News

 

  • I hope to keep this section updated with any news relevant to cycling off-road, particularly regarding access and rights of way.

  • I am also considering adding a local history page featuring some of the fascinating facts about the moors I regularly bore my riding companions with.

  • Follow the Wiggle link on the right for cheap bike kit and help defray some of the expense of running this site.

  • The  Mountain Bike Orienteering fixtures,  click here.  Give it a go, it's excellent fun. See ride TTB044

  • A warm welcome to our new friends from Blue Collar Mountain Biking, based in Virginia, USA. Some guys with a similar attitude to ours.

  • Access News. There is currently a project in the Yorkshire Dales National Park to improve the bridleway and byway structure for cyclists and horse riders. Possibly upgrading sections which are currently footpaths or non-rights of way, or making existing rights of way more user friendly. Their access officer is looking for suggestions for improvements.

  • Please contact Mark Allum, Access Officer Projects, telephone 01756 752748 or email mark.allum@yorkshiredales.org.uk
  • It seems that all local councils are preparing a similar schemes, owing to a Government requirement to be completed by 2007. Although the Government is not currently funding the projects. It is feasible the North York Moors National Park may be planning a similar scheme. I have emailed the NYM Rights Of Way Officer for more information but as yet have not received a reply. Watch this space as they say and all those 'special' bridleways and other tracks of dubious legality could become open to us.
  • UPDATE. A friendly and helpful reply from Karl Gerhardson, Recreation and Access Officer for the North York Moors National Park Authority reproduced below:

Dear John
Thank you for your enquiry. Yes the North York Moors National Park Authority is also working with NYCC to produce a Rights of Way Improvement Plan for the whole of North Yorkshire. Further details can be found on www.northyorks.gov.uk/prow.  We are currently working on the over-arching strategic objectives, but also welcome detailed route suggestions as it is through their development that the objectives can be achieved.  I would welcome your comments.  Please submit strategic objective proposals by the end of October, but the details can follow later.

Thank you for your interest.

  • I picked out some of the more obvious bits of track which could do with upgrading and sent him details, unfortunately a little too close to the Nov 1st deadline.
     

 

About us

We are a group of shift-workers, mainly employees and former employees of a North Eastern chemical company whose name begins with Terra, hence the Terra Trailblazers nickname which was thrust upon us by a third party. Lately we've been taken over and sold like slaves to another company but the Terra Trailblazers name is staying. Having free time while the 9-5 world is toiling away we decided to take advantage and ride while the moors are relatively deserted - apart from the 30 strong mobs of geriatric hikers who always do their best to be stood somewhere in our way on any day of the week. Fixtures must be planned well in advance with careful scrutiny of the calendar to ensure as many different shifts as possible are given the chance to join in.

Riding ability tends to be mixed, ranging from regular and enthusiastic riders to lads (lads being a general term for anyone of the male gender over five years old) turning up on old clunkers "just to give it a go". The pace might be described as "leisurely and non-competitive", for all we know there could be Galapagos turtles and three-toed sloths living in Guisborough Forest - they'd be too fast for us to see. After the first couple of group rides the now almost mandatory cafe stop was established which, along with the accidents, falls and punctures, tends to stretch a sub-twenty mile ride to 4 or 5 hours quite pleasantly.

Since the site started we have been joined by shift-workers from other firms and industries who also revel in the relative quietness of week day riding. All are welcome just follow the contact us link.

All our the group rides are mainly within the North York MoorsNational Park, although day trips and overnight stays have seen us in the Yorkshire Dales, Hamsterley Forest, the Lake District, Peak District, Scotland and the Howgills. Wyoming, France and Gran Canaria have also been visited. As far as we are aware all the NYM routes use legal tracks, although several of the moor double-tracks in particular are a grey area. Some have signs expressly forbidding cycling, others, not marked as rights of way on the maps are regularly used by 4 wheel drive vehicles, mopeds and trials bike riders. The status of any path on the moors may be checked by contacting the Rights of Way Officers. Access to most of the Forest Enterprise forests is pretty much unlimited, some even have waymarked trails, particularly Guisborough, Dalby, Boltby and Broxa. The other forests appear to work on a 'ride anywhere except where specifically prohibited' principle. Which is probably news to the elderly gentleman who took pains to inform me and the couple of dozen companions he had, cycling is forbidden in woods (any woods, I assume) as I rode sedately past him on a perfectly legal bridleway.

The routes are not described in detail, mainly because anyone with a map can figure out the general directions, bearing in mind we are compelled to follow bridleways - long dashes, (not footpaths - short dashes) and B.O.A.T.s (byways open to all traffic), unless we go a hundred miles or so further north, over the border into Scotland, which has a much more amenable attitude, similar to most of Europe - namely, if it's a right of way you can ride on it. Until this country sees sense and gives us the same freedom we continue to share our tracks with horses, 4x4 vehicles and off-road motorcyclists. Not to mention the grim-faced walkers, most of whom look as though their hobby is some kind of penance.

"Forgive me Father. I have sinned."

"Say three hail Mary's and walk ten miles of the Hambleton Drove road scowling at every cyclist and you will be absolved"

 

Any comments or suggestions to: terratrailblazers@hotmail.com