Save the Cairngorms from Singletrack

You are rather confused in your discourse

trailmonkey – Member
the irony is that i’m the one who is actually bothering to think rather than just blindly accepting the importance of one set of values over another.

trailmonkey – Member

It’s not as you say a case of one set of values against another.

I do understand your basic point and I agree it has validity. However in the case of the MacDui plateau I think your argument does not hold water. You are being as dogmatic and show the wooly thinking that you accuse others of.

Capt john – whats that sound – the point flying right over your head 🙄

Your point is that Singletrack were irresponsible in publishing a route over the Cairngorm plateau because the article will attract more mountain bikers, and that is bad because mountain bikers will cause more erosion in that landscape than other users. Am i correct in my summation?

Where’s the confusion ? In quote one, I am stating that you are accepting this as being one set of values against another. In quote two I’m pointing out that such a confrontation can’t actually take place because of a blindly accepted discourse blocking any dialogue. Either way, taking snippets from my argument rather than dealing with the point of it is hardly moving things forward.

As for my argument not holding water, you continue to prove its seaworthiness. I don’t accuse anyone of wooly thinking and I don’t see any in mine and why is asking for the inclusion of differing interpretation dogmatic ? Do you not like freedom of thought ?

trailmonkey – what do you do btw? email in profile.

yunki – Member
there’s a lot of defense being built around ‘well walkers publish guide books so I can publish mountain bike articles..’

great… how mature.. two wrongs don’t make a right and all that..As one of those who has mentioned that argument, I’ll take a stab at answering you.

I was merely trying to point out the hypocrisy in TJs argument – that he will have, and have used, such guidebooks himself. Now, I know TJ (and you?) would then say that a cyclist causes more damage than a walker – and I would agree with you – but by how much? The equivalent of ten walkers, a hundred walkers, a thousand walkers? So – it’s all a matters of scale. If we agreed the latter figure of one thousand walkers, would it be OK to let 999 more people stravaig over the summit and then close it down?

Trailmonkey – the confusion is that I have not said what you claim I do and you are being absolutist in your position. I have clearly acknowledged the validity of positions other than mine including yours

Your point is invalid as regards the plateau simply because what you are argueing agaist “The point here is that you can’t turn the whole world into a museum into which the inclusion and usage of artefacts is dictated by conservation professionals, because in doing so, all the exhibits become meaningless to those outside of the academic discourse” simply is not happening in this case.

There is no attempt to ban all access to the area merely to minimise damage and to keep the usuage sustainable.

My aim is to get people to think and to answer the question ” what is responsible access in this context”

Druidh – that is a key point and a hard one to answer. I think Hypocrisy is a bit strong tho 🙂

Discouraging bikes on the sensitive areas will reduce the growth in trafic and thus reduce the amount of damage. Every additional person is additional damage.

So it attempting to balance rights and responsibilities discouraging but not banning additional traffic may be the responsible route to take

AS I have repeatedly said I believe that there is room for differing interpretations of what is reasonable in this context

Buzz light
yes I have been on the Cairnagorm plateau several times, in near whiteout, desert like summer conditions and average type days; have walked on Cairngorm / Ben Macdui / Braeriach/ Carn Ban Mor / Ben Avon so am aware of the area and environment; just wish I had more time and knew it better because it is an exceptional place, inspirational in its scale and ability for flora and fauna to survive in such hostile conditions

sanny
glad to read your reply, issue is though although you may have ridden responsibly, urged responsibility there may be teh brigade who read the article, completely disregard your advice and just go and ride wildly across an area that cannot sustain such abuse; and see above yes I do know the area, and I do come from south of teh border and I do love and respect all that the Scottish mountains offer. It is just a case of right activity in right place, and isn`t Wolftrax Laggan just such a great trail centre too 🙂

tj, you really do not understand the point of my argument. Let me use this quote.

My aim is to get people to think and to answer the question ” what is responsible access in this context”

In asking whether the area should be used for MTB or not you base the whole question on that of responsibility. I ask, responsible for what ? What is the inherent responsibility that we must adhere to here ? Conservation ? Your point condenses down to an argument about responsible/irresponsible conservation and this fails to ask the most pertinent question

Why should conservation be the over riding factor that determines the area’s usage ?

