Friends, Bikers, Countryside.....

……………………(Lend me your, er, gears?....ouch!)

The quiet narrow paths of Blacka and similar local places are getting more attention from minority groups of mountain bikers who are not content with keeping to bridleways. Many of these paths are of soft peaty structure and the ruts caused by bikes eventually degrade them leading to progressive widening.



The result can be seen all over the area. The effect of biking is apparent at some points on bridleways where mountain biking is of course permitted. The spread of the problem to ordinary footpaths and public rights of way should be stopped. Mountain biking is growing and the numbers of renegade "I'm riding where I want to" characters is increasing in proportion. In time this will lead to more examples of the appalling mess we’ve seen on some bridleways such as the Devil's Elbow route.

There's no problem with those who keep to bridleways and ride within the bounds of the track as is this biker below.



On Blacka alone there are bridleway routes where biking is permitted amounting to more than 5 kilometres and within a very short distance and easily linked to there is more than double that. Unfortunately a minority have developed an attitude akin to warped ideology similar to that of the off-roading 4X4 drivers whose aim is to demonstrate they have an inalienable human right to go wherever they want (and take whatever machine they want with them!). As they see it the more they do it the more they establish their 'right' to do it. And it's true that it gets harder to deal with habitual activities than those that are occasional. Which is why things need to be dealt with early and nipped in the bud. In this case that’s not happening and there’s a reason.


The trouble here is that the land is under the control of Sheffield Wildlife Trust who have no interest whatsoever in doing anything to stop this and are quite relaxed about the impact on the paths and walkers. This is not news of course because readers of this blog will know that Sheffield Wildlife Trust, more an agency than anything else, is hard to shift from their position unless it’s shown to be in their own interest. The problem has been raised at RAG meetings for several years and nothing has been done, not even a single notice being put up to remind bikers where they can and cannot go. Two years ago Sheffield Wildlife Trust came under serious pressure to stop recreational downhillers who had started a route on the east side of Blacka. That needed a concerted effort by local people to get action and eventually something was done. Another similar route elsewhere remains and has not been stopped yet. These ‘downhill’ routes are of a different order to the problem on the meandering narrow paths. But the paths will eventually become so wide and unpleasant to walk on that downhill biking routes is all they’re fit for. That is when SWT will come up with some action which will amount to what we’ve seen with them elsewhere: they will take several years getting round to it even after it’s got to be intolerable and then they will look round for grants from any provider such as the Forestry Commission leading to the dumping of sandy gritstone on the paths. This will look unsightly.



The character of the paths as it has been for many generations will be gone for good and there will still be cycling on walkers routes.

One of the major reasons that SWT don’t like acting on this is because they identify themselves as the bikers’ friends. SWT need friends and supporters and don’t find them in Friends of Blacka Moor so set out to find them elsewhere. Doubtless they would have liked to be on good terms with local users of Blacka who were already in situ but having alienated many of them they have cast wider for support. You could say that promoting themselves and getting supporters and members is their core business. It matters a lot to them to be able to show they have support and this usually means it’s an essential if you want to apply for grants these days. After Icarus in 2006 this was one of their key targets – I remember telling them this during the consultation. “You should reconnect with the community” I said, trying to be helpful after they had alienated people; that was then built into the key recommendations that came out of the Icarus consultation. They took this message away and reinterpreted it not as listening to the community but as getting their message across – telling local people that they, SWT, know best. We should have predicted it but were hardly surprised. Another part of the strategy was to add to their supporters by getting them from elsewhere, preferably those who knew nothing of their performance to date. Hence they spent a lot of time approaching potential volunteers in various workplaces about the city encouraging these people who had never been to Blacka Moor to come along and ‘have fun’ cutting down bracken or birch on a jolly morning complete with hot drinks provided by their managers who have special responsibility for volunteering. A jolly social thing really and a hope that some at least would come again and become a regular supporter and act as a counter to play off against the determined opposition of those who knew what they had been doing before. They probably have organization targets for volunteers and at a recent RAG meeting were showing satisfaction, claiming large numbers. Questioned about this they admitted a lot of them were from the new intake at university who of course did not know what they were coming into.

One source of local support they targeted was the growing mountain bike community in Sheffield. This was helped by the fact that one or two of their staff were already keen bikers. It was an advantage that the bikers, like SWT themselves, incur quite a lot of opposition especially from walkers and walkers groups. The message was then that ‘We, SWT are a mountain biking friendly outfit. We want to see more mountain biking and we’ll help you.’ That’s OK of course if they’re encouraging responsible biking and they would say they are. But the distinctions are blurred and SWT are not the most subtle of people. They fear that any serious attempt to restrict even a small minority of bikers would impair their relations with bikers groups generally. Since acquiring Greno Woods in the north of Sheffield they have been wooing MTBers by developing a network of downhill biking routes there, not something one would think was the normal job of a wildlife trust but we live in strange times.

All in all there seems little likelihood that SWT will tackle the bikes on paths issue. My guess would be that the call for action at the last RAG meeting will lead to nothing being done before the next one (not until March). An artful dodge will then be set up by getting lots of MTBers to attend, a trick they have used before. That will then lead to the kind of semi-orchestrated confusion that managers use to justify doing nothing because "there are many different views".