[Closed] MX riders on trails

Can you go down to the local station and speak to someone? Get it logged but it's then with the guy who will end up dealing with it.

It should be logged now. I will follow it up in a week or so. I will also let the FC office at Dunkeld know tomorrow. They were (understandably) closed at 5.45pm tonight.

well done, hopefully something will come of it.

101 is the number for all non-emergencies.
Funnily enough I asked Greater Manchester Police what number to dial if someone tries to kill me with their car, they told me '101'. Not an emergency see. If they've got a knife, that's 999, but two tons of metal, we'll get round to it when we can.

I live in England, I ride on footpaths. I'd be a hypocrite to chastise MX riders really.

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR - Member
I live in England, I ride on footpaths. I'd be a hypocrite to chastise MX riders really.
POSTED 10 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Depends on whether you damage the trails...?

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR - Member
I live in England, I ride on footpaths. I'd be a hypocrite to chastise MX riders really.
POSTED 10 MINUTES AGO # REPORT-POST

Depends on whether you damage the trails...?

TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR - Member
I live in England, I ride on footpaths. I'd be a hypocrite to chastise MX riders really.

Nah.

MX is a sport. Were you on an MX circuit?

[quote=TheArtistFormerlyKnownAsSTR ]I live in England, I ride on footpaths. I'd be a hypocrite to chastise MX riders really.

Take a look at the hills around Rochdale, thrashed by motorbikes and 4ft ruts all over the place.

Came across three mx'rs today near blawith, never realised how much damage they do, but they were realy tearing it up 🙁

I hate the damage they do but I'd love to have a go again- it's been years since I last rode one.

Thanks, will start dialling 101 whenever If I see mountain bikes riding where they shouldn't (every day) The Police will never be able to do anything else though mind.

Crosser and 4x4 damage on the hills above Rochdale:

[img] [/img]

globalti - Member
Crosser and 4x4 damage on the hills above Rochdale:

Probably enduro/trail bikes rather than motocross bikes though, like in most of these "MX'er damage"threads.

Problem with being offroad on a motorbike, is, you are instantly tagged as an outlaw. Whether on a legal bike on a CLASSIFIED road or a MX rider just out to rip up land with his mates. There seems to be very few people who know the difference in bike types,Trials, Trail, Enduro or MX etc. legal or not.

At Easter a local greenlane motorbike club got special permission to use some woods in West Somerset that we often ride through. We have just come back from a weeks holiday down there and I have had to report one of the Bridleways to the local Rights of Way officer as impassible, and the woods are now criss crossed with motorcycle tracks.

It appears that the guys riding in the woods did not know about it until the club rode through there, as we have been riding down there for a few years now and never seen any damage before, just the occasional set of tyre tracks, now they are starting to do real damage.

These woods do not belong to the Forestry Commission, they are private, and the local council have worked hard to get open access to the paths for walkers, horses and cyclists, it wouldn't surprise me to see the whole place locked up tight or some kind of barriers in place the next time we go down there.

As a motorcyclist, as well as cyclist and horse rider, I am saddened and at the same time unsurprised that given an inch, some guys have decided to take a mile which ultimately could to lead to total closure.

There seems to be very few people who know the difference in bike types,Trials, Trail, Enduro or MX etc. legal or not.

Not sure what you officially call those little mini motorbikes, but I'm pretty sure they are not supposed to be blitzing along the shared use path through a park and past a kids playground, as they were doing the other day 👿

Probably should have reported them but I've seen the same feral kids riding that bike on the road with all three of them balanced on it, no helmets, going as fast as that poor little engine could take them!

So for their own sake they are probably better off on the path, I just hope no one else has to suffer the consequences.

A small part of one of my local routes has just been infested by Quad bikes, they've dug some pretty big ruts in an area of about 200sq mtrs leading from a disused road into woods and out again onto a closed off road. They've had some fun zipping around the woods and turfed up nothing more than brambles and nettle beds in what looks like a mini track they are trying to make.
If I wasn't so free an easy thinking I might complain, but I'm not, I'm going to leave them to get bored of riding a very small space off road.

MX is a sport. Were you on an MX circuit?

