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CYCLETALK
The Newsletter of CTC ScotlandNumber 31: Feb/Mar 2004 Editor of this issue:
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Several hostels run by the SYHA have been closed in recent years while the number of independent hostels has increased. Details of most of these are easy to find as there are a number of independent hostel publications or web sites.
I thought that CTC members might like to know the location of Huts where they can stay overnight. To use the cliché, use them or lose them! If we are going to have another sunny summer, then they sound great. If you know of any others whose whereabouts are not widely known, please let us have details for a future edition of Cycle Talk. If the ones below sound too luxurious, George Berwick can recommend some caves!
This four bunk hut in woods on the south side of Loch Earn is available to members of some other Scottish DAs. It contains very simple facilities with basic sanitation and no heating. The water supply is not drinkable. Not as bad as it sounds, but better avoided in the midge season! For more details and booking, contact Fife and Kinross DA, c/o Margaret Berwick, Midcraigs, Balmerino, Newport-on-Tay, DD6 8RN. Phone 01382 330217.
Is sited on forestry land overlooked by Ben Ledi on the shores of Loch Lubnaig about six miles along the cycle track from Callander to Strathyre at Stank. The hut sleeps eight people in three dorms (2x2 bed dorm, 1x4 bed dorm). There are radiators fitted in all rooms and the hut is fully double glazed. The central area has a full kitchen and dining area. Cost is £5 per person per night and at present electricity is included in the price. Duvets are provided but you will need a hostel type sheet liner. We think the hut offers a simple but comfortable base to explore this area of Scotland. To book either contact Glasgow DA, Ronnie Chard 01389 976 4120, William Dickson 01698 827976, e-mail William Dickson or phone Angus Walker 0141 637 8966.
Great cycling country! Aiming to open for overnight stays after completing the shower and WC extension. There is no parking for overnight stays. For further information contact Rupert Sherwood, 01620 895752 or 01620 890113 or email
For £3 a night you can stay beside the Quilt Burn near Tweedsmuir, with a friendly pub about half-a-mile away. Self-catering. Gas cooking, coal heating, basic sanitation. Newly-installed running water supply (shared with adjacent cottage) – boil before drinking. Duvets provided, sheet sleeping bags needed. Twelve beds in two rooms, plus small ‘Leaders Room’ – or is it for the snorers or the ones with smelly feet? Living-room and Scullery.
There must be at least one adult CTC member in the party.
Phone Ashley Watt (0131 440 1495) for more details and to book.
Do you want to be compelled by law to wear a helmet for all cycling? Have you read the literature? Have you responded?
The big-hearted staff of the “7stanes” mountain-biking trails project in South Scotland organised fund-raising rides at the three world-class “7stanes” mountain bike trails in Glentress Forest in the Borders and in Mabie and Dalbeattie Forests in Dumfries & Galloway to raise money for Children in Need in November 2003.
Organisers’ spokesperson Catherine Rae said,
“You don’t have to be a super-fit daredevil to enjoy getting on yer bike for Children in Need, because the trails at each of the three sites offer routes suitable for everyone, from family groups and the not very fit to the serious competition rider. So there is definitely no excuse for not getting on yer bike for Children in Need.”
All three sites offer routes graded from green for beginners through to red for more experienced riders. Glentress and Dalbeattie also offer black sections for the very keen and fit.
1. The three-year, £1.9 million 7stanes project has been developed and is managed by a partnership led by Forestry Commission Scotland. The partners are Scottish Enterprise Dumfries & Galloway, Scottish Enterprise Borders, Barony College, Solway Heritage, Scottish Natural Heritage and the local Tourist Boards, supported by European Union Objective 2 funding.
2. The Helly Hansen V Trail (black route) at Glentress won the Singletrack award for Best UK Trail in September. Its highlights include big berms and features with names such as the Tweed Shore, the Rock Steps and the Stone Chute.
3. The Hardrock Trail at Dalbeattie is famous for very technical sections that cross granite rock features with names such as The Slab, Moby Dick and the Terrible Twins.
