[Closed] Pay to play & Trail tax

The linky doesnt work.

In the modern world, it's difficult to fight any battle without funds.

It's complicated and fraught with difficulties but I do see the need for an organisation with money. This is coming from someone who prefers natural rights of way to purpose built trail centres.

Not sure I'd donate to fund more man made trails as I disagree with that being the future of MTBing.

If it was to fund campaigning for open access across the existing rights of way network then that's a different story.

I don't think it says anything about funding man made trails does it?

Working linky;

http://kofthep.com/2015/09/29/money-makes-the-wheels-go-round/

Dirt used to talk from time to time about trail tithing- that was mostly about digging time but it's a similiar concept, give X amount of your riding time to the trails.

I'm all for it tbh, I don't make cash contributions to mtb other than parking etc and obviously buying tons of crap, but I "donate" a fair amount of time and work, same idea. But so many people are mortally offended at the idea of paying £5 parking to ride a million pound trail centre, or complain bitterly when their favourite trail is closed but would never lift a finger to maintain it. There's a hell of a lot of entitlement in mountain biking.

I don't think it says anything about funding man made trails does it?

I assumed that's what they were talking about given they said the money would buy a lot of "spades and wheelbarrows"??

Great idea, especially the bit about local money going to local trails (for local people) with the added bonus that places with lots of bikers will get progressively more trails money. And will be discouraged from driving anywhere to ride their bike.

And for the record I would rather pay money than with labor, I can ride a bike but permanent injury makes spade and saws etc pretty dangerous.

Ah right. Having cleared out drainage ditches on 'natural' trails they were the tools we used so I just read it that way

poisonspider - Member

I assumed that's what they were talking about given they said the money would buy a lot of "spades and wheelbarrows"??

there's a heck of a lot of maintenance involved taking care of some popular 'natural' trails...

Pook - Member
Ah right. Having cleared out drainage ditches on 'natural' trails they were the tools we used so I just read it that way

That's very commendable however I really doubt that's what they meant.

Even if they did, I'd much rather have access to all trails than just better drained versions of the ones we have already.

Interesting idea. I'd happily cough up some readies to get sympathetic repairs done to key trails where needed. 🙂

Oooh. Could we also get a little paper disc to stick on our handlebars so when ramblers get arsey we can say we've paid for the path they're walking on? 😉

Oooh. Could we also get a little paper disc to stick on our handlebars so when ramblers get arsey we can say we've paid for the path they're walking on?

If you've paid for the trail to be built you can tell them to get the **** off and on to one of the thousands of footpaths they have exclusive use of!!

There's a hell of a lot of entitlement in mountain biking.

This has needed to be said for a while now....riders turn up at man made trail centres, contribute nothing it terms of payment to ride them...do all they can to avoid carpark charges and then ride smugly away on a bike costing several thousand pounds.

Maybe its because MTBing is an outdoor pursuit?...maybe its the health benefit?...maybe its the non polluting aspect of it?...either way it seems to give a lot of riders a holier than thou attitude and trying to get money from someone who wants to ride their bike is like getting blood from a stone.

The usual response is 'I don't ride trail centres'....fine, this doesn't apply to you then....other times people say 'if I had to pay I wouldn't go there'...fine, p**s off and try and find some natural trails, you'll be back in no time!

What I would happily contribute to is a campaign for open access laws in England and Wales much like Scotland, that would do wonders for getting people out and about and taking the strain off trail centres.

This has needed to be said for a while now....riders turn up at man made trail centres, contribute nothing it terms of payment to ride them...do all they can to avoid carpark charges and then ride smugly away on a bike costing several thousand pounds.

Let's face it, a lot of the new skool MTBers are just tossers really.

I constantly feel guilty about not doing more than paying for parking where I go riding, but the suggestion sounds complicated to me.

Massive potential for unhappiness over allocation of money, and classing one cause as being more worthy than another. (Trust me, I'm an accountant!) People who donate will also feel an element of ownership to the money, so would get disenfranchised if they don't think it's working well for them.

I think a direct payment model like we see for parking would be simpler and probably work better. Areas are given references, which can then be used to give money directly to those who maintain that area. Could be done simply via PayPal.

Massive potential for [accountants] unhappiness over allocation of money, and classing one cause as being more worthy than another. (Trust me, I'm an accountant!)

Just clarifying there

I'm a pikey so come from a No dig No ride background.

Golfing Dentists don't. those fannies love to pay for stuff. solution solved 😉

Erm - it's not normally the accountants who are unhappy! They're just doing their job, which is usually doing what the boss wants to happen. It's the people who are impacted by the allocation of funds who end up getting emotional...

I remember IMBA UK trying but not really getting anywhere.