Semantics, but, maybe (hard to say without asking them) they identified themselves as MX'ers, but out for a day on their enduro bikes? lLke 'footballers' driving RangeRovers round Cheshire despite clearly not playing football at the same time? Or maybe they were MX bikes, let's be honest the difference between a WR250f (enduro) and a YR250f (MX) is a high compession piston, a stiffer suspesnion tune and a bigger rear rim, not exactly somethings the casual observer can pick up at the side of the trail?

Problem with being offroad on a motorbike, is, you are instantly tagged as an outlaw. Whether on a legal bike on a CLASSIFIED road or a MX rider just out to rip up land with his mates. There seems to be very few people who know the difference in bike types,Trials, Trail, Enduro or MX etc. legal or not.

Yes, but if you're doing it legaly it's a non issue (lest's assume for a moment the law isn't an ass, and if it's legal then the 'classified road' is sustainable, or the land being used with the owners permission isn't somwhere that'll impact others), if you're doing it illegaly, it's possibly the opposite.

MX is a sport. Were you on an MX circuit?

Semantics, but, maybe (hard to say without asking them) they identified themselves as MX'ers, but out for a day on their enduro bikes? lLke 'footballers' driving RangeRovers round Cheshire despite clearly not playing football at the same time? Or maybe they were MX bikes, let's be honest the difference between a WR250f (enduro) and a YR250f (MX) is a high compession piston, a stiffer suspesnion tune and a bigger rear rim, not exactly somethings the casual observer can pick up at the side of the trail?

Brilliant response. That'll teach him to get pedantic.

😉

[i]Probably enduro/trail bikes rather than motocross bikes[/i]

I suspect most of us wouldn't be able to tell the difference?

Like asking a rambler if the mtber they saw was on an XC bike or an Enduro one?

Semantics, but, maybe (hard to say without asking them) they identified themselves as MX'ers, but out for a day on their enduro bikes? lLke 'footballers' driving RangeRovers round Cheshire despite clearly not playing football at the same time? Or maybe they were MX bikes, let's be honest the difference between a WR250f (enduro) and a YR250f (MX) is a high compession piston, a stiffer suspesnion tune and a bigger rear rim, not exactly somethings the casual observer can pick up at the side of the trail?

I thought enduro bikes would be road legal so would have lights and number plates, or is that wrong? Vehicles riding byways have to be road legal don't they?

saw some trials* bike riders in the local park on friday on my way home, bit of a quandary about reporting them, they aint allowed on there but pretty sure I'm not either. Thing is they [b]are[/b] tearing the place up. Fair enough everyone makes a mess when it's wet but the trails are dry so walkers riders and horserists can and do pass by with no noticeable trace, these guys couldn't manage it tho.

*maybe, dunno, i am not a motorised bicycle expert.

Since they closed some of the legal tracks out in the Peak I've encountered more & more off road bikes on bridalways, they've all been polite & courteous and generally on BWs that can sustain them.

Only issue I've ever had with them is one wouldn't splash Pook even though there were 3 of us egging him on.

I have however had loads of walkers (not ramblers) cursing & swearing & purposefully getting in their way

If its private or public land, then the riders need insurance, and permission in writin gfrom the land owner.

Our local police frequently do trawls around local land, and arrest the riders and crush their bikes, seen fully grown men crying at seeing their bikes being seized by the police and told theyre going to be crushed.

But then the bikes are also used in gun crime, and a few lads have been killed by hiting things like trees and lamposts.

Vehicles riding byways have to be road legal don't they?

Enduro motorbikes generally are constructed to be road legal as they can be required to use public roads as liaisons between stages at some events, e.g. the Enduro World Championship. Course, that doesn't mean they've been kept legal after they were bought, and they still need number plate, insurance, etc. Motocross bikes are not usually road legal when bought as they have no need to be, but they can be made road legal.

Rough guide - if it has a number plate and a tax disk (if you get close enough to see that) the bike is likely to be road legal (no guarantees of course). If it has no number plate it's clearly not road legal and can't be used on any public right of way. If it's being ridden on a restricted byway, bridleway or footpath it's not allowed to be there, so is being ridden illegally even if it has tax, insurance etc.

If you see something that's clearly illegal it is worth reporting it. I trail ride motorbikes but I have no sympathy for anyone riding an illegal bike, riding where they shouldn't be, or generally making a nuisance of themselves, because all it does is reinforce the impression that all off road bikers are hooligans and even more of the 5% of routes that we can currently use end up closed to us (which is actually pointless as the idiots causing the trouble are by definition people who don't care about breaking the law, so it doesn't stop them anyway).

