Can you legally cycle on a public right of way in Scotland?

Hi Richard, thanks for that reference, a great resource!

In the time I spent in Scotland it seemed that given one had no
absolute 'legal right' to cycle off road, and yet were not breaking
any law either, the locals went out of their way to be as aggressive
and obnoxious as possible in order to dissuade you. I wonder how the
new legislation will affect this?

Unfortunately I was in Stirling when 'Bravehart' was all the rage and
the local Scottish nationalists were out rabble rousing outside the
cinemas, so being an English mountain biker proabbaly made things even
worse. Stirling students with an English accent were even advised to
avoid going into the town and a fellow student was stabbed. A short
time later an other English youth was stabbed to death and the court
found the perpetrators not guility of murder on 'ground of
provocation'. I think this meant speaking with an English accent. Even
the tourist signs in Alva Glen were daubed with 'F*uck of English
Tourist' graffiti. No I didn't hang around to complete my PhD... I
only hope things are getting better now.

With regards RoW's in England some my find this useful.

http://www.thebikezone.org.uk/thebik...ffroadlaw.html

Regards,
Howard.

(Howard) wrote in message . com...
Hi Richard, thanks for that reference, a great resource!

In the time I spent in Scotland it seemed that given one had no
absolute 'legal right' to cycle off road, and yet were not breaking
any law either, the locals went out of their way to be as aggressive
and obnoxious as possible in order to dissuade you. I wonder how the
new legislation will affect this?

Unfortunately I was in Stirling when 'Bravehart' was all the rage and
the local Scottish nationalists were out rabble rousing outside the
cinemas, so being an English mountain biker proabbaly made things even
worse. Stirling students with an English accent were even advised to
avoid going into the town and a fellow student was stabbed. A short
time later an other English youth was stabbed to death and the court
found the perpetrators not guility of murder on 'ground of
provocation'. I think this meant speaking with an English accent. Even
the tourist signs in Alva Glen were daubed with 'F*uck of English
Tourist' graffiti. No I didn't hang around to complete my PhD... I
only hope things are getting better now.

With regards RoW's in England some my find this useful.

http://www.thebikezone.org.uk/thebik...ffroadlaw.html

Regards,
Howard.

In Scotland you have always had the legal right to cycle offroad
anywhere, at least as much as you always had the legal right to walk
where you wanted. The problem was that a certain vagueness crept in
over the years about this right for various reasons. Try this link for
a good history lesson:

http://www.mountaineering-scotland.o...accesslaw.html

Any signs are just that, signs. Mean nothing. The only way a landowner
could get you off or stop you entering was by means of an injuction
against an individual.

The new legislation has been introduced to try to clear things up for
everybody concerned. In this it has been largely successful, although
only now with its introducton do you have the possibility of legally
preventing access without resorting to an injunction!


Howard speaking as a Stirling local I'm sorry you left our town with
such a bad impression! Feel free to come back up and I'm sure some of
the members of Stirling Bike Club would make you feel very welcome,
including amongest them our many english-born members.

The nutter who used to live at Dumyat Farm has long gone(retired
somewhere up nr Dundee I heard). He once chased some runners in his
quad but actually apologised once he got up to them and realised they
had no bikes. Waved a gun a couple of times at bikers I know - I was
always sensible(or too scared!) and avoided it!
A friend of a friend was a police officer out that way and from what I
heard he had to make several visits out to him.

The only hassle I've ever had was a few months ago on the other side
of Menstrie Glen from the shepherd who started to give me a load of
pish one afternoon as I made to cycle home up the hilltrack. Ended up
in a raging argument with him and his wife. Went to the local cop shop
a couple of days later after I decided that I didn't really like the
fact that he had threatened to run me over and kill me with his quad
several times. Waste of time as the police did point out : 1 of me, 2
of them, Scots law and corroboration etc). The polisman on the desk
also told me that I had to ask permission before I took a bike onto
somebodys land! Pointed out to him he was wrong and dropped in some
info about the new Act some days later.


Going back to the original posting : you'll have no need to enter into
any kind of discussion with local landowners come the start of next
year when the Draft Scottish Outdoor Access Code is accepted and the
Act becomes law. And to whoever is giving you problems at the moment
you are quite within your rights to ignore them under current
legislation. Tell them to take out an injunction!

Hi,

I would certainly like to visit Scotland again once the new
legislation is in place.

I also had some 'discussions' with the Menstrie shepherd. I used to
get onto the main land Rover Track via the Hotel road instead of going
past the House but one day found very prominent 'No Bikes' notices
painted on every tree and fence in the area. Undeterred I carried on
but as I looked at the view I saw a child running toward the house. A
few minutes later the roar of a quad bike wound its way up the
glen...

Interestingly enough in our 'chat' it turned out the landowner, if I
recall correctly, kept in excess of 1000 sheep on the surrounding
hills. Given that the taxpayer was thereby giving the landowner
£45,000 in hill farming subsidies every year it did seem a bit rich to
exclude the public. I did notice that the 'No Bikes' signs were
painted out a short time afterwards and 'No public subsidy of
hillfarming without public access' appeared on the fence instead...

One route I did use without problem was the fantastic loop above Brig
O Turk beyond the dam. One one memorable ride when I came to the
stream on the return leg (going anticlockwise) the water was above
knee height and moving really fast. I couldn't face going back all the
way round so had to wade across with fairly large rocks being trundled
over my feet by the water!


Regards,

Howard.

Hull.

Seeing we're commenting on other people's .sigs, what's a
'Techolibertarian', Arthur?


Eats Techtibles as well as librarians?

Richard Webb

Simon Brooke wrote:

: Seeing we're commenting on other people's .sigs, what's a
: 'Techolibertarian', Arthur?

A spelling mistake. Sigh.

It's a fair cop...

Arthur

--
Arthur Clune http://www.clune.org
"Technolibertarians make a philosophy out of a personality defect"
- Paulina Borsook

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 19:33:36 UTC, (Howard)
wrote:

: The main paths around Callander all had
: very prominent 'NO Bikes' signs

I have some sympathy with that, seeing the amount of damage that
mountain bikers can do, in some cases.

Ian
--

On Wed, 17 Sep 2003 19:33:36 UTC, (Howard)
wrote:

: The main paths around Callander all had
: very prominent 'NO Bikes' signs

I have some sympathy with that, seeing the amount of damage that
mountain bikers can do, in some cases.

Ian
--