Maybe they were ahead of their time, maybe that time is now. Annual membership for £50 or a £100 would be no hardship for a number of people on here. Even at that, the price per ride would be pretty low.

1, the funds wouldn't be for trail centres or natural trails specifically, the local advocacy group would have free choice on what they could use them for

2, everyone saying they would pay to get open access implemented should join the CTC. Despite being predominantly road based they have been suggesting that footpaths should be opened up to cyclist for years and are one of the main groups behind Open MTB

3, people really should look into understand the legalities of riding on footpaths before complaining that you cant

Agree about the legalities of riding footpaths but where they are can also have an impact on whether/when you might ride them as well.

're the ctc, rightly or wrongly, I'd feel more supportive of a group focusing on mountain bikers. It feels like both ctc and bc view us as the poor cousin.

3, people really should look into understand the legalities of riding on footpaths before complaining that you cant

What do you mean by this?

That it's not really that 'illegal' and we should ride them anyway (which I do, frequently)?

Or

It's a bad thing and we shouldn't do it?

Christ you lot are dull.

Onzadog...

Where and when applies as much to bridleways as it does footpaths. There are loads of overly busy bridleways and loads of quiet footpaths but I think we're on the same page.

I support the CTC mainly as I ride road and they provide insurance, their MTB work is secondary but I think its a bit foolish to bin off all the work they've already done as its taken years, starting from scratch puts us on the back foot.

We're all accountants 😛

I've said for a long time I'd be happy to contribute to more trails and the upkeep of the ones we have, but here lays the problem.

I live in South Wales, as far as the various quangos that run the Principality are concerned they'd rather we didn't build 'natural trails' (a phrase I think is a bit of an oxymoron but there you go) they'll turn a blind eye to most, unless you start building massive shady looking things out of wood and then stamping your website all over them (I'm looking at you Aberdare MTB) but if you started getting organised and whatnot they won't be able to.

So we have all the trail centres and of course BPW.

BPW is a commercial venture, 'pay to play' is very much part of it - it's going to cost you £30 ish for a day on the uplift, £6 or so if you're prepared to push/ride up, plus whatever you want to spend in the excellent Café - I think it's good value, but if I went every week I'd be broke.

The trail centres are a bit different, they were built usually by local authorities way-back-when in conjunction with FC. Hugely updated and upgraded a couple of years ago thanks to Cognation which was a joint Welsh Assembly / EU project - so Council Tax payers in the area and everyone in the EU who pays taxes paid for them. They're maintained by Natural Resources Wales. They don't take donations for the trails - they also won't let you build anything nor maintain anything outside of official 'build days' which are rare.

The trails are free to use (tax contributions aside) but you've usually got to pay for parking - which varies from site to site.

Yes some people are a bit dickish and will avoid paying for parking, it's not a generational thing, or a 'new rider' thing IMHO, some people would just rather not pay for anything - personally I think their is a certain mentality in some sections of Welsh society which says that the state should provide everything and they rarely see the connection between tax revenue and public spending - but they're by no means the majority.

However, it's worth noting - just because you pay to park to ride, it doesn't mean you're paying to ride, you're paying to park - for example - Cwmcarn original trails built by FC, new trails built by Cognation - maintained by Natural Resources Wales - the Carpark, was completely rebuilt as part of Cognation with EU and Welsh Assembly money - BUT it's operated by Caerphilly Council, none of the money they take for parking is routed back to the trail network, it's a completely different branch of funding.

I think this sort of almost charitable 'pay to play' system might work in other countries where you're allowed to go out in the wilderness and build fun stuff to ride - but here at least, it's not really feasible - if you really nail it down we're all paying 20% on everything we buy for biking into the 'tax pot' it's up to Government (local and national) to decide how much of that, if any goes into Mountain Bike facilities.

I would and often do pay to play, I have no problem with it, as long as its cheap enough to be accessible for all. I can't afford the time to dig trails so I am always happy to contribute money to any trail digging ventures.

Supporting openmtb doesn't mean starting from scratch and dumping ctc and all their work. Why doesn't openmtb pick up where they left off in the hope they can drive it forwards by virtue of being mtb focused. It would be nice to think that ctc might still offer support and guidance as it still benefits cyclist overall.

poisonspider - What do you mean by this?

Unless a specific by-law has been passed, it is not illegal to ride on footpaths.

Walkers have the legal right to be on a footpath, cyclists do not. This does not mean its illegal despite what most people like to believe.

I'm in the process of writing a clarification article which will hopefully be published on at least one trail advocacy group's website, I'm just struggling to structure it into a readable piece.

Onzadog...

CTC are a big part of Open MTB already

CTC are a big part of Open MTB already

Does that mean supporting openmtb or ctc result in the same benefits for trail access?

