"SMS" wrote in message
...

Vandeman's goal of protecting wilderness has merit. But he's so
_incredibly_ confused about the relative impacts of different activities
on wilderness. Every study on the subject has shown that the impact of
mountain bikers is not any more than the impact of hikers, and less than
that of equestrians, and actually the mountain bike impact is often less
than that of hikers. Vandeman should be redirecting his time and energy
into campaigning against snowmobiles and other motorized off-road
vehicles.

The reality is that hikers often make trails unpleasant for use by
mountain bikers and vice-versa. They have to learn to share somehow.
Scheduling some days for each group of users would be fair. It's not a
question of who was there first.

I agree that Vandeman's actions may hurt the cause more than help.

Where did your find studies of mountain bike impact on the environment? My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.