These two in particuar.
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/mtb-row-research
http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/open-access-for-bikes-in-wales-proposed-two-years-ago-did-anything-happen
These look to me like very important topics, highly relevant to all mountain bikers, yet one got three replies, the other got five.

I’m not saying I’ve actually done anything constructive by posting on them, I just would have expected them to generate a bit more interest.
Is it because they make it clear that decisions are made by local and national government with little input from the people they affect and everyone feels so disengaged from politics that there’s no point wasting time on trying to influence them?
Or is it because everyone feels that, as long as no one has ever been arrested for cycling on a footpath, we might as well carry on as we are?

I file topics like that under “Important but I don’t know enough about it to offer anything constructive or even make attempt to post anything amusing”.

Other topics like “My cat ate its tail” or something similar will always generate a high post count because anyone can feel comfortable posting there without knowing much more than what a cat is.

I gave up writing on my Charge Cooker thread as it was clearly ignored… Bemusing.. I thought you’d love it on here.

Maybe the rushup edge sticky will be the catalyst for change. Maybe mountain bikers can organise a united voice on access issues. The trick is to overcome the “them and us” mentality, both with other trail users and then between “different” types of mountain biking.

Most of us focus on threads with the most potential to can get into an argument, and generally give the opportunity to vent to our pent up passive/aggressive frustration at at a world that simply refuses to acknowledge our obvious genius. This was why the internet was invented in the first place.

That and pictures of cats. So just for you buttercup….

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah

Both threads a bit “heavy”. Row campaigning on a national scale goes over most peoples heads. What seams to get people excited is local access rights, especially with evil tories thrown into the mix

I just couldn’t give a toss about either thread. The titles alone are enough to send me to sleep.

They’re not relevant to a lot of us. HTH.

I gave up writing on my Charge Cooker thread as it was clearly ignored… Bemusing.. I thought you’d love it on here.

He he – I saw that thread, i thought you’d gone bonkers towards the end and had started drinking your own wee…’just leave the crazy guy alone to talk to himself’ 😆

Being Scottish, they just get filed under “what do you mean you can’t just go wherever you want??”

You have to look at the bigger picture. Look at how much we, as mountain bikers, are considered and listened too. And look at the facilities we’ve got. Compare it to ten years ago.

On Saturday I didn’t have much time, and fancied a blast so I went to Clayton Vale where a load of new trails have been put in. Then had a play on the pump track. This is next to the velodrome and world class indoor BMX track. If I’d have had more time I could have popped over to Gisburn, or driven over to Wales to any of the selection of trail centres. Penmachno is my personal favourite.

Tonight I’m riding Cragg Quarry where the council have put a shedload of money into building some fantastic trails. If I fancied a longer ride, I could go hooning down the excellent new link trail to Lee Quarry to play on yet more brilliant trails.

Or I can just go and ride the multitude of bridleways locally. Like all mountain bikers, I wouldn’t dream of riding on footpaths obviously 😉

Overall, I don’t think we’ve much to moan about. Clearly some people do though

You lack self importance that is all, become part of a self appointed need to belong group, and you can have high fives all round, make peoples trousers move with your awesomeness and probably becomes the messiah in your local area.

Overall, I don’t think we’ve much to moan about

Depends on what you like to moan about though, doesn’t it?
For many, going by some of the replies on this thread, all it takes to avoid them moaning is for the car park at the trail centre not to be full when they get there.
Other will look at http://bridlewaymap.com/ and think “There’s a lot of gaps”.

If you look at the OS map around my house then, despite being surrounded by hills, in a post industrial landscape, its virtually impossible to string a decent route together using the bridleways exclusively.

There are however a lot of footpaths

Go out on a limb, and hazard a guess what we all do?

a) Just ride them. A lot.
b) Sit on internet forums bitching about the injustice of it all

I could post on those ROW threads but it would only be to mock.

Weeksy – I loved reading about the evolution of your Cooker.

Weeksy – I loved reading about the evolution of your Cooker.

Thanks mate 🙂

For many, going by some of the replies on this thread, all it takes to avoid them moaning is for the car park at the trail centre not to be full when they get there.

And whats wrong with that? If thats what floats your boat?

Sounds to me like you just like moaning. And you’re not fussed about what. Even when theres not an awful lot to moan about.

But well done for chucking in some implied superiority though. Like people who just want to ride trail centres are somehow failing to measure up to you, and your lofty ‘keeping it real’ campaigning, Citizen Smith style revolutionary ethos

Yay for you!!! For being a crusader for all ‘our’ rights! We’ll all club together a build a statue in your honour! A towering lycra-clad colossus, bestriding an OS map indicating all he newly opened bridleways. Maybe some also named in your honour

Its about time that people who whinge about stuff on internet forums, while not actually doing anything constructive whatsoever to address what they’re moaning about, got the recognition they deserve!

