Inspired by this thread and some of the other threads [on Singletrack] where MTBers got frankly depressing and right-wing about access rights I’m going to relate my experiences of my local RoW access model. It’s a long one and I apologise now for grammar and spelling errors. I invoke Muphrys Law on any spelling grammar pedants up front. I will probably repeat myself.

Disclaimer: I ride bikes and horses, used to ride a trail bike. I can’t be arsed to walk anywhere because the scenery changes too slowly and since the dog died I have no compelling reason to bother.

I have horses stabled in a valley which contains a single bridleway and lots of footpaths. There are lots of bridleways outside the valley on which I ride my bike, and occasionally ride the horse. The bridleway in the valley is OK for horseriding, but for cycling it’s of no interest except as a means to get to other, better (from a biking PoV) bridleways. There are BOATS at each end of the valley, so the bridleway is also popular with trail riders linking them. The trail riders also have a cheeky play spot at the end of the valley on wasteland, but that’s mostly used by local yoof on minibikes. (I live next door to one of the yoof and he’s a nice lad. So I’m not trying to be derogatory with that term, but it is the one that best describes them).

The bridleway is too narrow for the 4x4s who use the road through the valley instead. The trail riders could use this road too, but a they don’t I’m guessing the bridleway is more fun. I’d have ridden it on my XR250. It’s fun on horseback because it’s open enough to canter and gallop – think DH speeds – and I suspect that when no-one else is around the trail riders enjoy a bit of speed too. As it’s not really fun on a bike I can’t get bothered about hoofprints because I know that I’m only using it to get somewhere more interesting on two wheels.

Seeing as I’m not the only horse at the stable an arrangement has been reached between the stable owner and the local landowners that all the horse-riders can ride round any headland in the valley, on condition that we each pin a unique identifier to our saddles so that anyone being obviously stupid or riding on the crops can be caught and dealt with. Some of these headlands are shared with the footpaths.

On a bike Some of these footpaths are more interesting than the bridleway for reaching farther destinations, so I ride them too.

Most of the walkers in the valley are dog-walkers, not ramblers (I’ll recount a rambler incident later.) There are no livestock in the valley so a dog on a lead is a rarity.

So there are horses and bicycles and walkers and loose dogs on the footpaths.

There are horses and bicycles and walkers and loose dogs and trail riders on the bridleways.

There are no legitimate vehicle rights of way in the valley, but there are at each end.

Yet it all works smoothly. Reading this forum you’d expect a bloodbath of dog bites and trail rage.

Here’s a typical day. In the morning my wife and I rode our horses up the bridleway for a gallop. Before we got to the fast bit we met some trail riders coming the other way. They slowed down and we all passed each other with polite head nods. Then we had a canter before meeting a bloke walking his dog, off it’s lead. We slowed to walk. He got hold of his dog. We had a chat in a good-natured way. Then we had more cantering and a gallop and finally rode back on the field headlands, basically on a footpath.

That afternoon I rode my bike round the valley and met more trail riders going to the play spot. Again, no bother. Then I rode a cheeky footpath and encountered at least four dog walkers, with not a single dog on a lead. No-one bothered to get hold of their dog (compare earlier when I was on horseback), but I was never in danger of being bitten and no-one went “ooh he doesn’t like bikes” or “you shouldn’t be here’.

On the last leg I met a horse being broken to trap (basically someone walking along behind it using long reins) on a footpath at the asme time as there was a dog walker. On the last cheeky footpath I met a woman walking a pony atop which sat a young child. Smiles and polite hello’s.

So the general atmosphere in the valley is nice and relaxed. There’s been no involvement of officialdom, just informal arrangements. “The Law” is being broken by just about everyone, but everyone else just turns a blind eye to it rather than getting stressed rather than feel the need to get all angry and apoplectic and write on internet forums.

There’s almost an “after you”, “no, after you” politeness to it all that is quaint, but not in the least bit stressful. In the valley, if you have a problem with someone you really have to ask yourself “is it them or is it me?”

Why can’t everywhere be like this? I think it’s because of the “they (i.e. anyone doing something that we’re not) shouldn’t be here attitude”

Here’s my rambler incident. I rode out of the valley and was riding on a legitimate bridleway that’s at least three Land Rovers wide, and has a pair of tractor ruts down the middle. Coming the other way was a bunch of at least thirty “proper” ramblers. Hking boots and gaiters and more goretex and rucksacks than a Himalay expedition merely to wander around the wild terrain near Woburn Abbey. As I approached the first group – riding uphill so not exactly caning it – I moved out of the ruts on which the ramblers were rambling and started to ride through the grass on the side. As I approached the middle group of ramblers the lead rambler -and I mention lead so that it’s clear he could see me – deliberately walked out of his rut and into my path. “Is it them, or is it me?” In this case, I think we can safely say it was him. I ignored this until the last minute when I moved sharply out of his way and said “mind your back”. As I passed the last group I said out loud, but with a smile (and I like to think a cheeky glint in my eye) “There’s always one”. In that case it was me.

Do we as a group want to turn into that wanker, being awkward for the sake of it?

