On Wed, 3 Mar 2004 16:10:18 -0700, "Monique Y. Herman"
wrote:


Now mountain bikers tend to be your, don't vote, and are scattered all
over the place, so no clout.

I asked around and was pointed to the following for the Boulder, CO
area:

http://www.boa-mtb.org/

I've emailed back and forth with these guys a bit now, and they seem to
be legit. So I think I'm going to make myself a member and try to get
involved in the political (ick) side.

Perhaps there's something similar in your area?

Good for you, get involved. I joined a group in my area in Marin Co,
CA. I paid dues and got a newsletter that came with meeting
announcements two weeks after the meetings and they didn't seem to
have a consistent place. It wasn't a bad group or anything, but they
had a serious newsletter problem. My secondary problem was the
meetings were in a town ten miles away. So I lost interest.

I have also attended bike lane meetings in my town but they are mostly
dog and pony shows and all they want is to count your head and get
some money. Then they build a lane that ends at intersections. I told
them skip the lanes and handle the intersection problems, but they are
only interested in making bike lanes that suit families with kids that
want to go for Sunday afternoon rides.

Then I went to meetings in town to build trails and improve trails,
when I mentioned that I had no problem with helping them with hiking
trails, but also was interested in bike trails, they said let's just
deal with trails right now. So I only went to two meetings when I saw
where that was headed.

I have done bargaining for unions on contracts, for peoples jobs, and
various other issues, compromise is the name of the day. The meetings
I've been to on bikes weren't going anywhere and I asked myself a
question do I want to ride or spend my time trying to open up trails.
Screw bureacracy, ride!