Do you find you sign a lot of online petitions too? The ones people post on Facebook? You know… the really really important stuff? Petitions make a massive difference to stuff. Governments live in fear of them. And of dissertations on access.

I don’t know enough about the subject discussed not the areas involved to make a decent contribution.

Is it because they make it clear that decisions are made by local and national government with little input from the people they affect and everyone feels so disengaged from politics that there’s no point wasting time on trying to influence them?

I think the thread detailing what Derbyshire county council are doing to some trail, and the negativity here demonstrates the disparate nature of cyclists in general.

Nobody listens to us because we don’t have an organisation like the ramblers. In the mountain bikers case, we still think we are shredding the gnarr wherever we like, giving the finger to authority, rebels on our many thousands of pounds bikes made by corporations, riding trail centres built with funds from Governments.

You lack self importance that is all, become part of a self appointed need to belong group,

In the absence of an organisation such as IMBA, its these “self-appointed groups” who are engaging with landowners of various kinds in an effort to gain or keep access.

Do you find you sign a lot of online petitions too? The ones people post on Facebook? You know… the really really important stuff? Petitions make a massive difference to stuff. Governments live in fear of them. And of dissertations

😆

I am interested in the ROW research paper – however it is quite a long paper and I don’t have much spare time, so I haven’t finished reading it yet. Hence I haven’t commented on the thread either.

To be honest, by the time I’ve finished reading it, I’ll have forgotten where I found out about it, so I probably won’t comment on the thread at all.

Lack of replies doesn’t necessarily mean lack of interest!

Lol at Binners!

I’m looking to start a tedious DIY project related to the bathroom and searched on google something obscure about bathroom paint, the first site linked to was STW. Perhaps the point is that this is a very useful forum, that is not very much about MTB these days. Also, perhaps people were busy riding this weekend.

Nobody listens to us because we don’t have an organisation like the ramblers.

We could do with one. IMBA is a good model AFAIK

In the mountain bikers case, we still think we are shredding the gnarr wherever we like, giving the finger to authority,

I don’t think so. We are fairly disparate and not that unified on anything. The most prevalent view in STW is about atheism rather than government or authority.

…… These look to me like very important topics, highly relevant to all mountain bikers, yet one got three replies, the other got five.

needs more “poo jokes” or references to high-end kitchenware to get a decent response

Or is it because everyone feels that, as long as no one has ever been arrested for cycling on a footpath, we might as well carry on as we are?

very much this. In 20 odd years of riding around in big circles in the woods, I’ve come to the conclusion, like a lot of other folk, that the authorities* are stretched so thinly that the chances of being caught riding “where you shouldn’t” by someone who has the right and knowledge to tell you; are almost non existent.

Most people who venture out into the countryside do so in country parks, or other officially sanctioned ‘wilderness’ areas that come complete with either an arrestingly pleasing old house, or a tea shop or preferably both and an easy access car park. The people that actually venture out into your actual countryside fall into 2 categories IME

1. Those that understand the country is big enough for everyone to enjoy, the idea of categorising muddy tracks that have existed for centuries past and will continue to exist long into the future; is a bit foolish

2. Those that care deeply, want to say something but won’t as they are both English, and fear confrontation, and know (perhaps more importantly) that they have little enforcement rights anyway, so settle for passive aggressive staring instead.

If fewer people worried about rights**, and more people got off their fat arses and enjoyed what we’ve got the world would be a happier place.

* No one has any money to employ someone to enforce anything

** what most people concerned with “rights” actually want is to restrict some-ones else’s enjoyment, the sooner those people foxtrot off, the better

I understand your points but I suffer from the cynicism virus as well as being overloaded with non-fiction reading material.

Of course we need somebody to represent us …

Sorry, not being helpful.

Of course we need somebody to represent us .

I’m not in your ‘us’ sorry.

I’ll ride where I want safe in the knowledge that I do little or no harm, and that there is little to stop me.

Where do we sign up for the Charge Cooker Campaign?

Nobody listens to us because we don’t have an organisation like the ramblers

– would you want to be like the ramblers? loads of faux outdoor beardy middleclass warrior nerds with an unheathly mental obession for new kit and synthetic materials..Oh, hang on!

When binners lays it down he really goes for the throat.

I’m not in your ‘us’ sorry.