D0NK has a good point though. If you report motorbikes for being somewhere they're not supposed to be, but you also use it and bicycles aren't allowed either, there is a danger of getting caught up in any action the police take (assuming they do anything at all...). Caveat Reportor, or something.

mikewsmith - Member

Take a look at the hills around Rochdale, thrashed by motorbikes and 4ft ruts all over the place

Therefore it must be the bikes...... 🙄

Standard response by most people, and used to great effect by the Rambliars association to divide and conquer....

(all user groups should have stood against them, what has happened to trail riding will now happen to horse riding and MTBs)

That (4ft deep) would be seat deep on a Crosser, I think you`ll find that the only thing that can make ruts that deep is a Tractor

The fact it has Knobbly tyre tracks going in to the rut does not mean the bike created the rut

You don't have a lot of choice once the rut is formed than to ride it, as getting caught up in it once you are moving or getting cross rutted (One wheel in each rut) is really no fun at all 😯

Many of us ride "Cheeky trails" on an MTB, many of us used to do the same on trail bikes, some of us even understand why there are more MX bikes on trails now that there were before the victimisation of trail riders
(You may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb etc, and its a lot easier to outrun a bobby on a DRZ400 if you are on a proper Crosser)

4ft may be an exaggeration but the countless deep ruts running up the steepest side of hills with normal tractor access in other places. That and seeing them at it.

You don't have a lot of choice once the rut is formed than to ride it, as getting caught up in it once you are moving or getting cross rutted (One wheel in each rut) is really no fun at all

Giving people the responsibility to decide what is reasonable and responsible doesn't always seem to work.

The argument that we should all stick together, or they'll come for you next is utter bollocks.

The damage caused by a group of motorised vehicles is blatantly much moe destructive than horses or bikes, even by careful and considerate motor enthusiasts.. To argue that it isn't is childish.
the let's all stick together thing is absolutely ridiculous.. I don't want anything to do with you

I don't disapprove of you right to use certain routes and have certain access rights.. but I never want to see you on the same trails as me, or dragging us into your battle.. Guilty by association and all that

It's not just 'the nasty ramblers' picking on you. . No-one likes you

all user groups should have stood against them, what has happened to trail riding will now happen to horse riding and MTBs

Can you actually provide one shred of evidence for this? The number of places to ride seems to be growing rather than shrinking.

there is a danger of getting caught up in any action the police take (assuming they do anything at all...). Caveat Reportor, or something.

Unfortunately my commute is one of those spurious trails that switches designation at random intervals bw/tfcr/fp/tfcr/fp but some of the fp sections are NCN so dunno whether my map is out of date or it's the usual ROW silly buggers

Yunki, clearly you are wrong as there are a couple of motorbike riders on this thread

Rights of way are not determined by suitability so the damage argument holds not water

As electric bikes become more and more popular it'll be harder to distinguish between mountain bikes & motor bikes... That's when we'll all get lumped together & talk of banning bikes, regardless of their power source will significantly increase.

Saw a couple of guys on motorbikes on the trails in Torridon last week. Around the start of the Achnashellach descent. I was surprised and didn't think that was legal???

Superb. Replace the words "MX" with "MTB" and you turn this thread into a page from Rambler'sTrackWorld.

How many threads are there on here about cheeky trails, trail building, riding footpaths etc, yet when someone else does it it is time for pitchforks and Bombers!?

[i]Replace the words "MX" with "MTB" and you turn this thread into a page from Rambler'sTrackWorld.[/i]

you don't think most people on here are aware of that and behave accordingly?

I ride 'sensitive' bits around me either at night or on quiet days.

I avoid some places altogether when they're wet as I know I'll leave tyre marks.

The problem with motorbikes is that the evidence they leave is always visible and even if you don't see them you can hear when they're about.

I wonder if the problem would be quite so bad if the taxpayer funded lots and lots of custom designed trail centres for them to ride at for free. Probably cause a few issues on the road though, it'd be tricky getting past all the audis with trailers left out to avoid paying parking fees.

evidence they leave is always visible

Yep - I just posted about the evidence that MTB riders leave behind on another thread (Glentress).

