I read that and bear in mind my experience with these people, I can't see anything different than from the age old waffle. Except for the detailed waffle about provision.
I met the Coillte boys on many occasions..career bureacrats all of them. Daithi was actually keen on providing trails but not a biker. Bill Murphy however categorically and with venom, despises us and I don't mean a warm dislike , an unhealthy hatred of mtbers. I could list the amount of time he stated this to me and others.
That permit has been in operation since last year.
Niall Davis managed to get permits, as has Robin and has the DaveMorgan DH series.
We're sanctioned.
MAD have been turned down since before the Blast episode .
Theres still a bye law criminalizing us, end of story..
Our representatives told us at a meeting where I was ranting about it,
" don't worry it doesn't affect us, it is in fact ...a typo "
I will keep riding my bike wherever Coillte manages the forests for the Irish people.
I believe very strongly and without doubt that we deserve the same access as the walking community, it has been proven time and time again that we are no more environmentally damaging than walkers and the only conflict that has occured is from walkers to us.
Same bullsh it different packaging and for the life of me I can't fathom why Sean resigned because of it except that he finally just gave up , like I asked him to so many frickin times. We should never have sat down with them once the Bye Law came in to operation, all the senior Irish Mtbers agreed but Sean felt very strongly that it permits could be gotten for us. The rest of us never believed it. So I guess he just came to that realization late. I have to hand it to him for sticking it for so long. I have many fond memories of me playing the bad guy while Sean kept me under control and still it got us nowhere. I wonder now how they will handle Carrickollogan, I signed the contracts to manage it and accepted there terms of blah blah blah and signed an agreement to build and manage the trail.
yeah but f uck em..theres nothing new in this complete waste of paper..all the feckin eejits in the Country will be getting excited by this smoke and mirror show..forget the fact that Coillte levelled Ballinastoe right after it was built, ceased building the Kindlestown trail, levelled Djouce, still levelling 3 rock even now though they said felling has ceased there a long time ago, flattened dirt jumps in Laragh, as for the Blast..6 years we ran that feckin race from the same feckin place, it was spread across the bloody Irish Independent one year and then the one time it becomes a gigantic international success, they decide we were bold boys, even though, it was actually nothing to do with them, as we had operated within their rules..they still stuck their noses in to the issue. And speaking of the Blast and the bloody Offroad Commission, members of which raced every bloody Blast from the very first one, they had the Gall to support the sanctioning of us by Coillte..ask my bollocks regarding anything to do with either Coillte or the Offroad Commission or those toothless fookin losers Cycling Ireland !!
Having read the document, I would agree with whats being said. The big difference between now and say 5 years ago is that the sport has exploded amoungst those in their late twenties and in their thirties. The bike to work scheme has helped but mainly the work that clubs like EPIC have put in. The thing is that people in this age group are not going to be intimidated or chased off supposedly state owned lands, unlike harassing a bunch of teenagers. The sense from the document is that they equate management with control.
While it is great to have the facility, the Ballyhouras are not a challenge and the thoughts of being restricted to those types of trails....I'd rather take my chances and get arrested for tresspassing...