Let me count the ways

If I'm planning a cycle ride (which I didn't today - 2 degrees centigrade and horizontal sleet were a factor - to me, this plant looks defiant), I plan it beforehand on an Ordnance Survey (OS) map, trying to include something offbeat - ideally off-road. This has stimulated a renewed interest in all the categories of public rights of way (other than obvious roads) that the OS depicts in England, Wales and NI. It has been rekindled in the bleak mid-winter by blipper ceridwen explaining about 'roads used as a public path' - a now unused designation which I've never before heard of

Today, avoiding anything that required me to be outside, I got a bit more systematic and made sure I really knew what the current ways all are and what they all mean. Then, for fun, I wondered how many categories I could find close to home. It was surprisingly easy. I have devised a circular 12km walk that employs six of the seven (seven!!) categories of right of way:

Footpaths: for walking on

Bridleways: walking - with, without or on a horse (or donkey or mule), or on a pedal cycle (one, two or three wheels, with or without battery) 

Restricted byways: like a bridleway, but your horse (etc.) can be pulling a vehicle - in fact, any unpowered vehicle is permitted

Permissive path: these are grace-and-favour ways, available and removable at the whim of the landowner with whatever conditions they care to set. Usually granted by a public or quasi-public body like the National Trust. They are not always on the map

Other route with public access: these are a bit nebulous. The OS looked over the shoulders of Local Highway Authorities and picked out ways on their public 'List of streets' which the OS thought would be useful for rural public access (but were not already one of the other categories). They then invented a legend and put them on the map. Seems to me like a sneaky bureaucratic manoeuvre to cement new access rights by the back door, that has been a spectacular success. I hope someone got a gong

Other road, drive or track: these are on the map as uncoloured ways. This tells you almost nothing: they could be anything from a tarmac drive to an impassible overgrown relic. There might be a right (or local custom) of public access, there might not. No way for you to know. Most unsatisfactory 

My route includes all of these but not the most controversial one: the notorious 'Byway open to all traffic' on which people who want to drive motor vehicles on muddy tracks come into conflict with people who want a quiet walk on a not-muddy track. The nearest of these - an inexplicable 2km stretch from nowhere to nowhere - is 20km away. The perfect destination for a bike ride - probably not until the Aconites have finished flowering