People in glass houses......

another striking difference..

an mtb puts out what..? 40 - 50rpm..? as opposed to 6000rpm
and the difference in horsepower..?
weight..?

you can come out with silly, meaningless ner ner ner ner ner hypocrisy arguments as much as you like but the fact still remains that motorbikes are very effective tools for causing destruction to trails..

mtbs just aren't

mtbs just aren't

Well reasoned argument - thanks. Horseriders/ramblers/others may disagree with that.

[i]I just posted about the evidence that MTB riders leave behind on another thread (Glentress).[/i]

Except that mtb's are allowed *anywhere* in Scotland and motorbikes still aren't so the argument doesn't really apply?

Well reasoned argument - thanks

put a CR500 next to even your raddest most gnarcore STWer and ask them to let rip..

try and spot the subtle differences between which machine causes more damage.. don't be such a spoilt kid

the arguments about whether walkers, horses or bicycles cause most trail damage rumble on indefinitely.. even scientists can't work it out, a different kettle of fish

It's the same difference between enjoying a nice cup of tea in the afternoon with your dear old gran, and shooting up dirty heroin with used needles in a filthy squat while your AIDS riddled girlfriend sells her body in the next room to get the money to buy your next bag of smack

Ah, so because MTBs are allowed everywhere, they can cause whatever damage they like?

As a long time rider of both kinds of bikes, my sympathies are split, but I find it hypocritical that MTBs are seen here as the good guys and MX as evil trail damaging hooligans. This is precisely the argument that other trail users use to bash MTB riders and that hasn't done much to improve relations or move either cause forward much IMO.

Yes in Scotland we can go anywhere but I that didn't stop me being roundly abused on Sunday in the Pentlands (and I'm SUPER polite believe me) by walkers both in the hills and on the canal.

And as someone else pointed out, and as I know from experience, MX riders are seriously persecuted in Scotland (no BOATS etc up here) so basically you HAVE to wing it "illegally" if you want to ride at all. No trail centres for them. Of course some MX riders behave irresponsibly like the litter louts in Glentress, but the majority don't.

put a [s]CR500[/s] mountain biker next to even your raddest most gnarcore [s]STWer[/s] rambler and ask them to let rip..

Same argument exactly.

I find it funny how pretty much all of the Trails in use in the Thetford Forest (Both Trail centre waymarked and Local knowledge)were originally formed by running Enduros through the forest.....

They are certainly the ones with the most natural flow 😀

dazzlingboy - Member

Well reasoned argument - thanks. Horseriders/ramblers/others may disagree with that.

Pretty sure my bike does less damage than the average horse. And I rarely leave dung all over the trail either.

Pretty sure my bike does less damage than the average horse. And I rarely leave dung all over the trail either.

I agree with you 100%, but this is the argument that is used against MTBs time and again.

[i]Ah, so because MTBs are allowed everywhere, they can cause whatever damage they like? [/i]

not at all and as I said in my first post I avoid areas where I know I'll cause damage.

I think the reason that MX's are seen as 'evil trail damaging hooligans' is because most of the time the evidence that people see that MX's have been riding an area is damaged trails.

You could run hundreds of mtb's up a fairly sensitive trail and find little evidence they'd been there, one or two MXers employing poor throttle technique makes it look like there's been a race through.

We were on Wildboar/Cumberland Clough the other day and apart from the spraying of rocks and buzzing of MTBers, the noise from the 'MX' bikes was deafening. That's a legal path for them but still, you can see why people don't like hearing/smelling them while out enjoying the countryside.

but this is the argument that is used against MTBs time and again.

by who?
are there really screaming hordes baying for our demise..?

wwaswas - Member
You could run hundreds of mtb's up a fairly sensitive trail and find little evidence they'd been there, one or two MXers employing poor throttle technique makes it look like there's been a race through.

Or look at the trail maintainance that needs to be done every year in the national parks, and that's got nothing to do with wheels or hooves

send the same amount of foot traffic up an unprepared track and see what the result is 🙄

A lot of us did ride Trail bikes responsibly, (Not my CR500 I hasten to add) and still got untold grief for it from the red socks, we`d pick routes which would minimise damage, not ride them in winter etc

Eventually the tiny amount of BOAT's available became ever more restricted and those that did remain spent half the year under TRO`s as it was cheaper to slap a tro on than to correctly maintain the routes.

I got fed up with the hassle in the end and started riding MTB`s instead.

If everyone had the right to roam but with that came responsibility for only riding / walking / motorcycling routes in good condition then I`m sure the problems would lessen.

