About Byway Nomad and Motorcycle Trail Riding in the UK

So just what is Byway Nomad all about?

Having been a trail rider in the UK for over 40 years,  Tony Ferrari has amassed an extensive knowledge of the green lanes or green roads of England and Wales, that is byways and unpaved minor roads. First starting in Hampshire and West Sussex whilst a Geography Student at the University of Portsmouth back in 1980, riding a borrowed Yamaha TY175 trials bike, he has progressed through a number of bikes including large adventure bikes and currently rides a KTM 390 Adventure and a 525 EXC, although is currently looking to replace them with an Aprilia 660 Tuareg.

His knowledge has been gained on both four wheels as well as two, having owned nine different Land Rovers over 20 years. During this time Tony has also worked as a rights of way volunteer for various organisations over the years: 

• British Cycling
• The CTC, now called Cycling UK
• The Green Lane Association known as GLASS
• Tread Lightly UK and these days
• The Trail Riders Fellowship or TRF.

So, he also has an extensive knowledge of the legal aspects of using these routes. 

Tony also raced for a few years in Motorcycle Cross Country Rally under the title of Nomad Racing, so the title Byway Nomad seemed natural for his next project. 

What is the Byway Nomad project?

The ambition and yes, it’s a big one, is to record every green road in England and Wales and to keep the earlier ones updated whenever possible. As well as the presence on YouTube, Facebook,  Instagram and now this website.

What led to the project?

In 2017 Tony was contracted by the TRF, to survey every green road of interest to trail riders in the Peak District National Park. That was those that were:

• Through routes i.e., no dead ends.
• Most of the surfaces are unsealed (i.e., no tarmac or at least only short sections).
• Legal for motorcycles to use.
• Not closed (either temporarily or permanently by Traffic Regulation Orders (TROs)

Although it wasn’t part of the brief, he decided to video all the lanes as he went along and despite those people who insist there are no green lanes left open in the Peaks,  recorded no less than one hundred and eleven that met the above criteria over a period of eighteen months.  Since then that number has reduced to one hundred and seven due to two TROs, a downgrading and one route being tarmacked.

After this the videos just sat on Tony's hard drive, and he was wondering what to do with them. It was during the first COVID lockdown in 2020 when there was no trail riding going on that he came up with the idea to make them public on YouTube, edit them to include locations and important information and to expand it beyond the Peak District and so the YouTube channel and associated Facebook page were created.

Where is it going next?

Having used all the Peak District videos, that cover a large section of Derbyshire as well as parts of Cheshire East, Staffordshire, South and West Yorkshire, the project is now moving wider afield. Having searched through some old videos and found a few of the Lake District and Hertfordshire, these were duly edited and published.

Next, the project will be concentrating on the County where Tony lives, Oxfordshire but as he's very close to the borders with Bedfordshire, Buckinghamshire, Gloucestershire and Northamptonshire, expect to see those crop up too. Also, for the first 30 years or so of trail riding he lived in Hertfordshire so is slowly revisiting all his old routes and recording them for the project, with 130 suitable lanes, of which Tony has personally ridden or driven 129 of them over the years, that will take a while and of course he has many lanes in the neighbouring counties  to revisit.

Tony also heavily involved with Rallymoto, running motorcycle navigation events across the country and is using these routes and especially when out reconnoitring them to record many more lanes, examples of this can be seen on the videos from County Durham and Northumberland (from the 2022 Haggs Bank Adventure Weekend), Gloucestershire (a recce ride for a Cotswolds Adventure Rally Raid) and Essex (from a recce for the 2024 Ice Breaker Challenge Route), coming next will be some routes in Warwickshire and Worcestershire following some route recces for the ABR Festival in June 2024. If you are interested in taking part in these events check out the website at rallymoto.co.uk 

Tony recently qualified as a Level 2 Guide with the Overland Guides Association and completed the Advanced First Aid at Work for remote areas training that the course includes.

So, we hope that has made things a bit clearer and if you like what we're doing please do get over to YouTube and click like on the videos you watch, remember to subscribe to the channel and click the bell symbol to get notified of new videos which are usually added weekly. And maybe Tony will meet you out on the lanes one day.