t tell the whole story.
In an emotively-written article for the Bradford Telegraph and Argus, Pam Laking, the chair of the Friends of St Ives, raised concerns over the general conduct of mountain bikers on the estate.
The tone of the article can only be described as inflammatory, with Mrs Laking alleging that a group of mountain bikers harassed horse riders, threatening “If you don’t get out of the way we’ll ram the horses”. She also says of mountain bikers “They tend to be so aggressive and unpleasant – it’s not about enjoying riding a bike in the countryside or appreciating nature, it’s just about competing against themselves to go faster and harder on difficult terrain.” Unfortunately the agenda of the friends group has been taken up by local Conservative councillor Simon Cooke, who raised concerns about cyclists “speeding” in a council meeting.
The 550-acre park is well-used by mountain bikers and is also the start of the Calder/Aire link route, a 17-mile long-distance bridleway. It also hosted some of the seminal NEMBA downhill and XC races in the early 1990s. Despite this, the Friends of St Ives (whose website doesn’t give a single mention to cycling in the park) have been vocally opposed to mountain biking for some time. 
In 2012, volunteer trail building group SingletrAction were approached by Bradford Metropolitan District Council, with a view to developing some formal mountain bike trails in the outer margins of the estate. These would have provided mountain bikers with a challenging, purpose-build alternative to bridleways through the park, and let younger or newer riders and horse riders miss out a section of busy road. The main intention behind the development was to move mountain bikers away from family hot spots in the estate centre, particularly the Coppice Pond area, the children’s play area and other more heavily used areas . Most of the new trails SingletrAction proposed were multi user trails intended for all, and would have had gates or other speed control measures at intersections.
The representative from Friends of St Ives informed the group that it was “only a matter of time before a child was killed“. When Jason asked her how many incidents or near misses there had been, her reply was “none yet”.
Construction started on a short section of trail, but objections from the Friends of St Ives ultimately caused the project to be abandoned. In a statement on their website in January 2014, SingletrAction said: “The lead Councillor with the portfolio for parks, woodlands, leisure etc. met with Friends of St Ives in December to try and negotiate some sort of compromise with them. The outcome was that no compromise could be reached at this time”.
Sadly it was obvious from an early stage that the Friends didn’t want any mountain bike trails on the estate. Volunteer and SingletrAction member Jason Ashworth recalls one of the initial site visits, attended by different user groups, at which the representative from Friends of St Ives informed the group that it was “only a matter of time before a child was killed”. When Jason asked her how many incidents or near misses there had been, her reply was “none yet”.
It’s hard to escape the conclusion that had the intended trails been built, and mountain bikers had been attracted away from the busier centre of the park, then these reported conflicts would probably have been considerably reduced. The park would also have benefited from the attention of a group who took ownership, maintained the trails, dealt with MTB issues, and litter picked, as SingletrAction do at all their other locations across the region.
As one one of the lead volunteers on the St Ives project says: “If we had been allowed to finish the job we started, at a cost of thousands of volunteer man hours, I would have an answer to the question that I’m asked the most as a rider: do you know of anywhere safe, other than the canal, that I can take my child cycling?”
There is still interest within the mountain biking community to develop these trails, should the Friends want to engage and resolve their issues amicably. SingletrAction also suggest a novel solution: that local mountain bikers join the Friends of St Ives. Proactive involvement from riders could help resolve some of the issues between park users, while improving the estate for everyone. As Jeremy Sainter, SingletrAction’s chairman puts it, “Let’s try winning over some hearts and minds.”
Note: This story was originally published on 26 November, but was withdrawn to give the committee of SingletrAction the opportunity to comment.
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“These SCUM don’t understandie decency, as such, CONFISCATE their bikes upon apprehension & crush them; it’s the only thing they understandie !!” -Comedy gold in the comments there.
The sooner England gets proper access legislation the better. Living in Scotland it’s easy to forget just how ridiculous the situation down south is until I read news articles like this.
The paddlers have it even worse!
Its a shame when a few give a bad impression I always slow for horse riders and pedestrians. But then I’m not on Strava trying to better my last run or someone else’s. On shared Bridleways we should be considerate and courteous to other users. This usually leads to better more constructive attitudes towards us bikers.
The few riders do help spoil things, as does an inappropriate and selfish attitude from anyone.
The only way to resolve this is to work together – not them and us, over statement and aggression.
Please let there be way more riders at the next meeting, all with cake and a smile to support the friends…
All the more upsetting when you think that St. Ives was such a big part of early UK mountainbiking. I hope it gets a mention in the upcoming film 😉
Who would have thought it, bikers who would rather get gravel rash than scratch the paintjob on their beloved bikes wanting to ram a half tonne beast that could kick their skull to bits as well as damaging the bike you’ve saved up for all year and more. I suppose, bulled up by this, they grew three heads, ate several locals, then hot-tailed down Alter Lane ready to ambush the No 727 bus heading to Bingley, or …..perhaps just a biased story to elicit support for banning bikes? – the horse rider had reported it to the Friends of St Ives but wasn’t named.
I tackled the councillor a couple of days after this was reported in the local rag and discussed this with him – he claims he was supporting everyone using the trails responsibly. I use these trails regularly and like most places, people are usually courteous and give and take (ie there’s no bother) just like slofox says. However there are bad cyclists, bad horseriders (I’ve had to dive into bushes to avoid galloping halfwits), and bad pedestrians (you know, the walkers who insist on blocking the entire path and ask where your bell is). Maybe I’ll enquire more about Friends of St Ives – we have to ensure that the majority is represented, not just those with a ‘me only’ attitude.
The comments section on the article is quite entertaining, some serious keyboard warriors!
I found this guy who has his website as his username
http://mjvande.nfshost.com/
So I had a look (Serious Mr Anti-Cyclist) and whilst I can see they have concerns for the environment the author has decades of anti-cycling emails and research linked, plus this beauty of google images,
http://mjvande.nfshost.com/overview.htm
I think this person just searches for anything cycling related to lay into it online…
FoSI website is here:
http://www.friendsofstives.org.uk/
and constitution here:
http://www.friendsofstives.org.uk/images/FOSIconstitution.pdf
and therein Section 5:
5.0 Membership of the Group shall be open to anyone with an interest in preserving and enhancing the Estate for
the benefit of environmental, ecological, historical, educational and recreational purposes or with a general interest in furthering the objectives of the Group.
I genuinely encourage riders to join FoSI and make a positive contribution to their work on the Estate and to demonstrate that riders are just people, like walkers, parents, horse riders and various other legitimate users.
SingletrAction had a plan for relatively small scale works to locate some interesting trails in parts of the Estate that the BMBC manager thought were well suited. The plans were also to build some new sections of trail that could take riders off less suitable paths and help manage pinch points or points of “conflict” so as to make the place better for all.
If someone wants to take it back on for or maybe as us then they would be welcome to discuss it.