Picos, Espinama to Sotres

[Wapping]

This has been happening increasingly more and more over the years and eventually the TET, in Spain at least, will disappear altogether.
....... the draw of offroading.

It's becoming the norm on-road, too. The banning of motorcycles (and sometimes all vehicles) in Germany and Austria is spreading. You might ask yourself why?

a. Green is the new colour. Hotels, which used to feature 'We can provide routes for bikers' and tourist boards which used to activley support motorcycling are becoming fewer and fewer. They are switching their attention to the lucrative walker, 'wellness' and bicycling scenes. About the last bastion is Wallonia, in the south of Belgium, whose tourist board caters for motorcyclists just as much as it does for golfers, walkers and cyclists.

b. We have been our own worse enemy through noise and, let's be honest, smashing up the scenery when the bike is chucked down the road. Crashes cost the local economy, outweighing the financial benefits of motorcycling tourists.

 

[JohnnyBoxer]

It's becoming the norm on-road, too. The banning of motorcycles (and sometimes all vehicles) in Germany and Austria is spreading. You might ask yourself why?

a. Green is the new colour. Hotels, which used to feature 'We can provide routes for bikers' and tourist boards which used to activley support motorcycling are becoming fewer and fewer. They are switching their attention to the lucrative walker, 'wellness' and bicycling scenes. About the last bastion is Wallonia, in the south of Belgium, whose tourist board caters for motorcyclists just as much as it does for golfers, walkers and cyclists.

b. We have been our own worse enemy through noise and, let's be honest, smashing up the scenery when the bike is chucked down the road. Crashes cost the local economy, outweighing the financial benefits of motorcycling tourists.

Agreed
Some ‘bikers’ are anti social

 

[Wapping]

On the other side of the same coin…. Some footpaths are becoming worn out, due to the rise in popularity of bods tramping along them.

 

[Asturcon]

That is rather disappointing to read.
Thankfully for now, Portugal is still a tolerant place, so people can have fun and it is encouraged by the local municipalities, who will advertise off road events, be it mountain bikes, motos and 4X4...The locals usually have a couple of events a year in the larger places and there is a strong arm of supporters for the many national and international events that take place in the Central region.

I would be very surprised to think there will be any bans in the short life I have left. They also need to keep the trails open for the many fires we have, this all helps towards doing that. Some of the villages where I am, have both paved and unpaved roads to get to them, which makes it fun.

They do tend to keep the walkers and the motorised separate in these parts when off road.

I bought my car here from the Junta, his other car is a modified off road 4X4 Nissan.

Not every province has the same rules.

In Asturias, for example, it is almost a blanket ban. Where I spend my summers in Asturias I'm on the coast, but just behind me the hills become mountains very quickly and I have hundreds of miles of tracks within a tankful's range. Before I changed to road riding in 2015 I used to own trail/enduro bikes and I knew all the tracks and windfarm roads well. Speaking to a childhood friend of mine who lives there year round he said he just would not risk it now, especially in the summer months when you're most likely to encounter a Seprona patrol. I went up there in the car (a red AWD) last summer, twice, and did not encounter any patrols.

What I noticed was that tracks that were open 12 years ago, had now become impassable.

In Catalunya, on the other hand, their "general" rule is that a track must be no less than 2m wide in order to be used by motorised transport. In Asturias it used to be 4m (I was told) before the blanket ban. However, national parks have an almost total ban on motorised vehicles. That's everywhere in Spain, though.

I totally agree with you that natural fire-breaks and access is very important and this is a symbiotic solution, but you cannot accuse diehard environmentalists of having any common sense. Equally, I suppose the public don't do themselves any favours.