4. The Endura Phoenix Trail at Mabie Forest is the newest of the three, having opened in October. It is a classic, natural trail offering a variety of riding from burning climbs to fast, swooping descents like the Descender Bender, with loads of blinding berms, drop-offs, burn splashes and rooty sections in between for those who enjoy bouncing over tree roots.
Yes, another very large windfarm, this time near Dalmellington over all of Kyle forest and opencast restored land, and nearly linking up with Windy Standard. I hope that I am not going to offend anyone by what I am about to write.
I feel that I am now getting the windfarm issue into perspective. The proposal is for an expected 150 turbines generating enough for half a million homes. The one I wrote about at Ae forest has been toned down from 200 to 100, but is still considerable. Windy Standard itself is set to double in size, so there is a potential for SW Scotland wind energy for about a million homes, at least 20% of the domestic consumption, from this one area of SW Scotland. So, assuming other renewables are being developed, not much more wind power is needed over Scotland.
The point about this area, to me, is that it is one which has little character of its own, not even a comprehensive name, sandwiched between the Galloway massif and the Lowthers, which both have very great character and, to me, should be sacrosanct from wind turbines. The said area has little in the way of eco-titles and is visually easy to pass by. Also, the areas selected are largely covered with conifer forest and would benefit from the holes (in the canopy) made for the turbines, and some extra “natural” planting. From our point of view, there is the potential for much more access, which the company is aware of – indeed it could become an “8th Stane”.
The company itself looks for relatively innocuous sites. Another big factor is willing landowners, in these cases being mainly Forestry Commission, company forestry and Coal-board (or whatever they are now called). It seems to me to be good that so much wind energy can come from a relatively small and least attractive part of the country.
CTC has no official policy on windfarms, so, at the exhibition which I have just attended, I only expressed personal enthusiasm; all I said for CTC was that we looked forward to the extra access provision.
There’s been a lot of discussion about the theory of the new Access Legislation and associated Code, so here are one or two practical examples of what we might actually have to deal with.
I suspect that many of the disputes will arise not with local farmers or landowners, but with big estates and their factors.
My first example is a big estate in West Lothian, not far out of Edinburgh. A tarmac road runs from the main gates to the big house, and another from the House to what we might call the back gates, which historically were always, except maybe one day in the year, kept open, and used as a public route, though not, in the main, by vehicles, which made it ideal for cyclists. It is surfaced, and, compared with the alternatives, relatively flat, and makes the nearest thing possible to a coastal route.
Three years ago, using the foot and mouth outbreak as an excuse, the back gates were sealed with an electrically-operated gate. A kissing gate of very tight dimensions was provided for pedestrians, but cyclists had no option but to lift the bikes over the gate – difficult enough with an unladen solo, virtually impossible for tandems, recumbents or anyone with baggage.
After much protest and bad publicity, the Estate eventually agreed to modify the gates to allow cyclists through. That was two years ago, and despite the fact that Sustrans agreed to design the changes, and West Lothian Council to pay for them, the Estate has procrastinated endlessly, and the modifications have still not been done.
The Council have been as helpful as they could, short of confronting the Estate directly. In theory Councils have powers to address non-compliance, but in practice they will be very reluctant to apply them. This case (Hopetoun House – might as well name and shame them, they won’t read CycleTalk anyway!) is a classic case where a Council might be expected to take action.
But Councils have to live with big landowners. As they see it, being confrontational now might make matters even worse in future. Councils are happy to play the role of referee or ‘honest broker’, but nothing more. The legislation really needs a national body with some real clout, to sort out the rogue landowners who refuse to co-operate on access issues.
My second example is another big Estate, this time in East Lothian. Here again a tarmac road leads to the House from the main gate, and another from the House to the back gate. The whole route is about 2kms and, for cyclists, avoids a busy and rather narrow road with some nasty bends at the cost of some road humps.
The recently-published Spokes map of East Lothian showed the route as a “useful link (track) for cyclists”. No sooner was the map on sale than the authors received a letter from the estate’s Factor, stating that he had stopped some cyclists, and they had claimed the route was on the map. He was now writing to ask us very firmly to take the route off the map as this was a private road and the occupants’ privacy was being compromised, etc.