In the valley by turning a blind eye to RoW rule violations and letting everyone use the trails, responsibly, there are less conflict issues than if you tried to restrict people based solely on their mode of transport and create honeypots. Isn’t “mode of transport” a silly way to segregate people? I’m not suggesting it’s up there with race or gender or sexual preference but at the end of the day it’s all just people.

tl:dr – IME letting everyone ride what they like where they like works better than restricting access. YMMV

I was a bit premature to write off January.

Get up at 5.30. Do horses. Work. Run an errand for someone — though I get a sushi lunch out of it. Back to work. Finish at 6.30. Go and do horses, again. Finally home by 9. This day is not atypical. But tonight the skies are clear, the weather is freezing, and I need some headspace. 15 minutes later I am hitting the frozen trails.

10 watts of raw power

Things I discovered last night. There’s something worse than frozen tractor ruts. An interference pattern of frozen tractor ruts. Buzzkill. That the ruts were only just wider than my feet made it interesting.

Another odd fact. Skylarks nest in hoofprints.

Once finished I called at the 24 hour Tesco for a snack. Quite scary how easy it is to eat 2/3 of your daily calorie tolal on snacks. A couple of pork pies, a bag of nuts and a Coke. Eat less, Do more is easy once you see which bits you need to eat less of. Lard isn’t far off the point.

For a few days we’ll be using an out of the box theme while I tinker behind the scenes with stylesheets.

One immediate change is the addition of reCaptcha on the comments form and relaxing of some of my commenting restrictions.

I can’t be arsed setting myself targets and totals for a year or a month. WHich is a good thing too as January has been a pitiful month from a riding point of view. Any intentions of getting out this weekend – and I had scheduled other items to make sure I had riding time – were scuppered by illness of emetic proportions.

Still, there’s always next weekend, and some local cheek worth exploring.

I suppose I also ought to decide whether to enter the 24 Hours of Exposure.

Not the most exciting route, and with the clay and clag more like resistance training. Still, the singletrack section was sketchy fun. Maybe I should have fitted mud tyres to the geared Spot or just gone out on the singlespeed, which is suitably equipped 12 months of the year.

Vintage Spot

First ride of the year. I encountered cheeky trail riders on the bridleway riding to their not so secret play spot. I rode some cheeky footpaths and everyone, everyone, I met was walking a dog. Not one of them was on a lead. I don’t normally ride the same bridleways on the bike as I do on the horse because, well, good horse-riding bridleways aren’t generally good bike-riding bridleways and vice versa. But tonight one of them was the best way home. Met two horse riders on the way.

Now if I was typical of the commentards on the Singletrackworld forum these days I should have been bitten at least once and later died of an apoplectic fit at the abuses of rights of way going on. Yet I had no problems and everyone was friendly and cheery. My suspicion is that attitude begets attitude and there’s a reason so many of the folk on that aforementioned forum have difficult encounters on the trails. Just saying like.

The photo per ride trend continues into 2012. I’ve made a note to start carrying the UltraPod so that they’re not just Panda shots.

cheeky chalky

Bike: Il Pompino
Distance: Just over an hour
Playlist: Rawk – iPod went Motörhead

There’s something satisfying about hitting a milestone at the last minute, especially when you only realised just before an arbitrary deadline that the milestone was within your grasp.

Yesterday was a birthday blowout evening meal which included beer. And boy could I tell that I had had beer as I mucked out the horses this morning. It felt like it was sweating out of every pore. So I wasn’t looking forward to getting out for the last few miles needed to hit the 1,000 miles. I even looked at the route profile from yesterday to try and work out which way round to do it to ease aching legs. The conclusion was to get the climbing and suffering over in the first three miles and enjoy the gradual descent of the remaining miles.

Wanker socks. Incongruous shoes**

I also set the endomondo app to beat yesterdays target so that if I was slow I’d have something to chase. Bit of a bummer hitting the traffic lights across the M1 then. Up the hill, thighs not feeling quite so bad as yesterday. On every descent I nail it out of the saddle to try and make up speed and time. It worked. By the time I reach the bestest roundabout in the world ever* I was over three minutes ahead, and just one climb to go.

Got the camera out at about where I figured 1,000 miles would be, then hammered home.

Gives me inspiration to try and do better next year. I’m making no resolutions though***.

* It’s a perfect radius and surface for scraping the inside pedal. Half an hour on a sportsbike there could be some knee-down fun.

** But you do get lots more nods from roadies when wearing white shoes.

*** Geek joke. My resolution for next year? 1920 x 1280.

Having realised yesterday that I was close to 1,000 miles for the year I had to get a ride in today. Kirsty went to do the horses and after a lie in I went out on the bike. I wore incongruous shoes – white whippet slippers on an Il Pompino, and I swear that for the first few minutes I was faster. Then the road went up, and the effects of yesterday and 44:16 gear kicked in.

Il Pompino

I was knackered heading West, but once I reached the halfway point the wind was behind me, the iPod had kicked into SOAD and I flew home.

Just a dozen miles tomorrow, rain or shine, to do.