Will we ever have the same freedom on our access land on two wheels as we do on two feet? Who, if anybody, is fighting for our freedom or are we confined to these archaic, overcrowded bridleways for ever? It HAS to change…doesn’t it?

Simon F Barnes

Can i be first to say this? Rules are there to be broken.

If anyone fancies a mass trespass ride protest over the Ashdown Forest, in contravention of The Ashdown Forest (anti bike) Act …. count me in

I like your stile lyons, I’m partial to a cheeky trail or two but its not really long term thinking.
SFB’s territory is it? where is the icon..

Don’t stick to bridleways then! A mass tresspass would do more harm than good. I’ll just continue to ride like I always have, respect the lend your on and asses it’s suitability to ride, don’t rely on lines on a map to tell you what you can ride on.

The CTC campaigns for the right to ride, and I’d always be up for a bit of protest against daft laws.

Till they change I consider it my civic duty not to adhere to them.

twang – Member

Will we ever have the same freedom on our access land on two wheels as we do on two feet? Who, if anybody, is fighting for our freedom or are we confined to these archaic, overcrowded bridleways for ever? It HAS to change…doesn’t it?

Who is “we” in this context?

Couldn’t resist it could you Druidh – I managed to 🙂

I’ll confess to being a moving violation :o)
Take 30 riders along a FP on a sunny Sunday? Yep.

I ride FP’s.

When I get any rambler saying that I should not be there just ask them how
they got access to Kinder Scout in the 20’s. Thats right mass tresspass!

The last one I said that to looked like they were going to have a heart attack, but they do what they want so why can’t we?

I’m with druidh and TJ on this one.

Excellent call twang. Something needs to be done to move us on from the archaic, feudal laws that still exsist.
FWIW, I go where I want in our National Park and I’ll be the judge of my right to be there.

Kinder trespassers? Principled, mostly left wing, working class folk from Manchester who were passionate about their rights and freedoms precisely because of that.

Mountain bikers? Middle class, smug, component and image-obsessed, middle-class folk who think riding a bike with one gear is rebellious.

Chances of a mass mountain biking trespass? Zero. Likely impact of trespass if it did happen? Less than zero. Potential for passionate internet day dreaming? Infinite.

Does anyone not ride footpaths?

Excellent call twang. Something needs to be done to move us on from the archaic, feudal laws that still exsist.

When you say ‘feudal’, are you implying that there’s a whole medieval social system based loosely on rights of way legislation that I’m completely unaware of? Anyway, gotta go, loads of crops to gather in for the Duke of Devonshire before I nip out and plough my own small holding…

I find that the best thing if told off by someone on a footpath (especially when you’re told ‘bikes aren’t allowed here’) is just to smile and cheerily say ‘I know, silly isn’t it’.

You seem a bit uptight BWD.

I’m sure it is our particular brand of anarchy that is partially to blame.
i.e. we have no organisation fighting for our cause, with the partial exception of the CTC.
The British Horse Society and Ramblers Association are 2 high profile organisations often involved in such issues. We have none.
We did try to get the set up the British Mountain Bike Foundaton years ago, but it declined into a shambolic thing that ended up being railroaded by racers into a race organisation. I particularly remember discussing things with a local rep. hailing from Manaton. At the time he was working on local access issues and really getting it sorted.He ended up funding it all himself as his expenses stopped getting through…..and it sadly died leaving a bitter taste in my mouth as my subs ended up funding races not access issues!.

To a certain extent it is our own lack of organisation that is the culprit. Having previously dived for a long while, again the BSAC was a national organisation representing divers and it helped on many occasions to sort out heated local issues. The divers v’s Brixham fishermen springs to mind, when knives were drawn at the meeting!!!!!
Having no collective voice means….we have no voice in access issues!
my tuppence.
Q

does anyone fancy a kinder trespass?

At least it would have a precedent. Best left to the end of the summer to get rid of any errosion worries (ok it will result in erosion as the soil/grass is a bit shit up there, but at least it won’t photograph well like muddy channels would).

I don’t ride footpaths…

🙂

BURN HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You seem a bit uptight BWD.

Na, just realistic, this is about the 50th time some forum warrior has started a thread calling for a trespass and it’ll be just the same as all the others. Loads of virtual back-slapping followed by sweet nothing. Because the bottom line is that mountain bikers are disorganised and, out in the real world, apathetic.

And I was just vaguely amused by the ‘feudal’ thing 😉

clubber – i like it, im gonna use that one!

Realistically, the organisation fighting hardest for the cause of aligning the access rights in England and Wales with those in Scotland is the BCU! If anything does change it will be largely down to them.

i.e. we have no organisation fighting for our cause, with the partial exception of the CTC.

it’s my observation that the kind of people who enjoy mountain biking generally have no interest in political campaigning. I’m not sure why this should be – something to do with thrill seeking and a disregard for dignity perhaps ? At the same time, I think it hardly matters – because we’re disorganised and fragmented , we’re hard to locate or control, and if we choose not to acknowledge the shambolic rights of way designations, it usually goes unnoticed and is almost impossible to police

BadlyWiredDog has us nailed.

The “right” to play with whatever toys we want, anywhere we want is not going to get anyone manning the barricades.

🙂

Is this the royal we?

