"Blackblade" wrote in message ...
[...]

Edward Dolan wrote:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 biking!

“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