New Foresters don't like cyclists

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“We cannot allow masses of cyclists to sweep down our lanes two or three abreast at high speed, disregarding horse riders and endangering residents and animals.” like marauding vikings raping and pillaging.
 

TheDoctor

Europe Endless
Moderator
Location
The TerrorVortex
Every time I think of going to the New Forest, something like this crops up and I decide to go to France instead.
I mean, I can bail out of work at 12:00, and go to Champagne, and have a nice time riding through vineyards, or I can go to the New Forest...
It's not really a difficult decision, is it?
 

Hill Wimp

Fair weathered,fair minded but easily persuaded.
If i win the lottery, large. I may just may, no promises and all that but i may pay for all of CC to stay in the NF for 1 weekends worth of cycling. It wont be a race, you can cycle where you want for as long as you want and see how they like that. A large amount of cyclists descending on the Forest for the whole weekend and it's not an organised event as such.

What you going to do about that then ??:biggrin:
 

Philip Whiteman

Über Member
Location
Worcestershire
I was curious and decided to read the Brockenhurst Parish Council minutes. There is an obvious caveat in terms of their objectivity but the open toilet issue raised that would clearly rankle with local residents. What is the 'Drift'?

September meeting extract:

The Wiggle event of 5th/6th October caused the cancellation of the Drift scheduled for the Saturday. There were a lot of problems due to the event, at Godshill it was reported that the riders would not wait to queue for the lavatories and used the area around the village hall instead . Public anger at these events is growing, particularly due to the cancellation of the Drift as there is no excuse for not knowing of the potential for a clash. The ability to cancel the Wiggle event at one day's notice is evidenced by the fact that it was done in June due to bad weather.

They have also produced an open letter that specifically refers to sportives:
http://www.brockenhurst.gov.uk/media/adobe/i/e/Cyclingopenletter.pdf

At the September meeting of the Parish Council, Thornber raised the prospect of a Traffic Regulation Order. I am not convinced this would be an option. The TRO would have to ban all cycling as an order could not be specific enough to cover sportives. Even, if sportives were restricted, this can easily be circumvented by reclassing an event under another label. TRO restrictions on cyclists generally tend to restrict cyclists riding through tunnels or on A roads that resemble motorways (A1 or A14, for example).

One item of legislation that could be used by the authorities to hinder such events would be the application of the Cycle Racing on Highways Regulations 1960. The publication and ranking of times could be deemed as instituting a race but this could easily be circumvented by organisers removing such risks.
 

DRHysted

Guru
Location
New Forest
This will eventually end badly, I really wish wiggle would move out of brockenhurst as the money that moved in there have biased the outlook.
The rubbish about using the Green is just that, they found toilet roll upon the feaces, I am yet to meet a cyclist with toilet roll; and to get it from the loos would have required queuing.
The thing I had not noticed before is that they are only welcoming leisure cyclists, which would hinder me as most of my mileage is commuting.

The drift is when they round up groups of ponies that have been left to pasture, check them over, worm them, and then release them again. As the sportive took place on the roads, and the drift takes place on the open forest, the cancellation was a propaganda act which paid off for them big time.
 

Hill Wimp

Fair weathered,fair minded but easily persuaded.
My understanding of the issue with the drift was that firstly Wiggle booked the date almost a year in advanced and it was agreed by all to allow it to take place and secondly that this is the first year or certainly in a long time that those that organise the drift wanted it to happen on a weekend. I may be wrong and please correct me if i am but i get the general impression that the drift issue has been raised to add to the support when in fact it is incorrect.

Get rid of the timing chips and stop publishing the results and anybody that wants to stop these events would have a very hard time doing it legally i would assume.
 

DRHysted

Guru
Location
New Forest
The drift does normally cover a few weekends. Normally they do not publish the dates to stop idiots going to see, as it's dangerous because the ponies do get very stressed. I have unfortunately found myself in the middle of a drift whilst walking the dogs, and all I could do was call them close and hope we created a large enough mass that the ponies went around, for the record the riders did not veer away or slow down, because these events have "right".
They banned MTB riding before MTBs became popular because they might damage the forest. They have continually tried to restrict dog walking. They closed a number of car parks that the locals used. Yet when they asked us to avoid the Forest whilst foot and mouth was going on (our area was clear by the way) we did as asked. However when they tried to restrict horses due to the boom of livery stables (horses damage the Forest more than anything I've seen), the riders were up in arms, removing logs that had been put in place to protect paths and everything, until the NFA backed down.

It would not matter what restrictions, or code of conduct is brought in. Because cycling is not part of the areas "history" it will be attacked repeatedly until we loose, and the ones who attack it the most will be what I call London immigrants.

Sorry rant over.
 

James10

Senior Member
I cycle in the New Forest all the time and haven't dealt with any angry drivers, angry locals or angry horse owners. There is no backlash against cyclists going on in the New Forest. If there's any war against cyclists going on, it's on busy roads in big towns.
 

Mattonsea

Über Member
Location
New Forest
The Drifts are the only time the Commoners can get to treat ,brand or box up the ponies. It is sometimes organised at the weekend because the Commoners
have day jobs. The dates are the same every year for each section of the Forest, so the animals at Burley will be drifted to the same point . The practice goes back hundreds of years and is one of the few events the Commoners still do without hindrance from the National Park.
 

Goonerobes

Its okay to be white
Location
Wiltshire
The Drifts are the only time the Commoners can get to treat ,brand or box up the ponies. It is sometimes organised at the weekend because the Commoners
have day jobs. The dates are the same every year for each section of the Forest, so the animals at Burley will be drifted to the same point . The practice goes back hundreds of years and is one of the few events the Commoners still do without hindrance from the National Park.
So surely this can be worked around if people actually talked to each other? Or is that too simple?
 

Mattonsea

Über Member
Location
New Forest
So surely this can be worked around if people actually talked to each other? Or is that too simple?
You would think , I do believe the National Park are trying to turn the forest in one direction to promote the wider use of the area . This pitches the foresters against anyone in the forefront of this changes.
 
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