Rob, I know where you're coming from, but the Peak is very heavily used, you don't have to be massively hooliganistic to annoy some walkers anyway and, after a lot of walker / bike friction in the past, we finally seem to have reached a stage where there's a high degree of mutual acceptance on both sides.
Perhaps I'm just naive, but as a Peak-dwelling mtber, I really don't think that mountain bikers have that much to complain about. There's a lot of excellent legal riding here and while there are some weird anomalies, where footpaths could and should be reclassified as bways, mostly they're pretty well off. Perhaps there's a lack of perspective at work?
Anyway, it's perfectly possible to work to get footpaths reclassified. Local horse riding groups manage it regularly, so perhaps the organisers of this protest would be better off using the existing channels to get selected footpaths reclassified as bridleways, maybe in conjunction with their local equestrian groups?
The reason that Ramblers manage to have so much influence is that they operate as an organised pressure group at local and national levels and use the system to promote their cause. MTBers don't seem to have cottoned on yet and are largely an amorphous bunch of individuals. I'm not knocking that, but we live in society where you're more likely to get things done by exploiting the system.
Oh, if you want to be really machiavellian about it, I suspect you'll find that a lot of hard core locals in the Peak ride footpaths anyway on an occasional basis, but not on summer weekends...