Why should that thought dominate all others such as the right to enjoy the area as people decide for themselves ? The answer is simple, because of the AHD to which everybody blindly subscribes because it has been given an assumed, inherent righteousness.

Trailmonkey – I do understand your agrguement. sorry . Its you who fail to understand the basic situation

Why should conservation be the over riding factor that determines the area’s usage ?

It isn’t. Thats the point that you fail to understand.

But you want it to be and assume that there is an inherent righteousness in that point of view. Otherwise what responsibility are you asking people to uphold ?

TJ – As I don’t think it’s useful to sidetrack the wider issues here into a ‘lets all ridicule TJ’ thread, I just want to try and reiterate a couple of points made by others above – some of which you may get, so apologies in advance if this is at all patronising.

OK. It is important to recognise that all spaces and places are contested terrain. It’s very easy to illustrate this in regard to the Cairngorms through setting up apparently incommensurable relations between differing sets of values – such as cultural heritage versus natural heritage and so on. It is absolutely necessary to question why one set of practices or knowledges is privileged over others. What Trailmonkey and others are questioning is the apparent a priori [/i] value placed on ‘natural’ value of the Cairngorms over any other possible source of value. Why this matters in regard to your own argument is that (ironically) in your own appeals to the ‘natural’ value of the plateau, you explicitly show your own understanding of ‘the natural’ to be culturally and socially constructed.

PS. Trailmonkey- I’d also be interested to know what you do…

[edit – cross posting while typing reply – please continue 😉 ]

How on earth do you get that? I have never said it,

Do you really not understand the basic concepts of being responsible for you actions and their effects, for compromise between differing points of view and priorities?

🙄

More cross posting.

bajsyckel

I understand that and agree with it.

What Trailmonkey and others are questioning is the apparent a priori value placed on ‘natural’ value of the Cairngorms over any other possible source of value.

And in this they are simply wrong and show a basic lack of understanding of the various competing and often mutually exclusive pressures on this bit of land. Economic development is given a value far higher than that of conservation or there would be no funicular.

How on earth do you get that? I have never said it,

What ???

Your whole argument throughtout the thread has been based on a pro conservation argument, for example –

Discouraging bikes on the sensitive areas will reduce the growth in trafic and thus reduce the amount of damage. Every additional person is additional damage.

And of course I understand the concept of responsibility, but again I ask you what is the supposedly inherent responsibility that we must adhere to here ?

And in this they are simply wrong and show a basic lack of understanding of the various competing and often mutually exclusive pressures on this bit of land. Economic development is given a value far higher than that of conservation or there would be no funicular.

It is the values that you are ascribing to the area that I have challenged.

bajsyckel – i am an undergraduate OU student reading, amongst other things, critical heritage studies.

Yes trailmonkey – that is correct – I have never said that conservation should be the overriding consideration. It is one consideration amongst many

I have never ascribed any values

You have a very blinkered view of this debate as two polar opposites. In reality this is far more complex with a balancing of many different viewpoints, values, rights and responsibilities many of which are mutually exclusive

Please – open your mind and your eyes and try to understand that this is far more complex than your simplistic analysis.

How is it different to riding in the fragile and unique environment of (say) Moab. Yes, I know it’s sandstone but a lot of the terrain out there is full of microbial soil which takes hundreds of years to get back to its former state if damaged. There are waymarked trails for walkers, bikers, horses, even bloody great Hummvees, and so long as everyone sticks to the paths, everything is generally fine.

The responsible users of the area like the guys running guided walks, rides, drives are at great pains to protect the area so if they see someone walking/riding/driving like a **** they’ll tell them and it’s pretty much self-policing.

