Open access requires effort

This post is sponsored by CROW, spending a week in Scotland where the word reasonable means very many things, someone thinking I look like a power ranger because I choose to not end up in A & E, Singletrack magazine doing the right thing, and having a mother who has, I think, walked every notable mountain in the Lakes, Peaks and Dales.

I am my mother's daughter. I believe passionately in open access. I believe passionately in reducing trail and pathway erosion - I've seen the mess the Fixing the Fells bunch have made in the lakes and want no repeat of that in any other National Park. I believe in my right to ride my bike, to use it to explore new paths and trackways, to chuck panniers on the back and a tent and set off into the wilderness with nothing but a map, compass and a sense of adventure. My bike and I, we have big plans for Pennine Bridleway epics, Coast to Coasts, for picking a Glen and just seeing where it goes and one day, for ascending Snowdon. The whole point, to me, of a bike is that it will take me further, faster. I don't want to always go around in circles, damnit.

In 1932, a very large amount of people descended on to Kinder Scout in the Peak District to protest loudly and successfully at the restrictions then in place on people's right to roam.

In 2000, the Countryside Rights Of Way Act was passed, which further enshrined ramblers rights to roam freely, off foothpaths and into the wildnerness on land designated as:

• Mountains
• Moors
• Heathland
• Downland
• Registered common land

In 2005, Scotland was treated to the Scottish Outdoor Access Code and the Land Reform Act 2003. This gave outdoor users of all kinds, from kayakers to mountain bikers, walkers to wild campers the right, essentially, to roam. There are some conditions of this however:

• take responsibility for your own actions
• respect the interests of other people
• care for the environment

The end result of all this legal stuff is this. It is illegal to ride on a footpath in England but not in Scotland. You might not like it, it might really piss you off. But the fact remains that you are breaking the law, and a Countryside Ranger is perfectly within their rights, should they catch you, to give you a right good telling off and ask you to get your ass off the footpath and walk back down.

Moaning about it, and riding on them anyway is not going to help anyone. Everyone, and I mean everyone, has a cheeky little trail near their house which they know they're not supposed to ride, but they do. The impact of this will vary on any number of different things - how you look, how you conduct yourself when meeting other path users, the evidence you leave of your passage along the path, the litter you drop, the noise you make, whether you know by name the other people you may meet on that path.

There is a fine line between tolerance and righteous indignation. Most of us walk the right side of it, leaving no trace, being courteous and polite, always slowing when seeing other path users, passing the time of day and making eye contact. The amount of riders using the path will also make a huge difference, because it will be the difference between an intimidating faceless mass of bodies kitted out in black hurtling towards someone who is out for an evening stroll and wind down after a hard day at work, and two people being friendly and smiling, commenting on the weather and then hurtling off into the distance leaving a perturbed smile behind.

There is no doubt that the law in this country needs to be changed. The amount of us turning to our bikes as ways to lose weight, maintain fitness, recover from operations or injuries and for stress relief is on the rise. This is not a bad thing, no one could possibly argue that it was. But with increasing numbers comes increasing curiosity, increased impact, and the need for somewhere for these people to go and play. Trail centres satisfy this, at least in part. They provide easy routes, waymarked, accessible, safe, and with the assurance that you are not going to round a corner and land in a river with no warning. But they don't give people the same sense of adventure that setting off into the wilderness does. Some people just want to go exploring; they want to know what's over the next brow of a hill, what's at the end of that valley, where the source of that river is. It's those people, who are familiar with a map and compass and the role of the Mountain Rescue teams, who in frustration at the impossibility of a feasible ride based solely on public bridleways are turning to illegal footpaths to get their fix.

Some provision for these people needs to be made. Either we need more bridleways and waymarked routes like the Pennine Bridleway, or some of the old bridleways which have become disused and overgrown need to be opened up. Or, and this is rather a radical suggestion I know, we need an English version of the Scottish Open Access Code which treats people like grown ups and puts the onus on us, the bikers, to act reasonably, and make a decision about the impact of our riding and whether it is an acceptable one. Ramblers, through pressure, eloquence and contacts managed to produce the CROW Act which allowed them to wander freely. I see absolutely no reason why mountain bikers, as a group, cannot do the same. The work which some people are doing to bring facilities to my local area for mountain bikers which were sorely lacking even 18 months ago are testimony to the power of determination and passion. Imagine if every mountain biker in the country who wanted to wander off the beaten track wrote to their MP and asked them to consider such an Access Code.

Spreading the impact of our tyres can only be a good thing. Erosion is a real problem, on footpaths, towpaths and bridleways. Concentrated footfall and tyre tracks create ruts which can never be repaired unless done in an ugly manner such as laying great slabs of stone over the top of the trails. Spreading impact reduces the damage we all inevitably leave. Spreading impact also results in a much friendlier shared space - if you've not seen anyone for the last five miles, you're far more likely to be friendly and communicative with the only other person you've just tripped over on the moor. If I ride over a rare plant species and no one follows me for another two months because they're all riding over different bits of the moor, that plant has far more of a chance of recovering. Trusting people to act like adults generally encourages that behaviour. Those who are not comfortable using a map and compass will stick to the waymarked trails or to trail centres, and those braver soles will venture out prepared and will no longer be breaking the law for having a basic human instinct, which is to explore.

There has to be a resolution to this because as things stand, tempers are fraying and the fires are kindling, and as the 4x4 crew found out to their great cost, annoying the wrong people when out in the countryside might seem funny when it happens, but tends to wipe the smile off your face a year later when all mountain bikers are entirely banned from the countryside and actively restricted, through the placement of gates and narrow posts and rangers patrolling, to trail centres. If that sounds dramatic, check out what happens when you irritate the wrong people paying particular attention to the rebranding of Byways Open to All Traffic to Byways which in 2000 removed vehicular access to these roads. I leave it your powers of reasoning to work out who was behind that rebranding.

The more people who mountain bike off road, the more people there are to annoy regular footpath users. However it is worth remembering that those very same people are voices to be added to the request for more open access. It's our choice which way this goes.