TRF Forums

Don't forget HIGNFY - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kmys4LH9jTE

I can never remember the link for the Hattersley Grauniad article. However, you can always find it if you Google "Bumfairy".
Try it, it works every time...........

To me, the fact it's called a lane suggests its a road not a footpath.

After the deserved self congratulations and back slapping is over, I note that so far, there has been nothing written in the local rags about our protest. Perhaps in the future we should pay our own journalist to cover our protest and write what we believe should be written. A journalist who knows what the TRF are about, who has similar views and knows how to get published in the local media.
I’m thinking of Mark Williams.

the local press was contacted. If some one has a pet journalist then we should have taken advantage. We will be conducting a debrief and looking at every facet of Tuesday to make sure then we do not miss out on anything when we next do this.

Niether Richard or I have ever attempted something like this let alone try to put together something as complicated as this is barely 3 weeks. Apart from getting advice from different quarters we operated alone on this and the only real help was in the last 10 days.

a good thing is hindsight but rest assured we are looking at every detail. the biggest issue is the fact that we do not ahve an efficient means of contacting everyone and getting feedback as to who was coming from where. We didn't have a clue how many people were coming, where they were starting from and all i could say to the authorities was 50 to 250 depending on the weather. we had several different contingencies to cover the eventualities we could think off so my workload in particular was massive.

If anyone has any idea's/observations/suggestions please feel free to email them to me.

In my case i am not so much congratulating ourselves as letting off steam in relief that it appears to have worked and my determination has paid of as opposed to failure and appearing a "see you next tuesday"

Very well done to all of you!!!!!

Out of interest, as the anti's knew what we were going to do, did they put up any resistance or counter demonstration?
As we can't get the NW News to play, can anyone say what the pillock Harding said.



While we may have to give up on the 'off-roader' classification - unless we can find a way to spin that to our advantage as I don't think it will ever go away - should we be trying to be more proactive in getting the approval off the horse riding community so we can deflect the 'frightening the horses' mentality.
I realise that may be counter productive when we're trying to claim horses do more damage than bikes but....

Our heavy involvement in the horse trials sector should be reported more often and maybe brought into discussions/arguments if it isn't already.

Regards the antis it is not quite true to say that they knew what we were doing.

They did know that we were doing something and that we'd be meeting at the Fox etc but even those riders who turned up for the rally didn't actually know where we'd be going next and I think that was an advantage.

One thing which was reported back was that there was some semi covert photography going on. Apparently there was an anti hiding in a bush on Cherpit Lane and I spotted another on Houndkirk hiding behind a wall camera in hand.

All in all though I think keeping the fine details secret was the right move. The antis might have tried to force a confrontation in order to discredit us and that wouldn't helped our cause.

Cheers

Richard

Have you considered the obvious, and only rational reason, that the "anti's" would want to ban us from Cherpit?

It's the only lane in the locality of the village that's carriageway in width and secluded.

This clearly predisposes it to what I suspect is the reason the anti's want to keep it all to themselves.

Fairly obvious that this is their #1 dogging spot and they resent outsides infringing on their activities.

Those with cameras were hoping for some pictures......just not of trailbikers

Half way up Bamford Clough on Tuesdaqy, quite an elderly lady jumped into my path and took a photo of me, (I was doing about 5 mph), and started to tell me off for riding on that lane. Normally I don't take any notice of people like that but I stopped, took off my helmet and politely told her that I had just as much right to be there as she. Her reply was “yes, but morally I was in the wrong. “
Go figure