What upsets walkers of pensionable age is that you are out enjoying your self. What you should be doing is working to pay for their now retired life style. I can see how that would upset them.

phead – Member

Err I have come across blind walking groups before now.
Why can’t they go out at **** night then?

I think it’s the dog too.
All dog owners will tell you how lovely, cuddly, cute and ‘he wouldn’t hurt a flea’ their animal is. However as a walker and mtber, I don’t know this and am nervous of dogs.

We’re lucky in our area as most walkers, even the rambler type with all the gear are jolly and egg you on when riding a bike.

“It’s because they is communist, innit?”

I suspect not but believe it or not they ‘were’ once.

“The man who led the famous
mass trespass over Kinder
Scout in 1932 – an event that
led directly to the foundation
of the Ramblers’ Association
– died in January aged 90.
Benny Rothman was born in
Cheetham, Manchester, in
1911, won a scholarship to
the Central High School for
Boys, but left to work as a
mechanic to help the family’s
finances. In the 1920s he
joined the Young Communist
League, but coupled politics
with a love of the outdoors,
enjoying biking and camping
trips to the Peak District
and Snowdonia.
The idea for the mass trespass
came while he was camping at
Rowarth with the British
Workers Sports Federation at
Easter 1932. A group of
members were turned back
from Bleaklow by threatening
gamekeepers, and realised
that if there had been more
of them they could not have
been stopped.”

As I understand it it was the unemployed, socailists and communist workers party members who did most of the ‘dirty’ work

Some things never change – ramblers always have been misrable b*****s, re Kinder
“Although the event was originally opposed by the official ramblers’ federations, the vicious sentences which were handed down on five of the young trespassers actually served to unite the ramblers’ cause.”
http://kindertrespass.com/index.asp?ID=125

Don’t forget, the Ramblers are the countryside equivalent of the Taliban – they’re there to ensure the sanctity of the countryside as a place for quiet respectful and retrospective enjoyment, not as a place for people to have fun!

Your riding your bike there and smiling about it, enjoying yourself on a sunny day is equivalent to carving images of a religious idol whilst listening to madonna and prancing about in a pair of stars and stripes underpants! It cannot and will not be tolerated!

It’s the free-range dog.
I don’t like them, whether cycling or walking. They’ll come up & have a bark & a sniff, then the owner will tell you how friendly their pooch is. Unless of course it’s had its nose in your lunch bag, in which case they’ll keep quiet.
Walking the Pennines last week, 2 bloody dogs had a go, twice they wouldn’t return to their owners.

The cyclists we met were fine, they said Hi, we said Hi. They even said thanks when I held a gate open for them.

Generally I’ve had no probs with walkers up here. I am one myself. Maybe as there is less contention on the trails.

Closest I came was a solitary guy up the Ochils, just me and him with the whole place to ourselves. My brakes were squealing like a pig, so I stopped to apologise for ruining his peace and quiet as I passed, expecting a cheery ‘no bother’ and a wee bit of chat about the lovely weather, etc. But no. Awkward, stilted conversation about how he doesn’t like mountain bikes. Meh.

Didn’t spoil my ride though. Even when I’m shit, my gears are slipping and I have a mechanical, I don’t think I’ve ever regretted going for a ride.

lemonysam:

Rambling groups tend to make an absolute mockery of any kind of Shared Used Path. Popped out to Wylam the other day and a group of (at a guess) 20 were taking up the entire path, which is maybe 4 metres wide at this point. We rang bells and said a cheery pardon me. They scowled moaned at me..

Aah my home path, the NCN72.
Never met a big group of ramblers on it.

I only seem to get hassle on that path on those rare days when the sun is shining and folk who clearly haven’t been outdoors for some considerable time decide they should heave themselves off the sofa and try walking to the the chip shop for a change.

