Is Riding Street Wrong?

[PaRtZ]

OK you gotta get in my frame of mind here. I was watching a program about a guy called david Ikes i think? (his initials made me giggle a bit) and he was going round moaning about the goverment saying that he wasn't allowed to do this and that and kept saying "oh this is supposed to be a free country" etc etc. to be honest I think he took it too far but somethings he said made me think "hang on a sec....."

1) we've paid for our bikes fair and square, why shouldn't we be allowed to use them?

2) We (most of us ) pay tax which pay for our concrete walls and benches. Again, why shouldn't we be allowed to use them how we want to?

I know that damage is an issue, but seriously why shouldn't we be allowed to ride street? I know this topic has been brought up time and time again, but I don't think anyone has thought about these points before so

away you go

[Ash-Kennard]

people dont like it simple as that, they see kids on bikes, not athletes. who are the police/security guards going to listen to, kids or adults shopping...

[Lee Cable]

I personally agree strongly. We pay for everything, its not asif we are stealing them. How often do we break things? I personally have never broke anything riding, Except my bike. Which I pay to fix and then go and ride there again.

I dont want none of this, oh I broke a bench once. How many times have you ridden a bench and it never broke? Yes, thats what I thought!!

[JonCongreve]

Many people (general public) see this differently to others. Like today i rode in quite a big town, and i had nothing but positive comments. Normally you get the odd person who feels they know everything and say that we are damaging public places. Fair enough, but most of the time it's only our tyres that contact surfaces. I have never liked to use my bashring, mainly because i respect what i ride and don't want to damage walls, benches etc. and like what others have said...we pay taxes which cover issues like this

[matt rushton]

Its classed as criminal damage. It's like a kid going and spray painting his name on a wall.(acording to a copper in local town). But if some kids where beating the s*it out of a wall with a football and knocking the wall down, then thats all good because its a sport. So we said well trials is a sport but the cops won't have none of it.

That is not my opinion so don't have a go at me for it.

Matt Rushton

[Ash-Kennard]

Many people (general public) see this differently to others. Like today i rode in quite a big town, and i had nothing but positive comments. Normally you get the odd person who feels they know everything and say that we are damaging public places. Fair enough, but most of the time it's only our tyres that contact surfaces. I have never liked to use my bashring, mainly because i respect what i ride and don't want to damage walls, benches etc. and like what others have said...we pay taxes which cover issues like this

i use my bash, but then again, im a b*****d

[IFallOffLots]

Things in the street we would normally ride aren't designed or built with the idea in mind that someone on a bike is going to ride over them. Neither are they maintained by people to ensure they remain in good condition. If both of these factors were considered then we'd be paying loads more tax, probably even a different kind of tax. So it's kind of understandable that the general public and those in authority frown on street riding. To be honest it's ridiculous to imagine that any kind of street riding would be allowed by the government.

Besides, natural > *

Edited December 28, 2006 by IFallOffLots

[James_Porter]

bessel broke a peice of stone worth bout a million pounds other day. UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM

Edited December 28, 2006 by James_Porter

[ollie2000]

where not even not aloud to ride our bikes(pedaling not trials) through the town let alone ride trials

[poopipe]

it's very simple...

I'm allowed to ride street in cambridgeshire because I pay council tax here. I'm not allowed to ride it anywhere else because I don't pay council tax there.

people that are on benefits, students, pensioners and the unemployed aren't allowed to ride street because they don't pay any council tax at all. They also aren't allowed to complain about me riding street in cambridgeshire,

on a slightly more serious note..

A lot of street stuff is actually private property so you have absolutely no right to be there. On the plus side I'm not entirely certain the old bill are allowed to kick you off without a complaint being made from the owner or security guards etc..

[B.E.A.U]

Its stupid really. At the end of the day its a wall.

isnt us falling off our bike like a car crashing into a wall We lost control of our bike the car lost control on the road .

since i have ridden trials i think i have broke

1 diamond rail

2 posts

1 small wall

and fowers lol

but i pay alot for my bike and the wall brakes my bike so why cant they give me money.