The Cairngorms are remote enough that probably not even 1% of the readers of a specialist publication are immediately going to jump in the cars, boot it up the M6, continue north for another 3hrs and go and do a ride round there. It’ll be something that people might do once in their lifetime if they’re on holiday in the area and, thanks to the article, they’ll be aware of how precious the place is and treat it with the respect that it deserves. There are already man-made paths (and a funicular railway) up there so what is maybe a few tens more MTBers per year who have gone there as a direct result of Sanny’s route guide?

In fact, it’s not even a Route Guide, there’s no map, no “turn left here, take this trail”, no downloadable GPX, it’s just an article of where some people went riding. It therefore means that anyone reading it has to put in the legwork to make it a route which, by it’s very nature, means the people who DO do it will have had to plan the route themselves and will be aware of the remoteness and fragility of the place – it cuts out the slackers who just follow the GPS everywhere.

Tosh. Absolute nonsense and you’re not going to wriggle off the hook that easily. Every single post that you have made so far up until the one on this page (that mentions other contested usages) has been in defence of conservation of the area and advocates ‘responsible’ usage. I’d cut and paste them all if you like but there’s little point, everyone can just scroll back and read them but I would doubt very much that anyone besides you and I is remotely interested.

As for simplistic analysis and polemics, I can rest easy that my viewpoint is based upon extensive study and balanced thought rather than reactionary musings and the help of Wiki.

Over and out.

Surely a few, low pressure, wide, reasonably ridden MTB tyres rolling through a man made path (caused by walking, mostly), is not going to impact any of the off-path SSSI?

I assume that all methods of access (walking and cycling) cause erosion of the path of some type? So this becomes an issue of how much erosion of the path is caused, and how it can be sustainable?

Surely all types of access (walking, bikes, horses) cause erosion of all paths? Taken to the logical extreme, no one would be allowed anywhere of off paved roads because of this.

So then, ‘responsible access’ (by foot, tyre, or hoof) is making sure your access is low impact, not no impact?

For example, if there were steep parts of the path that would be damaged excessively by riding them, the responsible thing is to walk them. It is a balance, not an absolute, isn’t it?

Trailmonkey – I suggest you find out more about the area and how it is managed.

Your simplistic analysis and the point you make is simply not valid in this situation.

Crazy-legs (and others). Saying the Cairngorms are remote enough that no significant numbers will go there is absurd. The whole area is encircled by A roads. You can access several of glens right to the heart of the area along easy tracks. The most popular access point has 3 huge car parks at 600m, less than 3km from peaks of over 1200m, and the mythical plateau beyond. If you’ve ever been in Sneachda or out touring on a winter weekend you’d realise that (for better or worse) it is precisely the easy accessibility of the plateau that has generated so much controversy over the years. To imagine that mtbers are different to skiiers, climbers, or walkers to the extent that they aren’t going to travel to places that are as accessible as this is nonsense – and there are surely far more cyclists than skiiers/climbers in the UK. I’d argue that the Cairngorms are amongst the most accessible mountain ranges in the UK.

Not, I might add that the ease of accessibility is (to me) any way central to questions as to what form that access should take, or as a foundation on which to formulate ethical behaviour – just that the premise ‘the Cairngorms are remote and therefore only small numbers will go there’ is demonstrably false.

Trailmonkey – interesting. You could have some good dissertation material here… Your and TJ’s arguments beat the essays I’m supposed to be marking anyway. 😉

its just a hill though isn’t it? . Its not like its going to implode all of a sudden by riding it. They’ve been there for (millions?) of years, before park rangers, observatories etc, and have been used my million of people for walking, horse riding etc and during wars and battles etc way before cars were thought off and roads built and they’ve lasted the effects of all this very well.

So surely for our generation to use them for walking and bikes will also mean that long after we die they will still be there being used by further generations and alot less than say 200 years ago with cars etc being the main mode of transport ( before, letters were sent by horseback, now we just pop em in a red box). Surely what perishes now will grow back later or even new discoveries will happen. Its just lifes cycle.

So, i’ll still be continuing to jump on my bike and ride where i can when i can. !!

This Spring weather’s absolutely charming isn’t it?

So – it’s all a matters of scale. If we agreed the latter figure of one thousand walkers, would it be OK to let 999 more people stravaig over the summit and then close it down?

