Stubborn and Selfish

More and more incidents of biking on Blacka – not bridleway biking which is allowed but on public footpaths and even informal routes. I’ve mentioned the mindset of some of these bikers before. The one I spoke to this morning (the second time) is not without an element of rationality but when all’s said and done you know there’s an attitude that can be summed up as ‘I want to do this so that’s just hard luck! I know there’s an impact on paths but I can live with that. Anyway everything has an impact.’
I can only assume he’s typical. The eventual result is not hard to predict. The dire destruction on tracks like the Devil’s Elbow route will be replicated on each of the narrow paths across Blacka, with wide, rutted surfaces spreading uncontrolled across the route, bad enough when dry but an utterly unpleasant mess when wet. One MTBer once told me as he stopped for me on a narrow footpath that he rode on these paths because he refused to go down the Devil’s Elbow bridleway – it was such a mess. He looked on it as the landowners job to arrange to have it improve, claiming he and fellow MTBers would help. Hmmm.


Those of us who have used these paths over many years, during which they remained unchanged, despair at the sheer bloody mindedness of these attitudes. The prospect is utterly dispiriting. Those actually responsible are in fact irresponsible - those who should be accountable but shrug their shoulders - the wildlife trust, who themselves create erosion on paths so are shy of criticising others, and the various officers in council departments and on committees reluctant to discuss the problem.


The way it starts - how long before this becomes just another sodden rutted bike track?