The biggest problems for trail damage are –

Water
People widening the trail by riding / walking round tricky or muddy bits
Grippy boots / running shoes / tyres
Dragging of brakes / skidding – may not cause that much damage per se but is a very obvious indicator that a bike was there and suggests ‘yobbish’ behaviour.
Pedal strikes / chainring bashes don’t look good (but don’t do any real harm)

I can understand the tranquil / mindless state you can get in to just walking along, and a bike ‘ragging past’ may surprise you, but exactly the same shock gets inflicted when you run past someone so its not always about RoW.

However torn up the trail gets doesn’t really affect your enjoyment of the outdoors, it just means that excessive erosion makes some sections of walking need a bit more concentration or you get muddier. If you walk along Kinder Scout which is pretty much the soul reserve of walkers (although I’ve seen a few tyre trails) you’ll see quite quickly the affect that walkers have on the trails, particularly on the southern edge running from Grindsbrook Naze to Jacob’s ladder. The state of the path will never ruin your enjoyment of being where you are, however obnoxious behaviour by others will whether they be walkers, runners, bikers or other.

If we weren’t restricted to the bridleweays we may well get less congestion at those popular spots as we’d have other places to go to, we may also find less conflict because the trails that bikers seek out that are technical may be less appealing to walkers and vice versa.

We do need to be aware though that some people are very anti MTB and see things in black and white, however as long as we are courteous, don’t ride obnoxiously in big groups and give a negative image then we should feel free to exercise a more poetic interpretation of RoW – after all if we pushed our bikes along the footpath we’d be creating even more erosion but often thats not the point, often its a simple ‘point of principle’ argument.

One thing about the Kinder mass trespass was that it was working class ramblers wanting access to the moors overlooking where they lived that were owned by very rich people, there was quite a political thing going on as well. As others have said we do have pretty good legal access so doing a mass trespass would make us look like spoilt brats.

Another way of looking at it is if the powers that be were really that bothered about cheeky riding, surely they’d try harder to stop it?

I like the idea of a ‘soul reserve’, but I’m guessing you meant ‘sole preserve’…

All hail Pieface. good points well made

In particular i agree about boot tread, i got new boots recently after finally giving up on totally bald ones, my first thought was “yey grip, oh how i have missed thee!” but given the recent weather, i got to the bottom of a steep grass section and looking round for the dog and saw, like a good mtb tyre on a locked up wheel, i had in places torn the turf from the surface under neither. I now pay more attention top my walking style.

I now also, follow on from trail maintenance knowledge kicka drainage ditch in puddle when possible, to make things better. Stuff like that from everyone would make all our paths and trails better.

I’m not saying that locals have some sort of right, moral or otherwise, to ride local footpaths, they’re on the ground and marked on the maps, usually, anyone can ride them, it’s just that locals tend to know where they are.

There’s nothing stopping anyone from doing the same thing, but the mags and the guidebook writers can’t publicise them. Which is why I’m fine with the current rights of way system although it is, of course, utterly ridiculous and bears no relation to suitability for use or sustainability.

The difference between us and pre-war ramblers is that there are – generally – no game-keepers to beat us up or point shot-guns at us, which was what it was all about. No prison for trespassing. Bar the odd disapproving look, in the real world, with a bit of common sense, we’re pretty much free to ride where we want ime.

Anyway…

It’s dissapointing that many MTB’ers don’t realise that many of the “cheeky” routes they use, actually carry unrecorded cycle rights and are perfectly legal. Trailbikers spent decades researching and claiming higher rights on routes. Many of these claims simply weren’t processed due to pressure from wealthy and influential landowners. Those same claims were then victim to the NERC act of 2006. What’s this got to do with cycling? A large proportion of those claims have been totally dismissed due to a clause in the NERC act that retrospectively invalidates the lawfull use of motorcycles on these routes from being counted towards dedication of a lower (ie restricted byway) class of route. Trailbikers had lost the routes due to NERC anyway, but those with vested interests ensured that the rights were lost to mountainbikers as well. Why? because a Restricted Byway is a Carriageway in law (even though motorvehicles can’t use most of them) and this means landowners cant plough them, gate them, or rip out adjacent hedges. What’s worse is that organisations such as the CTC supported the introduction of this legislation that’s denied access for mountainbikers. Worse still the effect of the act means it’s much, much harder to claim a route than ever before. Prior to this one could simply find the relevant historicall evidence and submit a list of the supporting documents (usually held in county records office) with the application. The legislation now requires every document to be copied and submitted with the application and strict standards for mapping etc. I guess the CTC were either incpompetent and this is an unintended result or they sold off MTB rights as a trade off for persecuting Trailbikers and securing some SUSTRANS money – they are all about roadbikes after all.

Fed up with the remainig 1% of acccess in the Peaks left open to them being threatened, the Trailbikers had a protest of their own on the Kinder anniversary:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/trailbikers-follow-in-the-footsteps-of-kinder-scouts-original-trailblazers-7676013.html

I think this is the main point – a lot of ramblers have their backs up about mountain bikers, and every time someone screeches past without a word, it reinforces that. A cheery “hi” will go a long way to diluting any tensions there.

I think you’ve said something similar in the past, I agree 100%. I’d much rather have the status quo than legal free access to footpaths to all riders. Opening everything up would create a massive influx of riders, increased erosion and more accidents, plus the newfound sense of entitlement means a lot of riders would be unapologetic. All of this would heighten tensions between riders and walkers.

The other thing I wonder about – there are two types of footpath: Sometimes tracks are designated footpaths for prevention of erosion, and to allow walkers to have a quiet wander. Whereas other tracks I reckon are only footpaths by virtue of their size, and the fact that it’s basically too tight / steep for horses (I.e. they couldn’t really be designated a bridleway). I believe this second type could be opened up to riders. However, there are plenty of riders at the more ‘casual’ end of the spectrum that would struggle with this sort of track and should probably stick to bridleways. Reclassifying everything would cause problems for them.

Mass trespass will not work IMO without the sympathy of the majority of the public and you won’t get that.