You shouldn't be riding footpaths in Scotland

That’s what Andy Barlow says anyway. 🙂

Luckily its not up to him

I didn’t think there was any footpaths in Scotland?

Depends what he means, designated footpaths may be a fair point. There’s plenty moans been on here about people walking up the bike trails on their favourite trail centre.

Nice video although, of course he never uses the term footpath and all he seems to be saying is that, if you are riding on a path that is also used by walkers you should take care. That’s pretty much just a statement of how things are up here. You have a right to ride where you like but a responsibility not to be a dick.

He’s probably mentioning it as he’s riding a few of the non-signed trails at GT. So doesn’t want the weekend crowd to be hammering down the ‘designated’ walking trails.

He uses the phrase ‘walker’s paths’ not footpaths yup.

I totally agree when he says if you are going to ride them you should ride them with care – just thought it was funny to say you shouldn’t really ride them apart from when they are closed off for events (then shows him riding them not in a closed-off event).

I agree though he was probably just being careful about not encouraging people to blat down them on busy weekends.

Now I’ve watched I agree he’s being sensible in saying ‘we shouldn’t really be on walker paths’ but if you be sensible and think of other users. I hope we all do that on any trail anyway.

Sounds like good common sense to me. Andy’s a super nice guy and an awesome rider. The Dirt School day I spent with him was absolutely brilliant and I learned so much from him.

I agree with the point… But tbh I think he’s on shaky ground with his trail ethics, quite a bit of our dirtschool day was about riding outwith the trail- which is fast, but **** behaviour at a trail centre. I really like Andy, he’s a top boy but I wasn’t happy about that and I’m not happy seeing some of the lines he shows people turn into ripped-up motorways.

Poor phone signal means I can’t watch the video, but in assume Strava runs are exempt?

Sounds like good common sense to me. Andy’s a super nice guy and an awesome rider. The Dirt School day I spent with him was absolutely brilliant and I learned so much from him.

+1

Yeah I think he’s talking about the walker paths in GT forext, as opposed to footpaths.

I’ve only been up here for 15 years (so still an incommer), but it seems to me that there isn’t really the tradition of paths being for specific users up here. They may be built for a specific purpose (stalking, logging, getting from A to B etc) but then they are free for anybody to use. In fact it seems to be mountain bikers who are the first group to try and claim that, just because they built something other groups shouldn’t use it.

In fact it seems to be mountain bikers who are the first group to try and claim that, just because they built something other groups shouldn’t use it.

It boils down to common sense. It’s simply not advisable to walk on purpose built mountain bike trails. The argument should be about safety rather than right to be there. We know that the LRA clause about “land set aside for a specific recreational purpose” has never been tested in court, but I do question the logic of someone deciding to walk up the Fort William world cup track, as I witnessed last year.

>I’ve only been up here for 15 years (so still an incommer), but it >seems to me that there isn’t really the tradition of paths being for >specific users up here.

The history of Jock’s road (Glen Clova to braemar) is the one you want, as it’s when the precedent on land access was set.

OK, that was properly a rather broad and unnecessarily inflammatory statement I made above. Clearly there are places where it may not be advisable to walk and we all have a duty to respect the purpose for which a path was created. But I still wouldn’t want to ban people as some folk seem to advocate. There is just something wonderful about an access code that gives us all the right to access the land but makes us all responsible for our actions.

Last year I rode my bike up and down the “walkers path” on Ben Rinnes on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Doing that path at that time meant I needed to take extra care not to inconvenience the families out for an afternoon stroll. But I took it easy, shared a few jokes with the walkers I met and we all got along just fine. The point is that once you start making rules to govern who can access the land and when you lose something special.

ps. Thanks for the pointer about Jock’s Road. I’ll look that up. Funnily enough I’ve walked along that, but never ridden it. Something else to add to the list.

But I took it easy, shared a few jokes with the walkers I met and we all got along just fine. The point is that once you start making rules to govern who can access the land and when you lose something special.

Most of us down here in AngleLand never had this something special of which you speak…

I think Mr Barlow means you shouldn’t be riding the walking paths at glentress in the same way walkers shouldn’t be walking on the biking trails.

At a recent Pentland Hills forum I had a representative of a hill runners club complaining about mountain bikers and the mtb trails at Glentress, which I wasn’t quite expecting 😯

I love/hate watching him ride, amazing speed and skill makes it awesome to watch, but makes me realise how slow I am!

Nice video although, of course he never uses the term footpath and all he seems to be saying is that, if you are riding on a path that is also used by walkers you should take care. That’s pretty much just a statement of how things are up here. You have a right to ride where you like but a responsibility not to be a dick.

This is 100% right.

Ride in Scotland, expect to meet people.

They have the same rights as you, so be nice. Simple as that. 🙂