Passion or Obsession?

One of the things that regularly go round in my head is the idea of quitting our troubled country and heading away on a bike to see what the rest of the world is like... I find myself writing this with a deep feeling on unsettledness and a plain old sense of misery because I find myself doing the daily grind of earn money, pay bills, eat, sleep... repeat!

Anybody who knows me well, knows my itchy feet and also knows I am always planning something as an escape. The plans don't always come to fruition, but something generally replaces that plan and provides me with either an adventure or I meet people who set me off in a new direction.

At the moment, I'm finishing off the project of repairing the Old Coach Road in Cumbria. By throwing myself into this I've personally learned a whole new set of skills, road maintenance wise and project management wise. I've learnt a lot about the intricacies of our legal system, the fact that our government are generally a bunch of thieves in suits and that the general public are the ones who are suffering from the greed on show from our current crop of leadership.

What's ironic, is that if it wasn't for the fact that my biking life has taken me away from road riding and into the word of both adventure riding and trail riding I would never have learnt these skills or been aware of these things, I would never have seen both the positive and the negative side of living in the UK in such stark and contrasting light. I'm sure biking would have taken me to another place and I'd have learned other things but because of the choices I've made these are the lessons I've learnt and I wouldn't change that at all.

When I interact with the people who are termed 'antis' because for whatever reason they think all green laning should be banned, I am constantly amazed that people with any intelligence at all can be so intolerant and unforgiving whilst at the same time blatantly ignoring their own impact on our crowded environment. These same people go home to their loved ones and are a completely different person.

In the world of MPV users, I am polarised by watching the folk who ignore any of the socially acceptable behaviour patterns because all they see is the closure of the lanes and believe that it doesn't matter either way what they do, they will be treated as criminals anyway so why not be one and the folk who 'keep fighting the good fight' and follow the rules, learn the game and try to make things better for all users not just MPV groups.

None of this is helped because in reality the general public is not party to the planning and discussions that lead to things like the NERC Act etc. That is all done behind closed doors within the elite circles that still really control the UK and their decisions are only ever beneficial to their aims.

This all leads me back to my personal quandary, quit this country and ride into the sunset to see what the rest of our fabulous, but troubled world, has to teach me or stay here and try to find a solution to my personal battle of feeling both frustrated and angry that this country is going the way it. Intolerant, myopic and self destructive would be the words that spring to mind!

I can honestly say I have met some fabulous people in the motorbike world, they are as passionate about their activity as the people I have encountered in the mountain world, so mixing the two is a seamless process for me... This is part of what has kept me here so long this time around!

One thing for sure is that the coming weekend will be a ride with some friends into some new terrain, offering some fresh challenges and visiting places I've not seen before. We'll combine bikes, camping, rivers and a coastline and hopefully complete a ride that was started at the end of winter which suffered both snow drifted closed roads and bike issues. Let's hope this one fairs a bit better and also that it satisfies my need for a little bit of adventure and challenge, thus staving off the travel cravings a little longer!

aah the perennial question, passion or obsession??

'Green Lanes: Maintenance and Organising Repair Days...

One of the things that I've noticed more and more in the time I've been riding the trails here in the UK is the complete lack of maintenance that happens on these types of roads. It's an interesting conundrum as there seems to be many parts to the decisions made to not upkeep these lanes as well as all the politics that seem to revolve around green laning as a general anyway.

For myself, I've been watching my local lanes slowly become eroded away by the weather until now, one of my favourite lanes is under threat and there is no plan visible to rectify the issue. So, in discussions in the pub and via email, I decided to try to tackle the problem head on and see if I could find a way to re instate the Old Coach Road into a more acceptable state of repair for all user groups.

In 2015, Storm Desmond wrecked the Old Coach Road in three days of epic rain. That single storm left a trench about five foot deep and four foot wide in the middle of the lane. Since then, some enthusiastic volunteers tried to refill the trench manually and the road made passable but nowhere near back to it's original condition. Subsequent heavy rainfall has repeatedly washed out more material.

This can be linked to the fact that the man who used to clear the culverts and drains up there wasn't replaced when he retired, which is the same story for the upland water team too, so since the late 90's and into the early 2000's this road, and all other unsurfaced roads have had almost no maintenance at all.

So, to fix the lane required a series of things, CTRF identified the following list...

1. Expert advice
2. Permissions
3. Funding
4. Drainage repairs/replacements
5. Stone
6. Trench back filled
7. Surface re-established
8. Stone pitching in two places
9. Ongoing maintenance

Looking at each one in turn, the first problem is one of sourcing expert advice, fortunately for CTRF we have a couple of people to call on for this, who have over 30 years of upland path repair knowledge and experience and also coincidence played it's hand as I was now working with two large construction firms, Ashcrofts from Workington and Sir Robert McAlpine on a large building project. Good relations on all sides led to plenty of chats and even some help with the relevant paperwork. Bonus!

Permissions... As the Coach Road is a County Road, it comes under the responsibility of the County Council Highways Department. This is a department that is seriously under pressure as the growing levels of rainfall, the harsh winters and the overall increase in traffic volume is all combining to wreck the surfaced roads in every part of the UK. Couple this with successive governments reducing allocated budgets annually and the mix is not so good for green lanes!

To get to talk to someone in the Highways dept is apparently impossible, according to all the people I spoke too prior to commencing on this project. These included National Park Rangers, National Trust Rangers and various other people 'in the know'. To this day I have no idea why my particular email was answered, I'm just grateful it was as it crossed off the first hurdle in a long list!

The Network Manager turned out to be a typical local Cumbrian lass who had done her job for over twenty years, she was very relaxed and chatty albeit cautious as to why myself and a mate, (Nigel), as 'off road riders' would want to talk to her about repairing an unsurfaced road in the hills outside of Keswick!

