The Joys & Pleasures of Cycling on Trails

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

Edward Dolan wrote:

We do indeed want to police any and all others.

Well, fortunately, you can't. They are not your trails to police.

I am counting on bikers to be their own worst enemies. They will lose access to trails because of their swinishness and boorishness. People, like water, will always find its own level.
[...]

I too trust to others' intelligence to discern the difference
between a self-serving argument that makes no sense and my very modest desire to
want to restore the status quo ante.

No, Ed, your very immodest desire to annex a public resource, for which everyone pays, for your sole use ..

It doesn’t matter that it is a public resource or that everyone pays. Irrelevant and immaterial – which I have explained to you many times before.
[...]

And you're proud of that are you ? I regard profanity as
vulgar and beneath me and I certainly wouldn't write it in a public forum.

Public forums be damned! I am living in a free country and
will damn well say anything I please.

That's your right ... which I would support. But, in a free country, I am also perfectly free to consider that descending to profanity is a clear signal that you've lost the argument.

Be too much of a dunderhead and you will get your sorry ass kicked. It has nothing to do with argument, but it does have to do with brainless repetition and attention to meaningless details. We both have our ways of being disrespectful and profanity is not as bad as your pretended obtuseness.

But you are quite right to be
cautious when around someone like me. I have argued with the scum of the earth
on these newsgroups on every conceivable topic, and when they get dirty I get
twice as dirty.

I don't need profanity to beat you ... just logic and a coherent position.

I am still waiting for some logic and a coherent position from you that I can connect with, but I am not holding my breath.

Am I smarter and better than you?

Very much doubt it. If that were the case you wouldn't make so many logical errors. Your whole position devolves to "I want this, I used to have it ... therefore it's right".

Since you did not include my entire paragraph to which you were responding above, allow me tell you to go **** yourself. You did not even indicate that you had deleted some of what I had said. Only a scoundrel picks a sentence out of a paragraph to respond to. Keep doing this and you will get some profanity that will not stop.

If all your arguments pertain only to California then, to be
candid, I don't really care. But I very much doubt that this is what you
mean ... you don't write "death to (Californian) mountainbiking" in your
signature do you ?

Everything happens in California first and is then exported to
the rest of the world. I mean death to all mountain biking on trails -
everywhere.
[...]

Contrary to what you might believe, California is not the world.

Jesus Christ! I did not know that!

And, if you really don't understand that the tiny number of people
with whom you hike ... and I know it has to be tiny because you like solitude
and eschew large groups ... cannot count as representative of a community
encompassing tens (and globally hundreds) of millions then we should stop now
because you simply don't have enough intelligence to hold a reasoned
argument.

Most hikers hike alone or with just one other person. I seldom
meet groups. Only slobs like you like to hike or ride with others. What's the
matter? Can't stand you own company?

What's the matter Ed, can't interact normally with other people ?

All travel and hiking is best done alone. Otherwise one is too busy interacting with others to give proper attention to what it is you are there for in the first place. If you had ever read any travel books by travelers (not tourists), you would know this.

Yes, Ed, it IS a matter of fairness. The general population
pays for, and indeed owns through the government, the resources to which we are
referring. Most of the trails were, as you well know, instituted for
travel and trade historically and are now a recreation resource for the
people. So, no, you don't get to arbitrarily decide that your preferred
use is 'best' and thereby exclude everyone else.

It is NOT a matter of fairness. Where did you ever get such a
crazy idea? It is a matter of BEST use. That is how every public resource is
managed. In fact, that is how every resource is managed, public or private. You
surely must be an idiot! There is nothing arbitrary about wanting to return to
the status quo ante.

Define 'best' ... to a standard that everyone is going to agree. You can't. Your best is not mine. You have to look at the fundamental premise of what national parks are intended to do ... which is to provide recreation for people and preserve wildlife and the resource for future generations. So they are absolutely doing what they should ... trying to balance occasionally conflicting requirements so that, overall, the most number of people are satisfied. That is made very difficult if you have a small number of selfish and stubborn individuals, such as yourself, who seem to believe that they are, without the slightest logical justification, deserving of some special treatment.

The “best� of anything is left to the experts to tell us what it is. As always, you are confusing and conflating “best� with “most�. If you thought about it more, even you would not want that.

All any of us can ever know are the local trails.

If you weren't so close minded to facts and data, instead
preferring your personal perspective on matters, then you would understand that
you CAN know something about the whole world. It just requires you to
read.

However, if you concede that you only know about your local trails
then I suggest you desist from commenting that you 'know' that hikers in my
locale resent bikers. You haven't the faintest clue how they feel.

Anyone walking a trail for recreation belongs to a universe of
common experience.

What total and utter nonsense. Everyone who goes hiking has the same experience ? What about family groups, ramblers clubs, trail runners, dog walkers and the numerous other users ?

I think only trail runners don’t know why they are doing what they are doing. Everyone else is wanting to connect with nature the same as me. The experience may be qualitatively different for everyone of course, but they are all wanting to do the same thing – to connect with nature. It is only bikers who do not fit this profile.