If so, that's great news. Take me as an example. Never thought to support ctc but the creation of openmtb has my interest. Overall, that's a win for the trails right?

I think people are going off at a tangent here. My understanding of the proposal is an [u]optional charitable donation[/u] on all bike and bike part purchases, not an enforced price hike to pay for someone's trail centre

Then the simple answer to your question is, yes, I think it's a good idea to have charitable donations when you buy bikes and bits that go to support groups working to maintain and improve access.

I also think an annual subscription to the group/body would be useful as well as I often go a year without a big spend on bikes.

Onzadog - CTC are a big part of Open MTB already
Does that mean supporting openmtb or ctc result in the same benefits for trail access?

If so, that's great news. Take me as an example. Never thought to support ctc but the creation of openmtb has my interest. Overall, that's a win for the trails right?

Sort of, yes. Only difference is Open MTB is free to support, CTC costs you, but the you do get a lot of stuff back and that money is used to support your access in some way

Does that mean supporting openmtb or ctc result in the same benefits for trail access?

If so, that's great news. Take me as an example. Never thought to support ctc but the creation of openmtb has my interest. Overall, that's a win for the trails right?

The are working very closely together (with both BC and CTC) in order to try and improve off road lobbying power

an example being whats happened under the [url= http://e-activist.com/ea-action/action?ea.client.id=1689&ea.campaign.id=41461&ea.tracking.id=CP ]#Trailsforwales[/url] banner

The structure of open MTB isn't entirely settled yet - however its unlikely that anyone is looking for a national membership organisation (ie. not IMBA-UK mk2) - possibly more like an umbrella that more local groups (e.g.. singletraction, ride sheffield, PDMBA etc.) work under.

PS, I don't think its the role of the rider to fund trails through some voluntary donation either - I'm convinced that the industry itself needs to do a whole lot more

There was a great interview with Vernon Felton - Senior Editor, Bike Magazine a while ago:

[i] cried when Gwin won that World Cup race without a chain. Cried like some giant, man-baby, it was so beautiful. I can't get enough of racing... Hell, it's why I named my first daughter ''John Tomac''. That might make her dating life awkward, but we all have our crosses to bear. Yep, love me some racing, but I also believe the bike industry's biggest mistake was to sink so much money into professional racing for so many years and, relatively speaking, so little money into trail advocacy and development. How many companies had team managers, masseurs, fancy big rigs, World Cup teams and national series squads? Now, how many companies fielded full-time advocacy directors? I can count them on one hand - that's downright shitty.

Racing is inspiring, but all the shiny trophies in the world did nothing to grow our trail systems or increase access to the many places we still can't ride. If Julien Absalon wins his seventh World Cup Overall title this year, will it actually make mountain biking any better for you?

We're in a better, more balanced, place these days. I see things like the Bell Built grant program and I know we're on the right track. Still, we need to increase our investment in the one thing that actually makes riding better for riders - trails.
[/i]

Zero wouldn't pay a cent and wouldn't support it either.

I would

I hardly ever buy anything new, 0.05% of a set of pads wouldn't be much but I'd doubt I'd notice the donation even if it was a hefty purchase

What would it pay for? There are defined responsibilities for maintenance or RoW and trail centres are by and large commercial operations. Neither of which I feel any real responsibility to fund out of the goodness of my heart to be honest.

I can see a possible demand to pay for lobbying of an overarching organisation but I'd want it to be a damn sight more transparent than openmtb is at the moment. And the problem with lobbying for a disparate group like mtbers is that we often don't agree on what we want so someone

Just saying that putting money into a pot would be good is all well and good but the moment you do that then you need someone to look after it, and somewhere to keep it and usually someone to audit it. There comes a cost of just having money.

I think the author makes a valid point. Companies are making money plenty from selling MTBs and related kit. Contributing to trails would not only be nice, but could also result in them making more money!
Sadly, I think all they'd do is pass the cost on to the consumer.

If it's a voluntary charitable donation collected at the point of sale then how would this be a cost that is passed to the consumer?

It's not a tax on manufacturing and sales

If it's a reasonable trail, then I'd have no problem paying.
In the whitewater kayak world, we have lots of natural rivers that are free, but also a few man made courses that you pay for - the Nene WWC cost £12 for Sunday afternoons - they are always busy on sunny days.
Man made are nearly always available, even if the nearby river is not, they are safe, whereas a river is not always safe, you can go round and try the tricky bits again, showers and changing rooms available afterwards.
A little like MTBing at a trail centre.
Some people wont mind paying, others will carry on using the natural (free) trails,

... while others will ride the natural trails which have been campaigned for access to, maintained by and protected by groups who can afford to thanks to grant funding from this pot. I know groups who would really benefit from access to this kind of funding even if it's just paying for printing and binding!