I thought this would be worth posting on here, as there might be quite a few interested people!

See this forum link for more info

Tilgate Forest near crawley has had some good trails in the past as well as some scary downhill stuff. A lot of the trails were wreckedlast year by motocross rides, and now has mostly been torn apart with forestry work. The Forestry Commission were interested in local riders building up rides in the woods after the work was completed, but this now has been turned it seems into a plan to have all riders PAY to ride in Tilgate.

"I'm afraid most of the info here is incorrect. I have just had an hour long conversation with Ian Warby of the CTC. I will list some FACTS below, and more when I have digested it all!

COST = £6 as a day permit to ride any part of Tilgate new trails or forest (available online)
or
£45 per year as a partial membership
£68 per year full CTC backing, magazine etc

You will have to pay this to ride any trails, 'wild' (deertrack) or DH"

There is a public meeting on 29 APRIL 7pm K2 leisure centre in Crawley to discuss it….

And your problem with this?

You pay at Chicksands, (but family membership is only £80 for me and 3 lads), Aston Hill is pay-to-ride and the vast majority of FC sites work on pay-to-park.

Based upon what we spend on bikes, gear and travelling, whats' £6 for a day of fun.

Maybe I'm naive, but i think having to pay to cycle in a forest that has always always had free access stinks a bit.

Also they are intending for us to pay for the privilege of building trails which they will then charge us, and everybody else to use..

Who gets the money, the captain? And if he does is he going to spend it on a new tent and some better teeth?

Well I guess at least that would be a good cause.

Does he still not wear a helmet?

br – have you ridden there? it's not an all day venue, at the best there would have been an hour and a half of trails to ride, it's not a trail centre, and if you read the thread that was linked to they are providing nothing we are expected to dig the trails then they'll let us ride them if we pay, imo they'd be better off charging for parking similar to the Friston forest set up.

thats ridiculous!

isn't it just a few random trails in the wood or have i missed a massive network of singletrack?!?

There were some nice bits of singletrack, some quite hidden, you could certainly do a good couple of hours there, but that would be at most. Wouldn't be worth paying for at all unless they did some serious work which I just don't see happening.

But on the other hand its a really nice area for locals to go and have a quick spin in, and its normally full of cyclists of various ages and skills at the weekends.

take my kids there fairly regularly – either we walk and they ride on ahead or we all take bikes and just tour the bits near the lakes.

So we'll now need to pay £24 for my family to spend an hour tops having a ride around some fire roads before we walk aroudn the farm bit, have a tea at the cafe or head off home?

That's just ludicrous.

Private land, they can do what they like!

Seems a bit steep for 2hr of trails though.

"Private land"

it's publicly owned and part of a park!

there's swings and everything.

There aren't ANY trails in there at the moment due to forestry work. In the dry I could ride everything I know in there in 50mins ok, that's going at a brisk pace – I wouldn't pay £6 per visit for that personally. It's public access land, it is owned by the government/tax funded FC, they will provide no trails, no materials no nothing, just the right to carry on. The reason the costs are so high is the affiliation to the CTC and their fixed membership charges – they will not build new singletrack, provide materials either. There will be resurfacing of a Sustrans track to link the town, that already exists, but that I believe has seperate funding.

They are going to need a lot of people/volunteers to create their £6 per day McTrails – I for one will be riding 'wild' as the CTC phrase non-inspected/waymarked/sanitised singletrack.

I really can't see how they'll enforce it either – there's so many access points and too many local families and kids just 'ridign around' on supermarket bikes (which is a good thing, imo).

They said to me that 'peer pressure' usually works. In other words the local DH guys will ASK(!) you for your permit I guess.

The CTC are comimng onto the thread Zukemonster linked to end of the week,to answer questions/explain things. There is still time to influence things, so if you have an opinion either way, or a question, then register and make your voice heard – please before it's too late!

Pete

woodsman – I'll try but, in all honesty if it's brought in I'll either carry on riding there with the kids (we drive up from Hove) and see what happens (I can't see the downhillers getting too shirty with someone riding a SS with a trailer bike on it!) or just find somewhere else that's flattish and fairly tame for them to ride and go there.

it's publicly owned and part of a park!

Oops, looks like I just made an ass of you and me.

Wont this be the same as Swinley.

ie most of the time you never bother paying and occasionally you pay for a permit because you feel a bit guilty and want give some money towards trail maintenance.

scu98rkr – that's the point maintenance will be carried out by volunteers not where the fees are going – CTC.