MrCrushrider – Member
clubber – i like it, im gonna use that one!

I should point out that I didn’t come up with it – IIRC someone on here suggested it way back and I similarly thought it was a good response.

wheres the fun in breaking the rules if there are no rules to be broken.
everyone knows the BEST single track is footpaths.
if it becomes open access, will it stay twisty and narrow with loads of bikes and horses and kids on mopeds razzing around on it?

yes, i ride cheeky trails, but with a finger over the brakes and an eye out for walkers.
they take priority over me (as they are allowed to be there).
i also dump a few gears as i pass them ready to accelerate, and have a smart arse retort primed and ready to go if they “voice any concerns”

I like being a 2 wheeled ninja/commando

“im a ghost, im a shadow, im an enigma, im gone, pooffffff”

Clubber, it’s from the Cheeky Trails website is it not?

Anyhoo, I think the reason we’re so fragmented isn’t to do with apathy per se. It’s more that for many mountain bikers access isn’t seen as an issue while they have a purpose-built 10km loop (possibly at the end of a lengthy car journey) to ride round.

I’m sure it is our particular brand of anarchy that is partially to blame.
i.e. we have no organisation fighting for our cause, with the partial exception of the CTC.

There is no cause to fight for.

I ride what I like when I like but the ‘what’ and ‘when’ make a huge difference. E.g. There are bridleways near me that I wouldn’t touch on a sunny bank holiday weekend (despite having every ‘right’ to do so) and paths that don’t exist on maps that I’ll happily use day or night year-round.

how many of you are paid up members of the CTC?

I think it’s hypocritical to say ‘we need a trespass’ if your not even contributing to the one organisation that represents cyclists in this country.

It’s not all about the right to ride on footpaths either. Lots of trails are on Forestry Commission, local authority or private land and are not rights of way in any sense.

Realistically, the organisation fighting hardest for the cause of aligning the access rights in England and Wales with those in Scotland is the BCU

I believe the CTC is also campaigning for this, but I get the impression their timescale is measured in decades 🙁

I think it’s hypocritical to say ‘we need a trespass’ if your not even contributing to the one organisation that represents cyclists in this country.

I’m not convinced by this argument, and not sure I need to be represented when I can act for myself

I don’t ride cheeky trails out of concern that it might result in a local ban – which would *totally* ruin my riding and make me more than cross!
I mostly ride in the woods above me on using a couple of the bridleways linking some of the reservoirs above me – whether to do a ‘woods only’ off road trip or using them as throughways linking into slightly longer trips. The area is extremely popular with locals and more so with people from the towns and city ‘getting out in the country’.
Some years back I remember talking to 2 riders blasting down one footpath laying a trail for a local shop’s ride. When I chatted to them, one was going on about ‘being banned on the moor…’ and simply couldn’t understand the point i was making that it was because of doing exactly what they were doing…..riding on footpaths and areas where they shouldn’t! He couldn’t grasp it!!! I also made the point that we wern’t ‘banned’ on the moor, the trouble had resulted in Dartmoor NP issueing bylaws telling us we could only ride on bridleways. This was really underlining the rule of the land, so it didn’t really affect us, but it was something ‘seen to be done’ to pacify the then very cross farmers ( circa ’91/2 ish? )
About the same time, i saw a couple of families on ” Mountain Bikes” who were wobbling around the incredibly narrow paths around one reservoir edge. They were a danger to themselves as much as anything else, little kids and deep lakes, and had no idea that you are only meant to use bridleways.
Very shortly after I’d seen the 2 bikers and the families on the footpaths notices went up all around the reservoirs saying ” No biking on the paths”
….I simply won’t risk it cos it would mean all my trails would go if it was a total ban – highly unlikely but….!
Sometimes cheeky trails arn’t an option.
Q

I simply won’t risk it cos it would mean all my trails would go if it was a total ban

But you say you only ride on BWs, and they can’t ban you from those, so I don’t understand what the issue is.

aracer:
I was meaning if I rode cheeky fp’s, like others have done in the past, I might run the risk of a local problem occurring that might affect the bridleways in some way. it can certainly rile other trail users, so if i’m squeaky clean then I can look anyone in the eye and tell them to go jump.
I have had one incident when a local git was riding his Rangerover down a bridleway and stopped me to tell me he thought bikes were now banned in the DNP. I put him right, pointed out that *he* was in the wrong driving down the BW and afterwards had a quiet chat with my local ranger, just in case jobsworth was in contact with him. He already knew of the driver, and yes he too cncluded he was a jobsworth and confirmed my right of passage!
There seems to be a lot of trail users down here who ‘ know their rights….’ but actually don’t!
cheers
Q

Have I just missed something …isn’t IMBA the voice of the mountain biker with regard to access type issues?

s8tannorm:
Maybe, forgot them! but their low profile hasn’t taken the world by storm and in fact it’s taken this many posts for someone to remember them.
To be honest, yes they possibly should be our voice, but I’m not aware of them, sadly.
Q

imba: they seem to imply that we belong in trail centres but then argue that this is not the case.

they claim they need more members to make it critical mass; unfortunatly they need to be more vocal and make people aware of what they are doing to get to that tipping point. catch 22.

quite simply the ctc is getting better at the off road issue and already has the pathways into governemt they need, not quite sure what the imba are up to!