The difference is that most mountain bikers think it is

perfectly safe to go biking on a hiking trail.

And they're quite right to do so ... the evidence backs this
up.* There is a slight chance that they could seriously injure or kill
themselves ... but it is very slight indeed.

Bikers are dropping like flies and even experienced bikers
meet with the grim reaper. That is the price you pay for stupidity.

No, Ed, bikers are not dropping like flies. If they were then my club, with over 500 members, would have seen absolute carnage over the 20 years it's been running. Whereas, in reality, we've seen no fatalities and only two serious injuries. You can say the same thing again and again ... as you do ... but it doesn't make it true. You'd just like it to be the case.

They find out the hard way that

nothing could be further from the truth. If you bike on trails
designed and

meant only for hikers, it is just* a matter of time until you
suffer a

serious accident. A few hundred people at most run in Pamplona whereas
millions

of folks hike throughout the year on trails all over the world. I do
not seen

any connection there at all!

Ah, thank you, at last.* You concede that if millions of
people do something that, inevitably, some of them will get hurt doing it even
if it's low risk.

And, as we calculated earlier in this thread, the 'matter of time'
you're talking about is around 15 years even if you ride extensively every
week.

There is simply no comparison between what hikers suffer on
the trails and what bikers suffer on the trails.

One can compare anything. The reality, as you know, is that hikers, just like bikers, fall and hurt themselves, get stuck, get exhausted and get caught out without the correct equipment. Shall I post the Lake District Mountain Rescue annual report again so you can read it and remind yourself ?

Another difference is that biking in London is most likely not

done for pleasure. It is part of daily living. Whereas mountain biking
is done

solely for pleasure. Is it worthwhile to take risks for something as
trivial as

mere pleasure? Only fools like Blackblade think so.

So your job requires you to go hiking does it Ed ?* You're
risking going hiking simply for pleasure ?* You mad fool !

Hiking is a pastime; biking on trails is a sport. No risk to
hiking at all provided you do not do something stupid. Just do normal biking on
a trail and you will come to grief sooner or later.

Pastime or sport ... so what ? They are both RECREATION. You don't NEED to do either do you so they are activities undertaken solely because you wish to do so.

And, if there is no risk to hiking, how come there are serious injuries and fatalities ?

The only mad fool here is you who would equate hiking and
biking as being equally safe when everyone knows differently. If and when you
ever began to report hiking accidents that compare with biking accidents with
respect to both seriousness and deaths, then and only then will you gain some
credibility.

Did I ever say that they were equally safe ? No, I didn't. Please retract..

I also posted the Lake District Mountain Rescue report which contains a record of all call outs that they attended ... irrespective of whether the victim was on foot, on a bike or in a vehicle. You will note that there are rather more accounts of hikers coming to grief than bikers.

Now, I know that this is because there are more hikers than bikers ... since, unlike you, I do understand population size when it comes to events and their occurrence. However, if you want to attain any credibility whatsoever you will need to acknowledge that and deal with it.

Mountain biking is NOT as safe as hiking but, and this is the critical part, neither of them are particularly dangerous ... they are both low risk activities in the main part. The exceptions, of course, being the more extreme end of the spectrum such as competitive downhill racing and rock climbing..

Your simplistic, hiking = safe, biking = near certain death is complete rubbish as the real world data shows.