Have your say wwaswas – we would for you if there's a problem your neck of the woods, I ride your area at least once a week. The CTC said they were approaching private landowners where trail building were evident, to take over the managing of it (advise only) and the third party insurance aspect. Prevention is better than cure!

Wont this be the same as Swinley.

ie most of the time you never bother paying and occasionally you pay for a permit because you feel a bit guilty and want give some money towards trail maintenance.

No, because they won't be doing any trail maintenance!

Bump – for any evening local STW'ers.

🙂

Interesting. As a Brighton rider, I'd actually be interested in how this develops, because if the FC do start charging, then it's quite possible that some development will go on (however minor) and we could end up with another emerging, (slowly) developing trail area.

As an aside, I've been amazed at how as a community we benefit from so little charging – at both Afan and Glentress I would've handed over good money for the quality of experiences we had.

But if I was regularly riding Tilgate, like some above, then I understand the irritation in full…

Someone's already pointed out the alternative models that could be used on the original, linked thread. If you want another example then you could look at http://singletraction.org.uk

£15 p/a membership, disappears into the club funds which either gets hoarded (because we're tight as a gnat's chuff) or occassionally spent on the only real trail essentials – tools and hardcore. Cheapest way to develop a trail is with those two as the only costs and everything else done with the blood, sweat and tears of volunteers.

FE currently provide our third party insurance (provided by one of the older insurers – don't think you can get that anymore). Insurance only covers for joe public being injured during / as a direct result of building.

We're affiliated to IMBA but (with no disrespect to the organisation) means nothing. Read the guidance readily available on the www about trailbuilding (IMBA and IMBA UK) plus leelikebikes.com, go out build some stuff slowly, you'll get the hang of it. Trail building isn't rocket science or a spectacular dark art. It's just hard, physical graft and a bit of insight.

FC can be very, very hard to deal with. All depends on personality and the level of involvement the key individuals have i.e. a MTBing forest manager. If you've got one of thsoe I'd advise chaining them to a tree and never letting go 😉

All I'm trying to say is it doesn't have to be complicated or expensive (but it will be hard work 😉

Paying to ride a bike on the public forest estate is anathema to me. The cavalier attitude that some people have to the concept of paying and the way they're prepared to just roll over and take it staggers me. But hey ho, different strokes for different folks 😉

Best of luck anyhow. If you want to talk to me about it feel free to email.

timsellors[at]googlemail[dot]com

Cheers

Tim, Chair, SingletrAction

£15 is more like a reasonable cost, especially if that actually goes on materials etc.

"Pay to ride" has pros and cons – it's not really what MTBing's about for most people, but on the other hand it gives you a bargaining chip (income from a lease), makes you get organised rather than being a load of faceless voices on forums, and puts off the flakey types who don't want to look after or improve the place.

What CTC offer, besides the clout of a national organisation, is basically taking care of the admin side for you, so there's less time spent hassling people for membership renewals, etc. If you're prepared to deal with this yourself, you could form your own club, work out your own lease with the FC and get insurance/accreditation through British Cycling instead, giving a rock bottom membership cost along the lines of what Cheeky's talking about.

As someone who lives in East Grinstead, I have been riding in Tilgate for a number of years and I would happily pay a small fee if it meant that it avoids the current situation where forestry activities have destroyed the trails, and even the wide, open access paths, rendering much of the forest unrideable.

+1 for I can't see the value in paying £6 to ride there. Did a few rides back in 05/06 but haven't bothered going back because most of it is pretty dull. Like others have said, you can scoot round in 1-1.5hrs.

Would only be interested if the trails became more TC-like.

Am not going to get involved in the politics – I'll leave that to those that know more about the area, etc.

"Pay to ride" has pros and cons – it's not really what MTBing's about for most people, but on the other hand it gives you a bargaining chip (income from a lease),

But why take on a lease? The FE are tasked by Govt to manage the Public Forest Estate. They are a semi-commercial company with expertise and resources that should be able to manage a few MTB trails in a wood. Why try and push anymore than is necessary onto a voluntary group? WHy do a group of volunteers need to front up cash as a bargaining chip, I'm not denying commercial realities, trails have some costs, but why is it always that volunteers / users have to be the cash cows?

makes you get organised rather than being a load of faceless voices on forums, and puts off the flakey types who don't want to look after or improve the place.

