I remain very upset, angry and fearful for the future of mountain biking in the peak district.

Couldn’t agree more.

fasternotfatter – you make a valid point. We have plans for something on Monday. Not to be naive, but we have to go into this meeting believing DCC have good intentions; not blinkered, not in some rainbow and unicorns way expecting to come out holding hands and skipping with them, but that they have the intention to change something.

If they don’t, then yes it’s back to the ‘make as much noise as possible’ plan.

All that said, who are we to stop you making your voice heard on their social media?

Was horrible riding down there today really missed how it was before. Noticed that chapel gate repairs were not looking very good!

It’s the big meeting with Derbyshire County Council tomorrow. Peak District MTB, Ride Sheffield, Friends of the Peak, BMC and Keeper of the Peak going to have a word

Good luck! Anything less than a reversal of the work carried out is a declaration of war on mountain biking 😈

It would be nice if we could shoot for rushup edge being reinstated.

Fingers crossed

The day of the big meeting is upon us. Off to see DCC this morning in very good company and we are well prepared. We will post our feedback from the meeting on the PDMTB website and in here. Thanks to everyone for your support.

Have a virtual clap and a pat on the back from me as you head at the door!

Don’t forget to do that tiger thing in the mirror 😉

Thanks so far for all your and the wider team’s efforts.

Good luck Roger and all involved hope it’s goes well

Good luck chaps and a massive thanks for all your hard work 😀

Indeed. Best of British to you (us) all. May the little guy be victorious over the establishment.

Evening folks. Well, it’s been a long day. Very interesting, at times heated, but overall useful meeting with DCC. For more details, go to

Peakdistrictmtb.org

A good effort from all involved.

Not a good response from DCC though. They seem to think that landscaping the peak district is acceptable and it just isn’t. I feel for people that can’t access certain areas of the peak but I don’t think they should flatten everything to make it accessible to all. It should be left in a natural state so it can be appreciated for what it is, an area of outstanding natural beauty.

It isn’t all bad though you should be able to hit some serious speed down there now though, and with some judicious digging, adding a bit of a jump here and there it should still be very challenging.

CLicky link to make things easier

Well done to all concerned

Obviously disappointed that DCC still insists on covering the steps. But if they don’t have to abide by the wishes of the PDNPA then I guess the wishes of user groups will have even less weight. I guess it’s a question of who has responsibility (and liability) and DCC are the highways agency.

Good luck with Hurst Clough – even if DCC agree to consult I can’t imagine they will agree to anything less than a smooth track there

Just caught up with this thanks for putting in your time and being motivated enough to take action. .

and DCC are the highways agency authority

FTFY

But if they don’t have to abide by the wishes of the PDNPA then I guess the wishes of user groups will have even less weight. I guess it’s a question of who has responsibility (and liability) and DCC are the highways agency.

This is what I want to know more about. Is that really the ultimate whip hand that DCC beats PDNPA down with to get their way? If so that needs addressing and vehemently arguing against and requires PDNPA to not rollover and take it in the bottom.

I think the only way forward is to get the press/ tv on to this its amazing how bad press makes things happen!!

Dissapointing outcome so far..no doubt you guys are thinking strategy here, my read is that we need to continue to be joined up, articulate and influencing those who influence DCC. Likely a long job but keep up the pressure and be ready to make lots of noise at appropriate points!

From an initially dismissive Derbyshire County Council we now have an apologetic Derbyshire County Council. I don’t think anyone is under the illusion that this is anything but a long haul but I’d say that is a positive outcome. We’ve shown the weight of anger and support behind the Rushup Edge campaign cannot be ignored by them.

If all mountain hikers boycott the area for 2015 the revenue that the area loses would force the issue. Or would that mean they won?

An apologetic DCC doesn’t make up for a destroyed rushup edge. Trip to the lakes anyone? I am done with the peak district.

I’ll not rise to the obvious troll! :p

It’s as Stilltortoise quite rightly points out – it’s the long route, I was at a meeting last night with all the interested parties in mountain biking held at the NT Longshaw Estate – the attendee list was impressive: NT, PDNPA, BC, CTC, Sport Derbyshire, the local LAF, Ride Sheffield, PDMTB, Chinley Churners, Hope Sports, I think that was everyone. The general consensus is that we need to come together and have a collective voice for mountain bikers.

Someone said to me at one of the many meetings I seem to suddenly be attending, that we are the invisible visitors. People see walkers because the are everywhere, roadies are – well all over the roads, paragliders are visible overhead. We arrive and promptly disappear from sight as we bugger off up some muddy track. We have only just made it onto the DCC radar as a grown up and large user group.

