In the UK there are a few relevant laws to do with illegal building.
Firstly, even if the woods are open access for pedestrians you're
probably not supposed to ride off bridleways, so you're trespassing.
This is a civil offence though, so it's not like the police can haul you
in for it. Also riding is unofficially tolerated in a lot of areas
anyway. Basically if you're allowed to walk your dog in the woods, this
isn't too much to worry about it.
Next up, if you damage trees, you're potentially up for criminal damage.
However, unless it's a commercial woods and you've destroyed tons and
tons of trees, this isn't ever likely to happen to anyone.
The most important one though, is that the landowner of the woods has a
legal duty of care to people who are in the woods. What this means, is
that if the landowner knows there are dangerous structures in the woods
and someone falls off them, there's a possibility that the landowner
could be sued for it. Because of this, if the landowner finds out about
anything you build without permission in the woods, they'll probably
chainsaw it down.
The best thing to do is to try and find out about any legal
trail-building near you, maybe ask in bikeshops, or ask local mountain
bikers. However, it's quite likely that this will not be north-shore,
because it requires quite a lot of organisation to get allowed to
legally build structures. That's why only 3 or 4 of the forestry
trailbuilding sites have got permission to build north shore yet.
However, if you're building illegally, the most important thing is that
it should be hard to find. It shouldn't be near any obvious paths or
visible from any of the main paths in the woods. You need it to be made
so that dog walkers don't come across it and tell someone. You should
also keep quiet about exactly where it is and definately never post the
exact location on the internet.
If you get told by the landowner to stop building, or if stuff gets torn
down, it's not worth building any more in the same location, it'll just
get chainsawed.
Practical things to remember when building
1) Only use dead wood (fallen down), best is wood you got from somewhere
else.(*)
2) Don't use really rotted up wood
3) If you're using a live tree as a support, if possible don't nail into
it, use forks in the tree as support points.
4) Expect illegal building to get pulled down at some point, don't spend
too much time on it.
You need a saw, lots and lots of nails and maybe an axe. A chainsaw is
nice if you have one, but not really vital.
Don't forget, even if the wood costs nothing, nails cost money, so
building shore isn't totally free. The stuff in
http://www.unicyclist.com/gallery/albuo83 apparently had several hundred
pounds worth of nails in it.
Joe
(*) Building sites often have skips full of wood going for nothing if
you ask.
--
joemarshall - dumb blonde
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