They seem highly aggravated by cyclists, no matter how much you ring the bell, slow down or wait patiently. I suspect they are worried by exercise. 😀

The regulars on the path (folk walking kids to school, joggers, dog walkers, etc) are generally all pretty pleasant and we exchange pleasant “Morning, Afternoon, Alreet?, Thankyou, Cheers” as appropriate.

I think it is easier when you see the same folk regularly as you learn which ones like to hear a bell and which ones are annoyed by it.

according to Ewan McColl some Manchester ramblers were working around that time.

I’ve been over Snowdon
I’ve slept up on Crowdon
I’ve camped by the wain stones as well
I’ve sun bathed on kinder
Been burned to a cinder
And many more things I can tell
My rucksack has oft been my pillow
The heather has oft been my bed
And sooner then part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

The day was just ending
As I was descending
Trough Grindsbrook just by Upper-Tore
When a voice cried: “Hey You!”
In the way keepers do
He’d the worst face that I ever saw
The things that he said were unpleasant
In the teeth of his fury I said
Sooner then part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

He called me a louse
And said: “Think of the grouse”
Well, I thought but I still couldn’t see
Why old kinder scout
And the moors round about
Couldn’t take both the poor grouse and me
He said: “All this land is my master’s”
At that I stood shaking my head
No man has the right to own mountains
Any more than the deep ocean bed

I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

I once loved a maid
A spot-welder by trade
She was as fair as the rowan in bloom
And the bloom of here eyes
Mocked the June moorland sky
And I loved here from April to June
On the day that we should have been married
I went for a ramble instead
For sooner then part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

So I’ll walk were I will
Over mountain and hill
And I lie where the bracken is deep
I belong to the mountains
The clear running fountains
Where the grey rock rise rugged and steep
I’ve seen the white hare in the gully
And the curlew flies high over head
And sooner then part from the mountains
I think I would rather be dead

I’m a rambler, I’m a rambler from Manchester way
I get all my pleasure the hard moorland way
I may be a wage slave on Monday
But I am a free man on Sunday

Aah my home path, the NCN72.
Never met a big group of ramblers on it.

I only seem to get hassle on that path on those rare days when the sun is shining and folk who clearly haven’t been outdoors for some considerable time decide they should heave themselves off the sofa and try walking to the the chip shop for a change.
Try NCN4 on the K&A Canal around Bradford-on-Avon on a sunny Sunday, but especially at Bank Holidays; family groups, small kids running around, dogs either on 20′ extending leads, or not on any lead at all, parents yakking to each other, not paying any attention to what other people are doing, or their kids, or dogs, who then get bolshy because you’re right behind them, asking to get past, asking why you haven’t got a bell, ‘what, like the one I’ve been ringing continuously from forty yards behind you?’ They don’t seem to like that much, either… 🙄
Much as I’d dearly like to shove the ignorant half-wits into the canal, Sustrans would get rather pissy about one of their volunteer Rangers behaving in such a way, so I just have to smile, and suck it up.
It does go against the grain, sometimes… 😕

There’s been more than one occasion recently when walkers (not ramblers) have held gates open for me. Which is nice.

Our elderly neighbours reckons that the collective name for hikers is a hemorrhoid of hikers – because they are pain in the backside

if someone said to me ‘i dont like mountain bikers’
my immediate reply would be ‘i dont like assholes’

There will always be some members of any given community who are not representative of the majority, but who create a bad impression through their individual actions and behaviours.

I don’t know how some people on here can so easily distinguish the ramblers from walkers, it’s just simple individual ignorance and character/personality, shirley?.

MTB is in it’s infancy, hopefully it’s mostly down to a generation issue.

I’m a walker and biker, I’ve had one or two biking issues over the years and I’m uber considerate, but the majority of people have been ok and friendly. The few idiots, when I’ve been on me bike, have just been dismissed as idiots who probably won’t be reasoned with, be they walker, rambler, dog walker etc etc.
I do get the militant mass group thing, but I think that is just still down to those odd individuals feeling massively empowered because they are within a big group, it doesn’t necessarily represent the group, if you know what I mean?.