Hiking trails exist in natural areas and are easily negotiable
by humans on foot. Bike paths exist in developed areas and are designed for
wheels mainly. Always glad to help out the mentally impaired.

Very funny. How about answering the question ? A trail in a natural area can easily be used for either.

It is becoming more and more a daily experience of hikers
having just one close call after another. Come to Aspen and find out for
yourself. A mountain biker just killed himself the other day on a trail at Vail.
That indeed was good news! You should be reading Mr. Vandeman’s
emails/newsletters instead of mountain biker **** magazines.

Well, if it is, as you say, a daily occurrence then there will be lots of records of such interactions won’t there ? Perhaps you could post a link to show them ?

It is also a matter of aesthetics .... which I know is beyond
you!

Aesthetics is axiomatically subjective so we are just not going to agree.

Mr. Vandeman finds dozens of such incidents on a monthly basis
– more than enough to give everyone pause. What he finds equally significant are
the high numbers of mountain bikers who injure and kill themselves riding
on trails without any help from hikers. I will admit it makes for boring reading
because the accidents are always the same. At least hikers when they have
accidents make for more interesting reading.

Mr Vandeman found data to support a death rate of 0.00123 per million miles travelled; an order of magnitude safer than driving or riding a bicycle on the road. He trawls the web feverishly looking for such incidents and finds a handful. This, when set against the millions mountainbiking worldwide, suggests that it’s pretty safe.

What motorcycles and bicycles have in common is that they are
both mechanical contrivances. That right there is enough to disqualify them from
my sacred trails.

By what logic ? Even if they are both ‘mechanical’ so is a tool. I am presuming you’re not so messianic as to ban all accoutrements ? People are toolmakers, it’s what put us at the top of the evolutionary tree. However, an unpowered and a powered tool are very different.

Secondarily, it’s not ‘your’ trail and you’ve not justified why mechanical contrivances should be banned.


What they also have in common is the ‘fun and games’ mentality
of their operators.

So, you’re in favour of thoughtcrime entering the statutes ? There can be only one way for people to appreciate nature ?

The one and only reason for trails in this day and age
is for an appreciation of nature. There are no other purposes for trails that
are suited for hikers. Get your own trails and use them for whatever other
purposes you want.

So you keep saying, without justification.

A Great Saint like Myself is beyond the reach of a mere
church. We exist on an equal level with God Almighty.

In which case, why don’t you just smite the heathen mountainbikers ?

I can spot and smell a liberal from a mile away. It is one of
the hallmarks of a Genius like Me!

Well, you missed. I’m a social liberal but a fiscal and political conservative.

You bring up the same old rot over and over. What is polite
about that?

No, I disagree with you over and over. As you’re hardly objective it’s for the other good denizens to determine whose arguments they find more compelling. That is not impolite; that is not letting you get away with circular logic or unsupported conclusions.

The only arguments that are circular are your own self-serving
ones for doing what you want to do regardless of how it affects anyone else. But
like all liberals, you know only your own justifications in your limited skewed
view of the world.

I sought an accommodation and suggested some approaches to compromise. If I were purely self-serving why would I bother ?