[Fish-Finger-er]

Its stupid really. At the end of the day its a wall.

isnt us falling off our bike like a car crashing into a wall We lost control of our bike the car lost control on the road .

yea but if a car hits a wall, the council/wallowner, will usually claim off the blokes insurance to recoup the cost of repairing the wall.

[Ash-Kennard]

haha, ride their wall hurt yourself, break your bike, sue them, new bike, ride their new repaired wall lifes simple really

[Phil H]

OK you gotta get in my frame of mind here. I was watching a program about a guy called david Ikes i think? (his initials made me giggle a bit) and he was going round moaning about the goverment saying that he wasn't allowed to do this and that and kept saying "oh this is supposed to be a free country" etc etc. to be honest I think he took it too far but somethings he said made me think "hang on a sec....."

1) we've paid for our bikes fair and square, why shouldn't we be allowed to use them?

2) We (most of us ) pay tax which pay for our concrete walls and benches. Again, why shouldn't we be allowed to use them how we want to?

I know that damage is an issue, but seriously why shouldn't we be allowed to ride street? I know this topic has been brought up time and time again, but I don't think anyone has thought about these points before so

away you go

Yo dude. If you search the forum you will see I made a massive thread about this not long ago about 'is trials antisocial behaviour?'. This is my view on it:

I'd like to stress I ride street and am on your side!

But its nothing about paying for your bike because you make a free choice as to where to use it as clearly trials bikes are at home on natural terrain. You could buy a gun doesn't give you the right to shoot someone because you payed for it.

What I think is important is not so much the damaging walls and stuff but the 'anti social' behaviour that it is to other people in the community when jokers on trials bike jump onto stuff right next to people which really does piss me off.

I ride street and aren't going to stop but I wouldn't make a move if I saw someone was near or an old person was walking by and I thought I would scare them. Just some thoughts.

Phil

Its stupid really. At the end of the day its a wall.

but i pay alot for my bike and the wall brakes my bike so why cant they give me money.

Sweet Jesus I hope you are joking!

Phil

[GTF]

Trials is art!

We can do (almost) anything to express us!

[Phil H]

Trials is art!

We can do (almost) anything to express us!

Ha afraid that wouldn't hold up in court!

Phil

[HargrovesToby]

People her are totally right, its notjust about paying tax though, ok so we do have to admint, how many of us when we become old (if some of us ever get there) really want groups of guys on bikes riding outside our flat with damn noisy brakes waking us up on a mid-day slep??

At least thats how they see it. Part of the problem is that people dont actually appreciate what we are doing, at he end of the day, would they rather us ride our bikes or go out and mug old ladies and spraypaint walls??

Having said all that, the police around here aren't too bad actually, a few have stopped me just to ask why my bike doesnt have a seat and another was actually encouraging us. The governmet need to sort them selves out, they complain about youths vandalising property, they why dont they encourage people to do something more creative, even if it does mean ploughing a flower bed with a nice maxxis tyre, shrely we would be doing better to them if they made a place for us to ride, then we would be off the street and doing our own thing.

they have shot themselves in the foot!!

Toby

[Greetings]

Missing one thing - the fact you pay for something (in taxes for example) doesn't mean that what the money has been spent on is yours. A wall isn't yours, it's public property - nor is a nuclear weapon if your money has gone for building it.

I get seriously pissed off if somebody says I'm destroying something and I'm not - mainly because my bike has enough ground clearance that it's impossible to hit a normal wall with a bash. I do however understand they can be pissed off if indeed there is proof that one has destroyed a wall. Spots you ride on are very often visited by hundreds of people a day - no wonder they want those spots to look respectable. And it will very often be those people who live nearby that will complain.

They made a very nice park near my city's centre, now half the walls are covered in wax because of these stupid skateborders. Now that's something I find offending.

Edited December 28, 2006 by Inur

[Fixed Pants™]

In London yesterday we got told to move on by community officers, and said it's a 30 quid fine for riding on pavements with any type of bike. We got told to move to the skatepark (which is basically useless for trials), we went to that, then moved on to the lil wall before the stone circle, got moved on from that, spent 1 min or so at the stone circle and got moved on. Petty.

