The days when people were prepared to tolerate motorcycles on common land and bridlepaths are long over . Sadly , illegal riding is increasingly used as justification for closing down parts of our already rather depleted network of lanes , so it is important to not only be legal and responsible , but also be seen to be legal and responsible .
The best way to get an easy overview of rights of way in the areas you are interested in riding in is to look at the appropriate Ordnance Survey maps for the area . Paper OS maps can still be purchased from usual outlets , but a full range of resources is also available from http :// www . getamap . ordnancesurveyleisure . co . uk / where you can print maps out in different scales , and up / download routes to and from your own GPS-enabled devices .
However you access it , a quick study of a map should reveal how rich ( or otherwise ) an area is in terms of rights of way . These are shown in either red or green depending upon whether you are viewing a map in 1:50,000 or 1 : 25,000 scales respectively . Most of these are likely to be Footpaths ( pedestrians only and shown as a series of dots ) or Bridleways ( walkers , horses and cyclists and shown as dashes ).
But there are others . For the moment we will leave aside Restricted Byways ( RBs ) and Other Routes with Public Access ( ORPAs ) and concentrate instead on Byways Open to All Traffic ( BOATs ). These are shown by the OS as a series of plus and minus signs , like this - + - + - , and indicate that ( the clue is in the name ) the route is a byway that is open to all traffic !
Which is good . The bad news is that it might not actually still be open . Local councils ’ rights of way departments , which are responsible for marking and maintaining the routes , also have the power to close them by the imposition of Traffic Regulation Orders ( TROs ). These are the same legislative beasts which are used to create one-way systems and pedestrian precincts in town , but can also be invoked to close legal rights of way to motor vehicles , often for ever .
Some local councils will make a list of TRO ’ d lanes available on their websites , others will not , but you can usually tell if a lane is closed by looking for signs where it joins the nearest tarmac road . Canny trail riders sometimes ‘ drive ’ the Google Earth car past to check for signs , and in some case it appears that an intrepid Google pilot has actually taken the car along the BOAT !
Permanent TROs are usually signalled by the familiar large , ugly ‘ car jumping over a motorbike ’ sign that we sometimes see on pedestrianised roads in towns . Sometimes there will be a plate below the round sign , listing vehicles that are exempt the TRO or times of the year during which it does not apply . Often the route will be closed in the winter months only , and sometimes that closure may apply only to ‘ Vehicles with more than two wheels ’.
In these cases the route will be legal to use within the constraints of the sign , and it is probably an indication that the Trail Riders Fellowship ( more about them later ) has been at work .
But sometimes , the only sign that a TRO is in force is a little laminated A4 paper nailed to a post . These should always be checked carefully . It may be that the lane is undergoing maintenance and has been closed while this work is being undertaken and perhaps for a while afterwards to allow the new surface to settle down .
Nonetheless , most of the BOATs are open for riding , and you can soon plot a route linking BOATs with the ordinary road network in most parts of rural England and Wales .
But what about the other rights of way on the map : the Restricted Byways and ORPAs ?