We outlined our desire to undertake some hand tools only remedial works clearing drainage gullies on the lane and after a thirty minute conversation, she gave us her permission with the proviso that she had no money to spare to help us and she needed all the paperwork and insurances in place before we could proceed.

After this, there is the Lake District National Park, (LDNPA), Natural England, the National Trust, (NT), the 'Commoners', (the farmers who work the land and rent their farms from the NT), any householders nearby, the Trail Riders Fellowship, the Green Lane Association and anybody else we could get into the pot!

All of this took a few month's to sort out, lots of chats, lots of emails and as the project evolved, lots of paperwork!

We set out a plan  in a paper report and did several days of on the ground survey work, taking photos and recording the damage as well as identifying the drainage culverts and set up. In the plan we included the costings for the materials, contractor and sundries and came up with a figure of nearly £20,000. That was a little daunting as a figure!

Testing our Theories
Our first stage of repairing this lane was to run a 'hand tools only' repair day, which we did in December 2017. There was snow on the ground, the temperatures hovered at zero and below, yet on a beautiful sunny Sunday in winter nearly twenty folk turned up from all over northern England to dig out a drainage gully and clear some culverts.

The LDNPA kindly lent us some mattocks, shovels and spades, the team assembled and we cleared 500 yards of some fairly well choked gully and opened three culverts to restore their flow. A hearty well done goes out to all of those people from all walks of life for their efforts, camaraderie and general happy demeanour!

Despite all this good work, one thing became apparent, the lane is five miles long so five hundred yards in one day leaves a lot to sort and our efforts had shown that the work required either a lot more hands or more realistically, mechanical assistance!

The upside to this day was that we now knew our theories about the 'how' were based on fact and evidence, so the project moved on another step.

Back to the 'permissions' part, We now needed permission to introduce machinery into the mix to make a difference on this road. So we went back to the afore mentioned Network Manager with an update of the works done and a politely worded request. Permission was granted providing we have a suitably qualified and insured person, plus could establish the situation regarding utilities in the areas of work.

The paperwork trail grows like leaves on a tree as this goes forward and the complexity of the job also grows as more questions start to come out of the dark. For example the list of consultees for the utilities search is around 20+ companies, all of which have to be approached, asked and the answer recorded on a document which can be checked and which becomes a legal document should any injury or accident happen.

The picture below shows the file I created for this project. The 'Lifting Certificates' are the contractors various insurances. The 'MS' is Mission Statement, all construction sites have one of these. It is basically the plan for the works to be carried out and links all of the other documents together.

Paperwork needed by Cumbria County Council

Now I like machinery, I like machinery that does it's job well, but all machinery in these situations is only as good as the man driving it... So to find that man, we started to ask local firms who could be interested to help. Again the LDNPA came to our help and gave us the name of the contractor they used in the area, he was busy for the next few months and recommended another, he looked at the job and decided that as it was on his doorstep he was happy to get going as soon as we wanted too!

Funding, Drainage and Materials
One of the big issues for repairing this lane is the stone needed to replace the road surface that has been moved by water. There is an awful lot of it at the bottom of a section of the road called Hausewell Brow. It is fanned out across the peatland there waiting to be scooped back up and re used, but it's not enough and we needed bigger stone to lay the drainage base below the surface. Replacing this would also form one of the biggest costs to the project

Talking to local people got us a name, that was the name of the owner of the quarries that sit on the Old Coach Road. We eventually tracked him down eating his lunch in a barn whilst putting a replacement engine into his beautiful Series 1 Landrover. He gave us permission to use the stone from his quarry and best of all, he didn't want anything for it as it was to go back into where it had effectively came from, so even negated the taxes on aggregate! Ian is a character of the highest order, he owns all the quarries around the area and runs his trains around the Threlkeld Mining Museum throughout the summer. One of his team has also tracked the geological history of the Lakeland hills and is another source of fascinating facts and history. So the tapestry of the picture is becoming even more complex and interesting.

Funding started to become the next part of the project now we knew things could go ahead. Discussions were had and possible resources were identified, so we started with the organisations that promote responsible trail use in the UK, these consist of two main ones. the Trail Riders Fellowship, (TRF) and the Green Lane Association, (GLASS). Applications went in and whilst we awaited the replies we looked at other options.
We approached the LDNPA & CCC and were told no, no money available, this was a bit galling given the money being spent upon footpaths and bridleways in Cumbria at the same time, but we swallowed our initial reaction about this and moved on.
Next we approached United Utilities, who had, during one of their presentations for the pipeline installation programme, promised funding to local community projects and had specifically mentioned the Coach Road. After being bounced around for a month from email to email, we have yet to get an answer from them, we continue live to in hope!
After this we went out to the users themselves and started a project, with help from the TRF marketing team to try to raise the money from the actual green lane user community. We're currently partway through this so I'll update as and when we get to a total. But a big thank you needs to go out to all those folk who are so passionate about their past time that they have donated money to this project, from all over Europe as well!

Whilst all of this was going on GLASS donated a whopping £5000 to the pot, this paved the way for phase 1 to be completed, so as we now had all our ducks lined up plan, paperwork and permissions wise, off we went and set the contractor the task of opening up the existing drainage gully that runs the full length of the road. He took five days to complete this in May 2018.

So we're currently at the stage of raising the funds for Phase 2, which will see the installation of the replacement damaged culverts, re-opening of the undamaged culverts, re-establishing the surface drainage and finally reinstalling the surface materials.

We're hoping to get this done by the end of Summer 2018, but that is as ever dependant upon the funding, so the link is here below for those that would like to donate to the cause!

FUND RAISING JUST GIVING PAGE

Here's an article LINK from one of the guys working on a repair day recently...