I can assume that everyone everywhere is the same in that
regard.

Feel free to assume what you wish ... yet again, you're wrong but since you won't ever bother to check your assumptions you can continue in your ignorance.

Is it OK if I assume you are an Asshole?
[...]

My point was correct. Everyone knows that life is not eternal,
but if it were then my point was made. What was my point? I am sure you have
lost it by now, but it was that biking on trails is much more dangerous than
hiking on trails and that if you did enough of it you would be far more likely
to suffer an injury than would hikers. Simple enough even for an idiot like you
to understand, but why must I go into such details in the first
place.

Because Ed, your memory is becoming somewhat 'convenient'. Let me refresh it for you, you wrote ...

" Mountain biking accidents happen because they are doing what all mountain bikers do. The only stupidity is taking up mountain biking in the first place. If you do it, you will suffer an injury or death. It is just a matter of time. It is in fact inevitable."

Whereas, as I showed and you eventually were forced to concede, the risk of a fatality or serious injury in a lifetime of mountainbiking is, in reality, very low indeed. So, if you take up mountainbiking you will probably live a long and healthy life.

I conceded no such thing. Where did that come from?

So, the reason I focus on these, as you call them 'details, is that they prove you wrong.

That you then start talking nonsense about eternal life shows how desperate, or illogical, you are since, as you should know, any risk, however small, will become a near inevitability in infinite time.

Is it OK if I call you a Moron?

I clearly stated that if you mountain bike long enough an accident was inevitable. The key words there are “long enough� and “inevitable�. What is there about that you do not understand. There is nothing safe about mountain biking. I have hundreds of report on my computer showing just how dangerous it is. The fact that you think it is safe is nuts. Of course the risk of death is low even on the battleground in time of war. But mountain biking accidents are everyday and everywhere and as common as mud.

I suggest you not argue derails with me since you do not know how to do it. You have never refuted a single thing I have ever said. All you do is just disagree with a **** poor argument that makes no sense at all.

You do not know how to read me, whereas I can read you
perfectly, but choose not to get bogged down in moronic details like you do.

I can read you perfectly; old, bigoted, lazy, profane and selfish

You have just described yourself perfectly, Keep up the good work!

Anyone who will argue about details has already lost the reader. Details belong
in footnotes. How scholarly do you want to get?.

You're missing the difference between a detail and a key fact. Key facts, such as the facts that mountainbiking is actually pretty safe, that there are NOT many collisions and that most concede the need to share, demolish your arguments.

All your key facts are wrong. Maybe you should just go for the details after all so you won’t look like a complete idiot.
[...]

Walking a trail is a universal experience. Everyone does it
for the same reason - to connect with nature for a time. I can assume that all
hikers experience this connection with nature like I do.

No, you can't assume that at all. Particularly since, as you admit, you are largely solitary and enjoy your own company. How the hell would that permit you to empathise with anyone else ?

Is it OK if I call you a Jackass? What does being solitary have to do with not being able to assume what is common to all mankind. Of course I do admit I have nothing much in common with mountain bikers who ride their bikes on hiking trails. That level of jackassery I leave to assholes like you.
[...]

Your belief that everyone should be given a shot at using
trails is belied by the fact that even you do not want motorcycles on trails.

I didn't say that did I Ed ? I said they SHOULD get SOME access ... but much less because of environmental impact and risk to other trail users.

It is OK if I call you a Numskull? It is hard to contest such stupidity as yours. I want to know why you are excluding motorcycles from trails. Everything I have against bikes on trails is equally applicable to motorcycles on trails. What a god damn ****ing selfish lout you are!

This points up the essential selfishness of your argument. Democracy does not
mean that everyone can do whatever they want.

No, of course it doesn't, it means that everyone gets some of what they want ... it's essentially the art of compromise.

Good, now compromise and permit motorcycles on your trails .... you ****ing hypocrite!

Biking on trails is a conflict of MEANS and of PURPOSE with
those of hikers and equestrians. Who should have priority? I am arguing that
hikers were there first and deserve not only priority but exclusive usage.

Thank you for clarifying your essentially selfish position; I was there first, I liked being by myself, you lot can clear off.

The reality is that each new generation will have different preferences as to type of recreation. You don't, Canute like, get to stop the clock at a point in time that happens to suit you.

We do indeed get to do precisely that since it is a matter of not only best use, but of only use.

The
conflicts are a permanent fixture and are never going to go away. That is what
has to be recognized by one and all before any changes can take place on how
trails are managed. The bikes have got to go!

No, Ed, what needs to go are dogmatic people like you who won't compromise reasonably and actually prevent solutions being agreed and engender more extremism.

The only extremists I know about are louts and slobs like you who want to wreck everything.

Research shows that real conflict is very rare ... the perception thereof is higher. What needs to be recognised is that there is no alternative to sharing; there is only one natural environment and we need to agree to share it and to protect it.

Yep, there is indeed only one natural environment and those of us who care about it do not what it destroyed by the likes of you and your ilk. You can ride your bikes on streets and roads of which this world has an infinite number. Nature is precious and must be preserved above all else.

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