I’m not sure that I understand the question… and even if I did I feel that I would probably be unable to provide an answer..

My interest in conservation is on a grass roots ( 🙂 ) level.. If an area has been deemed fragile or of scientific interest then I will assume that it’s probably better not to ride my bicycle through there..

I won’t ride my bike through a nature reserve as a rule either..

Forgetting the minutae of the debate over access versus conservation.. exercising your right to ride through a fragile environment just because you can is not just insensitive.. it’s poor PR.. higher numbers of folk riding in such a place won’t do the mtbing fraternity’s cause any favours as far as I can see..
Disregarding the ‘science’ and the hair splitting and ego bashing and point scoring on this thread.. my point is simply that avoiding damaging a fragile environment seems like a sensible and responsible way to behave to me..
Trying to argue against this or promoting a fragile (and seemingly controversial) area as a cycling destination seems a bit bloody minded..

My interest in conservation is on a grass roots ( ) level.. If an area has been deemed fragile or of scientific interest then I will assume that it’s probably better not to ride my bicycle through there..

yunki, the point that i and some others have suggested is that this very assumption needs challenging. For some reason, conservation and heritage management has been hijacked by the scientific and historical academic community to the point whereby we just accept their raison d’etre without question. The question being why is conservation more important than other usage and what do we lose or gain by its pre-eminence ?. See my above post concerning aboriginal cave art at Uluru National Park as an example of how this assumption about uses of heritage can work to exclude cultural meaning and that is why it is always important to challenge it.

So you are saying you wouldn’t walk through a nature reserve on a path, either side of the path remains unharmed, how do you think ramblers propel them selves hover boards fueled by hot air.

For some reason, conservation and heritage management has been hijacked by the scientific and historical academic community to the point whereby we just accept their raison d’etre without question. The question being why is conservation more important than other usage and what do we lose or gain by its pre-eminence ?.

This may well be true in some cases but clearly is not in the case of the cairngorm plateau which is managed as a compromise between the commercial interests in the ski area and funicular, the mountainwalkers and bikers and the casual tourists.

When the funicular was built many on the conservation side argued that the development should not go ahead at all or should be much modified to reduce the impact on the plateau.

If conservation was placed first as you state then there would be no funicular and far more limited access to the mountain.

The management of land on the plateau is a careful compromise between competing interests and all sides are considered and management is not in the hands of

scientific and historical academic community

Unfortunatly you have decided that your particular point which I fully concede is relevant and pertinent in many cases applies to this situation where in fact it clearly does not.

Same old argument coming up again its the wheels of few against the feet of many! Common sense applies here. Stop hugging moss!

Unfortunatly you have decided that your particular point which I fully concede is relevant and pertinent in many cases applies to this situation where in fact it clearly does not.

Look tj, i’m not going to go round and round this one. Quite frankly, I think the rest of the forum is bored with our arguing. The point I’m making is that people should not blindly accept that conservation is the over riding principle that should be obeyed in all conteseted matters of heritage usage. I am not arguing and at no point have I argued that this is the policy of the NP ( is it a NP ? ) I have merely questioned the assumptions of the forum posters, yourself included that conservation is the over riding value that we must adhere to.

spando – Member
Same old argument coming up again its the wheels of few against the feet of many! Common sense applies here.

+1

if there are existing tracks, paths, i really don’t see the issue.
if bike riders are cutting new trails then i could understand the argument.
in my experience walkers are more likely to stray from the path than bikers.

trailmonkey – Member
…I have merely questioned the assumptions of the forum posters, yourself included that conservation is the over riding value that we must adhere to.

I agree.

Too often conservation is used to exclude us spotty oiks from areas that are then reserved for the upper echelons of the eco-elite.

I see conservation issues in Scotland as a potential ploy to restrict our right of movement, and hence I am wary of any argument where this can be done.