We (Spokes Maps) pointed out in reply that even before the new legislation, cyclists (and walkers) were doing nothing illegal in using the route. And while we respect the occupants’ rights to privacy, the new legislation gives the landowner the opportunity to direct the public where he/she wants them to go, and if privacy is a problem, a diversion away from the immediate environs of the House could be put in place. (I should add that the House is used for public functions, so a public presence is nothing unusual. Spokes suggested that an enterprising landowner could put the presence of (largely middle-class, health-conscious) cyclists to advantage by advertising the House’s availability for conferences etc. This suggestion was not well received!).
Clearly, then, access issues are a problem for map makers, as they have always been. The Spokes maps, like the OS maps on which they are based, have a clause to the effect that “the representation of any road, track or path is no evidence of a Right of Way”, which in effect lets the mappers off the hook as far as actual use is concerned.
With the new legislation, will map-makers become more daring in what they are prepared to show as a route?
Should cyclists and other users be denied valuable information at the behest of big landowners?
While Spokes would obviously not recall the 5,000 copies of the map already printed, should they downgrade the depiction of this route in the next Edition?
What do you think?
The email notification list is growing. After the last issue, there was a request that the PDF version should be Acrobat5-compatible rather than Acrobat6. Will do. The system is that a PDF and an HTML version are posted. The former is an exact copy of what is printed, the latter may have some more ‘domestic’ bits removed. An email is sent out indicating that they are available and where to get them. There are now 141 names on the list. To be added to it, please send an email to the Editor giving your Name and Membership Number.
Planning your summer? Put these in your diary now:
Anyone who manages a budget in the public sector knows the way one can suddenly be told that there is £x available, but it has to be spent within the next y weeks. The wise person always has a little list to which these funds can be applied. Last year Sustrans in Scotland received about £1.4m with very short notice, and used this largely to surface and upgrade paths in the West of Scotland. This year, the Scottish Executive being so impressed with their efficient management and action, has almost doubled the amount (to £2.5m), and Sustrans, being well-prepared, has a much wider range of projects ready. It’s more spread geographically and in the type of work – from lighting the cycle path on the railway bridge at Invershin to building a footbridge at Newton Stewart, from personal safety improvements on the Partick to Yoker Cycleway to tarmac and vegetation management on the Musselburgh River Esk path. Some are on paths which are owned by Sustrans, others are parts of the National Cycle Network where the paths are owned by District Councils.
By the time you receive this, the AGM of CTC Scotland will have happened. Look on the website if you want to find out prior to the next issue of Cycle Talk if there has been a ‘palace revolution’ (www.CTCScotland.org.uk).
The National AGM & Dinner will be in Edinburgh at the Holyrood Hotel (almost next to the new Parliament building) on April 24th. Details in the next Cycle Talk and in the National magazine Cycle. If there are any Edinburgh members willing to offer overnight accommodation to visiting members either from Scotland or other parts of the UK, or any visitors needing accommodation, please contact Mike Harrison (Secretary; +44 131 554 7773).
Have you heard of this? It does say it’s a GB initiative. Follow up the web link to find out more.
Rotary Clubs are to give every schoolchild aged from reception to year6 a free Hi-Viz light reflective road safety vest (Safety Satchel) with built in rucksack.
There is no longer any reason for schoolchildren to remain unseen and no excuse for teachers not to do something about it now safety wear is available free.
3M Scotchlite reflective materials are sponsoring the first stage of the launch which is going out to schools across East Anglia. Campaign organiser Philip Wells has made it clear that no school - wherever they are will be turned away.
Please tell your contacts to visit www.safetysatchels.com for full details of how schools should log on to reserve supplies for their pupils.
Congratulations to David Fawcett (Tayside DA) and Alison Mattingley (Grampian DA) who were the Scottish leaders in the 2003 DATC results
Copy for next issue to CycleTalk Editor by 1st Mar
CycleTalk 31 compiled and edited by Mike Harrison
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