Fair enough i did bash a wall a bit christmas eve in London but i didn't intentionally smash it, just how i was doing the 'move'... When we do get the tyres slipping and stuff and it slips to bash it's not like we're intentionally killing it, which is annoying 'cos they think we're out to break stuff.

My post doesn't really have an arguement or meaning, but i just thought i'd share it with people.

[sUm]

In London yesterday we got told to move on by community officers, and said it's a 30 quid fine for riding on pavements with any type of bike. We got told to move to the skatepark (which is basically useless for trials), we went to that, then moved on to the lil wall before the stone circle, got moved on from that, spent 1 min or so at the stone circle and got moved on. Petty.

Fair enough i did bash a wall a bit christmas eve in London but i didn't intentionally smash it, just how i was doing the 'move'... When we do get the tyres slipping and stuff and it slips to bash it's not like we're intentionally killing it, which is annoying 'cos they think we're out to break stuff.

My post doesn't really have an arguement or meaning, but i just thought i'd share it with people.

Unfortunately it's the moves that unintentionally end up putting a gash in ledges that the people kicking you off it are worried about. I know it sucks, but you've gotta see it from their perspective. All they care about are the dinged up walls they see, whether the wall got that way "intentionally" or not is irrelevant.

I know what you mean though. We as trials riders, unlike those doing sports in which grinding ledges is the objective, do not intend to put anything on a wall but our tires. Nonetheless, we make mistakes sometimes

Edited December 29, 2006 by sUm

[Captain Scarlet]

I think that these kinds of things are silly.

The amount of times I see regular bikes go speeding through town on the pavement at night with no lights is amazing, the community support officers in our area just get a kick out of telling us to get off our bikes.

One was watching us like an eagle yesterday, just waiting for one of us to jump back onto our bikes and ride.

I mean you see the mobility scooters go around on the paths and into shopping places, but I think only about 25% of the people who have some form of electric mobility scooters actually need them, and look at them they can ride on the path and road without any problems.

I thought that anything that rode with some kind of electric motor needed to be taxed or insured, as there was some outrage at kids electric scooters a while back.

Either way, when it comes to criminal damage, I only use my bash plate as a form of protecting my frame not as a method for getting onto thing and therefore causing criminal damage.

I think its ridiculous when PCSO's stop you for this kind of thing.

[Village Idiot]

Thing is, we're paying the same proportion of tax to use the walls/rails etc as someone who's just wanting to use them to sit down on them. By using a bike on them, it's going to wear them out quicker/possibly even break them, so in effect the government should probably charge street riders more tax than the general public.

Mind you, I still like riding street though

[Broomer]

weather you damage stuff riding street its still better than shoplifting, purposly vandalising and other anti-social behaviour, that the community whatever police care very little about.

[Walleee]

In London yesterday we got told to move on by community officers, and said it's a 30 quid fine for riding on pavements with any type of bike. We got told to move to the skatepark (which is basically useless for trials), we went to that, then moved on to the lil wall before the stone circle, got moved on from that, spent 1 min or so at the stone circle and got moved on. Petty.

Fair enough i did bash a wall a bit christmas eve in London but i didn't intentionally smash it, just how i was doing the 'move'... When we do get the tyres slipping and stuff and it slips to bash it's not like we're intentionally killing it, which is annoying 'cos they think we're out to break stuff.

My post doesn't really have an arguement or meaning, but i just thought i'd share it with people.

Wise up for christ's sake.

If you wanted to break stuff you wouldn't go and spend £500+ on a bike to do it with, people know this as they have what's called common sense.

[Rebelistic]

Most street obsticals are ugly concrete structures anyway. They look horrible with or without a few scratches.

I think it's cool to turn the boring concrete jungle into a playground (for example a neglected industrial estate).

Riding on private property is a different matter and I think people should ride according to their own concience. I won't ride on someone's garden wall but I will ride on the bank's wall.

Riding street will always annoy judgemental people, and as I've said before I wish people would check their hands are clean before they point their fingers.