Time to Ban Equestrians from Trails

On 8/23/2011 10:38 AM, jcdill wrote:
On 23/08/11 9:27 AM, Jonz wrote:
On 8/22/2011 11:27 PM, jcdill wrote:
On 22/08/11 7:09 PM, Jonz wrote:
On 8/22/2011 3:43 PM, jcdill wrote:


The manure horses leave on the trail becomes fertilizer for the park.

Eventually. But before it does, it is a disgusting, ugly mess that
horse
riders should be forced to clean up.

That's one person's opinion. People who live in glass houses shouldn't
throw stones. When you gripe about horses, you just open up the
conversation to gripes back about bikes, and you KNOW that there are bad
actors in the bike group and to have others pointing out the bad
behaviors of those bad actors doesn't endear people to bikes.


This sounds like:

Mommy, they do it too, so it must be OK.

No, that's not what it is at all.

It's a form of the Streisand effect. It's not a good idea to try to get
more people looking at how people act uncaringly towards other park
users when your own group is the group that most often generates
complaints about uncaring behavior towards other park users. It's about
the risk of one group with a public relations problem that also has a
fair percent of members who flout rules (poaching etc.) griping about
the behavior of other groups. You run the risk of having the magnifying
glass turned right back on your own group's problems.

If you want people to focus back on bad riding behaviors, go right ahead
and complain about horses. You will get all the attention you want (and
more that you don't want) about trail issues regarding bikes. It
definitely will NOT end up with any expanded trail access for bikes.


Spin it however you want. However, like I said before, b-b-but they do
it too.

You would be in a much better position if your group set an example
rather than point fingers.

Jonz