Particularly when we are seeing wholesale bastardisation of our mountainscapes with a pox of heavily subsidised windmills.

it’s a fair point that you’re making trailmonkey… but I’m pretty sure that I’ve heard you ( I may well be mistaken on this.. it could have been a. n. other dartmoor local ) on here before playing down the attraction of a certain SW national park to try and keep the numbers down..

I ride in that national park.. and also an off limits unesco world heritage site in the same part of the country..
I choose not to advertise these places as cycling destinations in a glossy magazine though..

I’ve little against a handful of cyclists riding where they damn well please.. but I’m also glad in some ways of the restricted access in our part of the world… cos it’s a good way of reducing the volume of traffic..

I can therefore totally sympathise with TJ and the like for getting a bit edgy when they are confronted with dodgy attitudes concerning conservation..

Same old argument coming up again its the wheels of few against the feet of many! Common sense applies here

you’re assuming that all people on bikes are possessed with common sense and this thread is proof if any was needed that your assumption is most definitely naive..

Its not the responsible people I have issue with – its the thought of people like SimonFBarnes and his bogtrotters that makes me cringe

likewise it seems 🙂 Oh and FYI I would think the other Bog Trotters would fiercely deny being “mine”! They can think for themselves and rarely take any notice of me.

He believes that bikes cause no erosion, that riding alongside built paths is OK when the armoured path is inconvenient to ride and that he should be able to lead large groups of people anywhere anytime.

I never said I don’t think bikes cause erosion, though I don’t necessarily care if they do. As I understand it the NP ranger thought it was OK to ride alongside the path in question (Dollywaggon Pike) too as it had never been designed for bikes. And I AM able to lead large groups anywhere I please – so get over it. And that freedom will only grow as the countryside becomes more and more depopulated of anyone able to intervene.

I choose not to advertise these places as cycling destinations in a glossy magazine though..

This is my point though! Scotland as a whole is pretty thinly populated (<6 million) which is fewer people than in London! I said the Cairngorms were remote and someone pointed out the A roads and car parks and access roads which is fair enough but

a) the magazine didn’t promote it as a destination, it made it an article about some people out for a very tough, very remote ride which, by it’s very nature, will only appeal to the hardcore few who actually know about outdoor rights vs responsibilities in the first place

b) it’s sufficiently far away from the vast majority of people reading said article that they’re not going to make a special trip to do it. Cairngorms is another 3hrs north of Glentress! That’s what I meant about it being “remote”. Even if they have built a sodding great car park near it (which would suggest that they’re encouraging access to said fragile area)

I could understand it if it was somewhere in the Peak District which is within a 2hr drive of about 75% of the UK population but for somewhere like that which, even if you live in Edinburgh is a good 2.5hrs away, is ridiculous. Interview every single biker up there over the next year, I’m willing to bet no more than a couple of dozen will say they’re there cos they saw an article in ST. (ironically this thread has probably done more to publicise the area than the actual article…)
Interview every walker up there and chances are there’ll be an awful lot more of them and the route will be in every one of the mulititude of guide books about the area.

….although you do advertise it on the most popular forum for biking in the UK, Yunki? Whoops! I wonder how many folk will now want to ride the Cairngorms as a result of this thread, he mused in an ironic manner? I liked the earlier comment of two wrongs not making a right and was reminded of the Glasgow teacher telling his class of pupils that two positives can’t make a negative. “Aye right!” came the reply. 😆

Crazy legs

I’m just waiting for the angry mob turning up at my door, Frankenstein style, after having read the article and this thread and after a two plus hour trudge down Strath Nethy following an attempt to retrace my tracks. I may get some chocolate Hob Nobs in to placate them. 😀

TJ v.s SfB

FIGHT!!!!

Oh get some choccy hob nobs in and I’ll come and ride with you again! It’s been a while. 😉 Bet you can still rip my legs off though. 🙁

aye right…

As I said in an earlier post.. It’s great that a debate has arisen as maybe a few folk will be encouraged by this thread to take the conservation issue to heart..

to be fair.. I haven’t bought the mag yet.. so I haven’t seen the article.. which is why I was keeping my observations general.. but this thread has indeed inspired me to go and have a gander when I’m up that way.. 😳