We are trying to sort a post DCC meeting meeting (I may yet kill myself) to look at the next step. All is not lost on Rushup, it has not been completely buried, the steps are being levelled but we have an engineers report that contests the longevity of the methodology and we are awaiting a response from DCC to our rebuttal document – copy on the PDMTB website to download.

It’s taken a lot of effort to get this far, the momentum is growing. If you want to chuck in the towel because of some work on one route then fine, but there’s lots of us who will continue to fight our corner because there is still plenty of good trails round here and with a little work there could be many more.

It’s been an outstanding effort so far, accomplished much in a relative short space of time. Big fat kudos to all concerned. It’s impressive and people should rightly be proud.

It’s going to be baby steps at first. It will take a while to break down the entrenched reasoning of DCC and they’ll have to be ‘shown’ alternative ways of doing things to satisfy all user groups, but, they may just come round.

Plus, who in their right mind wants to be ultimately responsible for shunting mountain bikers off the bridleways onto the very places where they really aren’t wanted. Who in their right mind wants to speed mountain bikers up when the real wishes of walker and horse rider are usually to see mtb speed reduced.

It could be a long drawn out affair getting things back to how they were at places like Stanage but with constant pressure and “encouragement” from interested parties we might get somewhere and change minds / policy.

Still say PDNPA needs bigger balls and more clouty input tho.

just to add another voice and say thank you to all those who are directly engaged with all of this.

The current plan is as good as we’ll get I think. Its not ideal by any strech, I’m certain we all wanted it put back as it was, but realistically that was never going to happen.

As long as DCC keep to there word and continue to consult with the user groups we’ll hopefully aviod this sort of thing in the future.

Good work folks, I think you’ve won some significant concessions and DCC certainly know they are being watched.
A question of detail – they claimed they had to do the work to prevent “trespass” on adjacent land – I assume they meant the extra lines that were developing along the top of the bank. However, surely all the land between the wall and fence is part of the highway isn’t it? So where’s the trespass?

So, steps still to be buried… and still no declaration of exactly who this is being done for.

Rogerthecat am I the obvious troll? 😳

Sorry if I come across that way but I am still very upset about what has happened. Those steps were part of my first ride in the peak district and while I might not find them as challenging as I once did I still very much enjoyed riding them. I am disappointed that DCC will not undo the work already done and I think we all should be. I appreciate the effort that everybody put into trying to stop the work but ultimately all that effort ended in failure. Hopefully all those that met with DCC have now opened up a channel of communication that can stop this kind of thing from happening again, and if that is the case, then we can take something positive from this.

I hope that sounds a bit less trollish 😉

All valid point. Let me start off by expressing my gratitude for the tireless efforts of those who’ve been driving this on the front line.

However, as we all know far too well, it’s not just Rushup Edge, DCC have form on this matter.

As said on the pdmtb Facebook page, DCC are taking us for mugs. Trail destruction is just like anal sex; it’s easier to seek forgiveness than permission.

DCC have it seems, admitted they’ve made mistakes but are still going to do what they planned. What’s the price difference between finishing it off and putting it back?

Unless DCC still think someone somewhere (who actually uses trails) wants what they’re doing. If that’s the case though, we’ve not been as successful as we feel we have.

We’ve made lots of noise and got on the radar, it’s a good start. But this whole process will take a while unless they really do try and side line us, which will become very apparent very quickly.

It’s all up in the air and to play for atm. They’ll show their cards soon enough. We’ll have to jump accordingly.

True, the other thing to remember here is that this isn’t the end of it, this is the start. This sort of battle will need to be fought time and time again. This is our call to arms, we need to take notice and get ourselves organised and ready for the next onslaught.

Gutted!
http://www.outdoorsmagic.com/outdoor-features/rushup-edge—the-bigger-picture/13539.html

I didn’t know when I made this vid last June that after over 20 years of riding Rushup it’s end up that way.

Pete – that article is a month old and tonnes has happened since then. It’s a good snapshot of the issue but it also misrepresents the core of the mountain bike groups’ argument valiantly forged by Peak District MTB, Keeper of the Peak and Ride Sheffield. It’s not about ‘sanitisation’ or losing the technical challenge; it’s the lack of consultation and the dubious justification for the work they question: both very valid points whether you’re a mountain biker, walker, horse rider or other.

Progress has been made. Have a look at peakdistrictmtb.org for the latest. Lots on their Facebook page too.

They certainly haven’t given up – and like onzadog says, it’s just about keeping the momentum going now.

Has the work restarted yet?

Not yet. There is more consultation under way

Have we asked them to put it back as it was or have we just assumed they won’t?

Onza – more details here, along with the rebuttal document.
http://peakdistrictmtb.org/index.php/59-rushup-edge-campaign-meets-with-derbyshire-county-council

I did read the full report. I wasn’t sure from that if we’d asked for it to be put back and we’re refused or if we didn’t ask.