On Jul 18, 9:00 pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:

BS. I wrote the ONLY scientific paper on the subject. Every allegedly
"scientific" paper written by a mountain biker was fatally biased and
dishonest.

I read these and they didn't seem all that fatally biased or
dishonest:

IMPACTS OF EXPERIMENTALLY APPLIED MOUNTAIN BIKING AND HIKING ON
VEGETATION AND SOIL 2001 article by Thurston and Reader, Environmental
Management. Study showed potentially severe impacts from both
activities, and similar recovery times.

EROSIONAL IMPACT OF HIKERS, HORSES, MOTORCYCLES, AND OFF-ROAD BICYCLES
ON MOUNTAIN TRAILS IN MONTANA Wilson and Seney, Mountain Research and
Development, 1994.

If we're going to be really honest with ourselves, and I don't suppose
we are, we'll have to admit that the trail itself is an unholy
unnatural gash through the wilderness. (This also confirmed by
scientific research.) Worrying so much about trail damage is kind of
fundamentally bogus as an environmentalist cause.

If you really care about wildlife, destroy the trail entirely, then
keep your animal-terrorizing self at home and out of the wilderness..