How many Byways are now overgrown due to not enough foot traffic, and no vehicle access I wonder ?

I think if we're getting into a 'which way of accessign the outdoors causes the most trail damage per user' the MX riders aren't going to come out other than near the bottom?

It's true that over use of any trail by whatever legal traffic is allowed on it will cause damage if there's enough use but trails damaged by only foot, hooved or mtb traffic will probably recover quicker than an over used mx one?

put a [s]CR500[/s][b]Honda C90[/b] next to even your raddest most gnarcore STWer and ask them to let rip..

FTFY

MX riders are seriously persecuted in Scotland (no BOATS etc up here) so basically you HAVE to wing it "illegally" if you want to ride at all. No trail centres for them.

You don't have to, you could go to any one of the MX race tracks, or MX practice tracks. The fact that motorbikes have a disproportionately large detrimental impact on both the environment and other peoples enjoyment of it means that it's banned from large parts of the countryside. Take the Dark Peak as an example, on a summers day there may be 10's of MX'ers*, 100's of MTB'ers and 1000's of walkers, yet if you stood anywhere you'd only know about the MX'ers* as you can hear them, and if you look at a badly erroded track, odds on the majority of the errosion was done by the motorbikes with some help from the 4x4's!

It looks like a heck of a lot of fun, but as a sport it's not sustainble on 'natural' non-maintained tracks.

*catch all term for off-road motorbiker in this case

I reckon MXers (or whatever) should be invited to certain places;
http://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wigley-lane-no-longer-wiggly/
Longest wheelspin competition, anyone?
Use them as trail desanitisers.

Use them as trail desanitisers.

😀

yunki likes this

Interesting topic - used to be quite keen on the motocross thing, and the topic of illegal riding was a regular issue, I'm quite new to mountain biking and and interesting to see it's a topic here too.

With motocross, I was always of the opinion that illegal riding absolutely cannot be condoned. Apart from the illegality of it, I always saw it as a massive threat to the sport itself - noise has always been an issue, even more so with the popular resurgence of 4 strokes, and illegal ridingwas always going to be the world's worst PR for the sport. Always surprised me how many people justified it on the grounds they had nowhere else to ride...

Riding a legal bike on legal trails is a different matter, but if someone's riding a motorbike where they shouldn't, reporting it gets my vote. They're indulging themselves at the potential expense of everyone who makes the effort to be legal, so screw em.

There are loads of bike types but usually classified by discipline:

MX - motocross on a closed private short circuit with jumps and turns, much like BMX.

Enduro - riding trails, much like XC (AM) MTB, on road registered bikes on legal trails (or closed private events)

Both can be done on either bike, a bit like you would be downhilling if you do an uplift day, even if you take a trail bike.

Third class is

Scally (or other derogatory term) - ripping around on whatever, wherever, illegally.

All semantics for sure but for every illegal rider there are many, many respectable ones sticking to the law and only riding where they should. As Pondo says, illegal riding is actively frowned upon and not condoned in the (respectable) off road riding communities as the minority tarnish it for the others.

So please do single out and report the illegal riding but don't tar everyone with the same brush!

As a mtb'er and ex motorbike green laner, I can see both sides of the story. However, what many ramblers,horse riders, mtb'ers etc. aren't aware of, is they have somewhere around 100,000+ miles of of off road right-of-way, when users of motor based vehicles have less than 10,000. And what there is, is being downgraded year on year.

The damage they are capable of causing is/can be bad if not ridden/driven with restraint. However, when I used to go green laneing, most of the damage to land I rode on was caused by farm machinery of weather erosion.

And as for horses, they can do a fair bit themselves. Then when your finished riding one, you don't just power wash it and leave it in the shed for a few weeks. You put it in field/paddock, where it chews that up and 5h1t5 everywhere.

I reckon MXers (or whatever) should be invited to certain places;
http://singletrackmag.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/wigley-lane-no-longer-wiggly/

When the other trail sanitisation thread was going, I pointed out the [url= http://www.peakhorsepower.co.uk/#/bridleways/4571359340 ]repair list that my friend's volunteer group had put together[/url]. Says on their PDF that Wigley Lane was going to be resurfaced by the council, rather than volunteers, so I think they're in the clear of that particular effort. 😛

Was a bit alarmed to see Jacob's Ladder on the list though, although I guess if it's tricky getting Dobbin down it...