I’ll ride where I want safe in the knowledge that I do little or no harm, and that there is little to stop me.

nick – my sentence was left open-ended!

So … when you ride footpaths, solo or group? Presumably avoiding popular fp’s?

I blame Alex Salmond.

As above,this isn’t a real issue IME. I’ve recently moved and am still exploring the area with my OS maps but if I need to link trails together then I’ll use cheeky trails as necessary – so long as it’s sensible to do so. While against the rules in reality, it’s just not been an issue.

The Rules

Frankly I’m not interested in lifting my bike over stiles etc, there’s enough fallen trees to make riding an obstacle course. Who needs more?

the title of some posts is enough to put me off reading them. the title of my posts will also put people off reading them too. life is such….. 😀

Much as I agree we need a National Body to represent Mountain Bikers.

However I have wondered with regards to access, could it not be at our detriment?

We probably have our trails, the most of which may not be a PRoW. The Trail pixies are out there creating local trails that only MTBers know are there, not signposted, free of walkers, dog walkers, horses & traffic.

I live near a forest, privately owned, no RoW marked on the map, people walk, ride horses & cycle along it’s tracks. However look a bit harder and the signs of singletrack are there, through the woods, the MTB tyre impressions, names of trails on social media. Yet the majority of people don’t see them or those of us riding them. To all intense and purpose we are out of sight out of mind, invisible.

Now if we kick up a stink and have a National body, making a fuss, we suddenly become very visible, landowners who have not known we are there or turned a blind eye start to take notice and suddenly those trails & access to them disappears!

It’s a difficult one, unless we go for Open Access as in Scotland 😆

I was involved in the Welsh access consultation with the BMC. The minister responsible,John Griffiths,would have loved representation from mtbers, but there is/was none.

I’ve made it clear to both IMBA UK and BC/WC that I would be happy to put time,energy and experience into creating some kind of representation that would be ready for the next opportunity. Sadly these things move somewhere between incredibly slowly and not at all and at the moment nothing is happening.

If there are people on here who’d like to discuss this further, I’d be delighted to hear from them.

The access rights issue just seems to have little voice on “our” side and plenty of opposition from prominent local figures and landowners, and generally goes nowhere, so hard to discuss it really.

I prefer the “sod it, ride where I like” approach. With care and trying not to cause annoyance of course. It seems to be the best way to retain the trails we like, though we lose some at times but gain new ones. The good ones tend to be out of the way of walkers etc and not really a bother to anyone until the landowner objects or is forced into doing something if a walker stumbles on the trail and complains. When we get into formal access talk it may result in formal manicured trails for “us” and a ban from everything else.

When we get into formal access talk it may result in formal manicured trails for “us” and a ban from everything else.

Well I suppose that’s the fear, however I do wonder how much that reflects reality.
My experiences with the FC suggest that there is certainly give and take when you enter in to a relationship with a ‘landowner’, but I haven’t really felt like we’ve come off badly, and there have been significant advantages in communicating with them. This is from teh POV of a very loose ‘trail group’ that has no formal structure.
The fall back position of course is the ‘if we can’t come to any agreement, no agreement exists between us, we’ll just do what we want anyway.’
When it comes to restricting footpath use the local authority would have to take out restrictions on each one, and given the number of grumpies about, if it hasn’t happened yet, I think it unlikely it will happen to great extent in the future.
For sure horse riders tend to be better represented on things like Local Access Forums, but also tend to be landowners, so may be better placed to attend LAF meetings anyway. From my research in to my own area’s LAF the horse riders are well represented, but to my surprise there are also two trail bike riding members from the local club. it goes to show that they see the importance of being represented.
From a personal point of view with respect to my Local Access Forum all I see is a badly administered web presence on the local council’s website, and a list of past meetings that all took place during the normal working week, so it’s unlikely that i will be trying to join in.

The reality of the riding in my area at least, is that the ROW network is inadequate, and, frankly, pretty boring apart from a few sparse gems.

I used to be all for MTB access, representation and discussion with the authorities, but the glacial speed of the beuracracy (sp?) in the UK, coupled with nimbyism, would mean that I would have made no notable improvement for me or anybody else in my lifetime. Frankly, between my job and family, I’d rather spend what little free time I have actually riding.

When you factor in the virtually unenforceable nature of trespass in this country, and the actual frequency of encounters with land owners or other people who might give you crap for being where you’re not meant to be, it just doesn’t stack up for trying to change the status quo.

I therefore refer you to the rules as per binners previous post.

Id not be happy with anything less than the right to roam a la our Scottish cousins, but we’re not going to get that and it’s just not worth my effort for anything else.