I disagree, the ability or willingness to pay some money does not guarantee or accurately reflect the desire, commitment or effort people will put in. The only reason to charge fees for a trail building club is the generation of funds to support the most practical elements of construction (tools and hardcore) and cover the minimum of legal requirements e.g. insurance (although if you're helping FE meet some of their Govt imposed targets there seems a good argument for them to foot that bill 😉

Hell, what about the value of the volunteers time? We haven't added it up for a while but I imagine SingeltrAction's efforts over the years will be wellinto the 10s of thousands if not 100s.

What CTC offer, besides the clout of a national organisation,

I know Ian Warby and have dealt with him a bit. He seems a good bloke with MTB and its interests at heart. But, whilst I'm prepared to be honest about IMBA UK I'll also be the same about CTC. What real clout have they got with FE about trailbuilding? Also, this sort of set up seems more typical of what IMBA (should?) be doing, I didn't realise it was such a strong area for CTC. A whole other argument though possibly.

is basically taking care of the admin side for you, so there's less time spent hassling people for membership renewals, etc. If you're prepared to deal with this yourself, you could form your own club,

If we've managed it can't be that hard 😉

work out your own lease with the FC and get insurance/accreditation through British Cycling instead, giving a rock bottom membership cost along the lines of what Cheeky's talking about.

Not really. I am not advocating anyone lease the land and take on all the responsibilities. As above, that's FE's job. When they've tried to get us to siogn leases (I've seen them for "our" sites and others have asked me about them) I've always strongly resisted. What volunteer wants to sign up to the liability involved? What volunteer is suitable?

It's also FE's job to promote recreation, health and use of the Public Forest Estate for the population. A volunteer group stepping up, putting their own time and effort in for free and helping them deliver on their performance indicators should be supported and engaged with, not made to do everything themselves.

God I'm in a ranty mood today 😎

Cheeky, as usual what you say above is all completely true. However, moral rights and wrongs aside, from a purely pragmatic point of view there are advantages to an overworked or cautious land manager in getting MTBers to shoulder some of the responsibility for runnng the site. It seems to have worked for clubs like Woodland Riders. As usual it depends on who you're dealing with and what they want, but it's an option.

We've got a similar situation in Bristol with a site that has been run informally for a few years, and unfortunately it didn't work out, the lines of communication broke, the trails have been bulldozed and the landowner is much more cautious about dealing with MTBers.

Forming a club is a possible way around this and carries more weight, to my mind, than just dealing with a bunch of randoms who have the potential to create headaches for you while giving you little or nothing in return. It ain't the only way by any means, but responding along the lines of "Property is theft! Man the barricades, comrades!" can ignore some realities of the situation IMO. 😉

There are also certain funding opportunities available to private clubs that the FC can't go for, plus the riders would (in theory) know where they stand if the terms of use were written down in a legally binding document.

Ian and CTC did put in a word for us in the above situation, I'm not sure how much difference this made in reality but if any organisation can bring pressure to bear on behalf of cyclists at the moment it's them. Their off-road arm is still in its infancy, they have some interesting ideas, although I suspect a lot of smaller sites aren't going to come on board if it means prohibitive membership fees.

"Property is theft! Man the barricades, comrades!" can ignore some realities of the situation"

I'd agree if this were land in private ownership that MTBers were using 'on sufferance' but it's publically owned land that forms part of a park.

You're not talking about people strolling round the woods taking the fresh air though, are you? MTB, and particularly DH has all sorts of accomnpanying issues, no-one's going to let it happen on their land without some sort of management arrangement.

we're talking about families with kids Mr Agreeable and part of a national cycle route, not just gravity fueled nut jobs on a mission to damage themselves.

it's difficult unless you've been there but the main area of it is open parkland with lakes and woods around the edges – there's a lot of fire roads that families use to just have a ride around on that seem to be being brought into this "£6 a head to ride your bike" charge.

It sounds like the arrangement is geared towards DHers, I would hope that would be reflected in its terms. Whatever the case, no-one's going to be nicking riders who don't have permits and carting them off to prison. From speaking to people like Woodland Riders it seems like most of these club setups rely on honesty plus a bit of self-policing.

The CTC have raised their head above the parapets and given a response to this here
clickyyyy

It makes interesting (if, I believe, unconvincing reading)

Alex