RAY Honeyford (Your Letters, April 9) seems to think that every young person on a bike is out to cause trouble. This is not so.

I am 16 years old and frequently ride my mountain bike in and around Bury, and I must say it is extremely rarely that I see any other bikers.

Mr Honeyford also seems to believe that all mountain bikers lack responsibility and respect, though none of the people in my group of friends would even contemplate acts of theft or vandalism.

However, many people in our community seem to share Mr Honeyford's view about us, as we often receive abuse from people ordering us to move on. To them I would say that the most productive way of making people move on is by asking them politely, and not by threatening them. I can appreciate that we might seem menacing in a large group, and that our noise levels may be a bit too high, but sometimes we just don't think about these things.

I refer to Mr Honeyford's final paragraph where he says: "Do we have to wait for someone to be injured, or worse?" The only people at risk of getting injured are us cyclists because people like Mr Honeyford insist upon unfairly labelling us vandals and thugs.

And as for Mr Honeyford saying that he is at risk of being knocked down, then I can only apologise. The reason bikers occasionally use the footpath is because at night we are at great risk on the roads, even when we have lights.

Unlike pedestrians, who rarely get stopped by the police, we get stopped on average once a night, not because we are being reckless or causing any trouble but simply because we are there! We do not vandalise. We do not steal cars. We do not threaten or beat up anybody. So why do narrow-minded people insist upon giving mountain bikers such an undeservedly bad reputation?

MATT ASHWORTH,

Whittingham Drive,

Ramsbottom.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.