-Ralph-

Dirt bike show - nothing in my diary for November yet, so make that a Yes. Remind me where and when?

X marks the spot where I live, the urban area at the bottom is Northampton, the heavy green line that crosses the map is the A14, the urban area at the west end of the A14 is Kettering. The urban area in the middle is Market Harborough and at the top Melton Mowbray.

I've ridden all the ones to the West of where I live, took me about 2 hours to get round them and they were all open, though I needed to open quite a few gates on the way. Some of them are nothing more than a track of flattened grass across the middle of a grazing field. There is a "byway" directional sign on most of the gates though, none of them are locked, and there is a "please shut the gate behind you" sign on most of them, so the farmers are obviously well used to members of the public going through them. There are a lot of horses around here who want to use the byways as well as the bridleways, so that helps because farmer John's daughter wants to ride her pony, so farmer John doesn't try to obstruct the route. The council are obviously very involved in enforcement too, if a Byway changes to a Brideway you find a proper highway code style "no cars or motorcycles sign" in the middle of a field! The longest one of these was a stony tractor track which took me at least 10-15 minutes of non stop riding at 30-40mph to complete, it's obviously popular 'cos that's where the farmer in his tractor waved to me.

I have walked the nearest one to the south of my house with the dog today, good long track and all open.

The first two to the north of the A14 and south of Market Harborough, I have visited each end in the car.

The rest going North from Market Harborough I mapped the other night because I was planning to go up to Ashby Folville to meet Rusty, and I was going to make my way slowly up there over a few hours, exploring the lanes as I went. I never went though 'cos the heavens opened, so I haven't ridden any of those yet. They are also in a differnt county (Leicestershire) so I don't know if they will all be open as they are in Northamptonshire.

There is also loads along either side of the M1 from Leicester southbound, via Lutterworth, Rubgy, Daventry, Northampton, which are halfway between here and Brum, but I haven't had a chance to map them all out yet.