"Phil W Lee" wrote in message ...
[...]

More likely he's [Ed Dolan] nutty enough to go and provoke some conflict to prove
it happens, just like his hero the convict vandalman did.

There is no point in going over old ground (Mike Vandeman) which has already been gone over many times on these bicycle newsgroups. All trail conflicts are due to bikers being on trails which they have no business being on. Elementary my dear Watson!
[...]

I don't know. He makes a very good case for confining hikers to paved "trails" as
well. Got to protect that wilderness from human damage, after all.

That is an issue that Mr. Vandeman disposed of long ago. My concern is trail conflict among users. Try to get up to speed if that is even remotely possible.

Blackblade wrote:

As to your point about the trails in Minnesota ... stop being so authoritarian and hubristic. You may believe that these trails are the best thing ever to ride .. they sound fairly boring to me and far too close to a road experience. You don't get to decide what other people enjoy doing.

I'm guessing that he refuses to use any of the trails there himself,
as only historical use is acceptable in his eyes, and he is both shod
and of non native American descent.
Although the last point may be uncertain (he'd need to ask potentially
embarrassing questions of his female antecedents to have any chance of
knowing himself), I bet he doesn't hike those trails in moccasins.
And maybe he should remember that it was an Irishman who invented the
pneumatic tyre, not an Englishman. If the brogue fits :-)

You guess wrong as you do about most everything. Historical use means recent usage since the establishment of the National Parks. We need not go back any further than that. The Western world with its trails has been created and organized for Western Man and does not relate even remotely to primitive Indian savages any more than it does to animals on four legs. Biker use of single track trails happened like yesterday and there is no tradition of such usage, which is a good enough reason to keep things the way they were.

The fact is that bikers on trails are interlopers who destroy the traditional trail experience (appreciation of nature) for all. The bikers (and the land managers who permit this desecration) should be brought up before courts of law and administered a good horse whipping for their criminal behavior and thereafter be permanently banned from ever entering into a pristine outdoors environment under any circumstances for the rest of their miserable lives. Let them ride their off-road contraptions in abandoned city dumps where they can consort with their true fellow beings on this earth – rats and cockroaches.

Mountain bikers are barbarians and have no right to be on any trail used by hikers – unless they want to get off their god damn ****ing bikes and walk like everyone else. When they crash and injure themselves, I rejoice! If and when they manage to kill themselves, I say good riddance to bad rubbish! Death to mountain bikers!

“Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.”
~ Christina Rossetti (Psalm 24),
from "A Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets"

Mountain bikes have wheels. Wheels are for roads.

Trails are for walking. What’s the matter? Can’t walk?

Ed Dolan the Great
aka
Saint Edward the Great