How Mountain Bikers Treat Other Trail Users

From: "Meyner, Gus"
Subject: Equistrians, Coe and everwhere

here is a note from one of my horse riding friends. It is helpful, I
think.

From Laurie,

Coe is gorgeous and I LOVE riding out there. Great hills, great water
crossings, great animal sightings... The "awful" aspect comes from my
very first trail ride there when the lone mountain bike rider came
screaming down a hill, and made the blind turn into our horses.

My girlfriend's horse spooked and ran off with her, mine spun a 180. I
couldn't hang on and rolled about six times down the downhill side of
the trail. I was wearing a helmet and did a tuck and roll and popped
up without an injury. I had to walk a ways before I found my horse,
but we were both uninjured.

I've had a number of run-ins at Coe with bike riders and blind curves.
With horses, you see, it's the surprise that's bad, not the bike. I
have never had one incident when the bike riders used their voice to
say "Hi, how're ya doing?" as soon as they were in ear shot so the
horse could know it was a human, not a horse-eating monster. I try to
call out a friendly "Hello" as soon as I think I can be heard so the
bikers will respond, but there are still some who won't respond, and
the horses get nervous.

A lot of times I'll go to parks where bikes are not allowed - Wilder
in Santa Cruz, Mount Madonna or Harvey Bear, just to avoid the hassle
of dealing with bikes. But honestly, as long as the bike riders say a
friendly hello from a good distance off and slow way down, everything
always turns out fine.

Thanks for caring!


Butch
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande