Ordanance Survey map symbols

poppit

A quick question. There are routes marked with a black long dash which is called a path in the symbol guide, is this a legal path for bikes?

Cheers

chedabob

Depends on the map type. Can't see anything like that on the Explorer key:

http://www.satmap.co.uk/pdf/explorer.pdf

poppit

Its on the Landranger key.

sniper68

It's a bit of a grey area."Technically" as it's not a BW or Byway you can't ride it.Most I've come across aren't actually signed on the ground and some are non-existant in reality.Some that are there aren't actually ridable anyway.

poppit

Yes, theres a couple I've ridden, one nr Chatsworth thats marked this way and is a really nice track and easily rideable.

Buckled_Rims

As Ibbo68 has stated, land access with bikes on paths is a grey area. The law in England is different to access then in Scotland, so I'm assuming you are talking about England and Wales. I've never been able to work out what rights I have for biking as the law is more muddled with complication by local bylaws.

The black dotted paths on a Landranger are granted access paths, they are not rights of way. You should have no trouble with bridlepaths, but other paths might be against the law.

To be within the law you'll need to speak to that paths council access officer for advice. I've only once been "strongly told off" about biking on a path by a group of walkers, I told him I didn't know it was walkers only path. He then took a photo of me as I biked away. I don't know whether he complained or what.

Anonymous

One of the things you can have nice arguments with ranting walkers about is whether you can legally ride on the path.

The national law only provides a "right of way". This is the same for walkers. This overrides the land owners wishes and allows you access.

Not having the nationally defined right of way doesn't actually mean it's illegal to ride there. There could be local by laws that override it. The land owner may decide to provide access.

Hurtwood is an example. According to an OS map, you'd only be allowed to ride on marked bridleways, but Hurtwood allow you full access to most of the land.

Beyond that, if there's no right of way and landowner hasn't granted access, being on the land is trespass which is tort law (not criminal). It's down to the landowner to keep people off their land if they want to and take you to court if they want. It's this fact that the walkers used to get all the public footpaths, by an act of mass trespass.

So you can have fun with the walkers by challenging their arguments and questioning how they really know if you have a right there. Chances are they don't know for sure unless they know the land owner. If they took a photo, I'd laugh and tell them good luck taking that to the police, as the police will have no power to do anything as no criminal law has been broken.

diy

The legal position Is not a gray area or rocket science, Summary of the law is here:

http://www.bikeradar.com/forum/viewtopi ... highlight=

quick summary. if its regular forest or private land, The worse case is trespass which means they need to show damages. If someone actually took the bother to sue me for trespass I'd offer £1 as settlement and watch their legal costs quickly show them that the game is not worth the candle.

The problem is, the bobble hats think its illegal to cycle on foot paths. By and large it isn't.

tbh i cant be bothered with riding on footpaths as there is enough trails to ride where i live.

Anonymous

Cool. That puts it better than my rambling replies. I'll have to link to that next time

Maybe it should be a sticky?

P.S. Regarding military land, is it worth mentioning the open access policy? At present the policy is to favour public access with a presumption of access unless there are specific operations or other requirements to keep people off.

http://www.mod.uk/DefenceInternet/About ... ecreation/

Though there's no mention of cycling, but the MOD land near me (and there's a lot of it scattered about) has signs up about MTB with an allowance to ride there, just with the provision that you should ride established trails (not to mention also asking people to be sensible).

Doesn't say to stick to fireroads, just established trails. The ones near me are used widely for MTB and there are many trails and some stuff man made. Much of it by the army who ride it, along with some clubs who use the land.

Though how long it will last is another matter as the MOD is getting concerned about MTB people using the land.

Likewise so are the wooly hat brigade members of the Friends of Hurtwood who seem to be in the majority and making huge generalisations about riders...

http://www.surreyhillsmtber.co.uk/239/s ... r-article/

diy

On the subject of maps, I have just installed
http://openmtbmap.org/ and
http://www.opencyclemap.org/

maps on my Edge 800 seem to be perfectly good enough for my needs and save me spending a fortune on maps.

The maps are about 400MB each, so you can get both on a 1GB microSD card, which I found in my wife's mobile phone :twisted:

On the subject of holmbury I am pretty sure some bobble hats deliberately walk the trails to cause conflict.