The high cost of mountain biking!

"John B." wrote in message
...

On Wed, 10 Aug 2016 16:28:05 -0500, "EdwardDolan"
wrote:

OK, so let’s discuss the Sahara Desert in the context of “there are places
where no man has ever walked�. Did you know that the Sahara was not always
a desert? It was once a savanna that had water and animals and hence
people.
This was a long time ago and it is thought that those early
hunter-gatherers
later settled in Egypt when the desertification began. It is thought that
an
oscillation of the earth every 11,000 years causes this phenomenon, so
maybe
the Sahara will some day be a savanna again.

But now you begin to see how absurd is your statement that there are areas
of the earth that no man has ever walked. Man, like Kilroy, has at one time
or another been everywhere (except Antarctica).


I've sort of been holding off replying as I've been trying to puzzle
out whether you are really as stupid as you seem to be or whether you
simply live in some parallel universe where "reality" is whatever you
would like it to be.

The only stupid clod here is yourself.

But be that as it may, to take up the question of the lush Sahara,
teeming with life and little foot prints.

You are the moron who stated that there were areas of the earth where no man
had ever trod. I would never be so stupid as to say that!

I did a bit of research and it seems pretty well agreed that the
Sahara may well have received a much higher rain fall in time past
than it does today and the time estimates seem to agree that the place
had reached its highest level of rainfall, and this plant growth and
"lushness" about 8,000 years BCE.

A bit more research shows that the two most agreed upon estimates of
human population on the planet is Hyde (published 2007) and Durand
(1974) who both agree that 5.0 million in -8000 is a likely figure.

A check on the earth habitable land area comes up with 63,699,062 km.
sq. Based on those figures there was, on an average one human for
every 12.7 sq. km. in 8000 bce.

Today's Sahara Desert covers some 9,400,000 sq. Km. so based on world
population estimates the total population of the Sahara might have
been as high as 750,000, which sounds like a lot of people until you
realize that is roughly equal to Fort Worth Texas sat in the middle of
the U.S. and not another person on the continent.

And you believe that these approximately 750,000 people were
scampering about, running here and there all over the place.

Yes, that is exactly what I believe. These early people were all
hunter-gatherers, and they required as much land as possible in order to
survive as hunter-gatherers. What foolishness to compare these early people
to a modern day city. The earth can support far more people today because of
the kind of discoveries and inventions mentioned in my recent post entitled
"Guns, Germs and Steel".

You totally ignore the difficulties that primitive groups have in just
getting enough to eat, not to mention all the rest of the
inconveniences of staying alive. Child and female morality, for
example, is extremely high in primitive societies.

No, on the contrary, it is precisely the difficulty of getting enough to eat
that requires the vast Sahara in time of plenty to support that population,
however meager by modern day standards.

Nope Dooley, we will have to mark this one up to a vivid imagination.

Your research on the Sahara agrees with what I know, but you seem to have no
clue of how much land it takes to support hunter-gatherer type of societies.

Modern day hikers have no illusions about recreating primitive conditions,
but the desire to preserve relatively primitive areas for spiritual
recreation makes total sense. It is as close as we can get to our roots.
And
the recreation needs to be man on foot, not man on a machine. Wilderness
areas are for pilgrimage, not for fun and games (sport). That you can’t see
this makes you a true barbarian – a man without culture. I am quite right
to
despise you.

Well, I accept your term "relatively primitive" although one has to
wonder just how greatly a world with flush toilets, hot and cold
running water and paved foot paths can relate to "primitive"?

Now who is lacking in imagination?

And what about all the mosquito's, deer fly's, yellow jacket hornets
midges and ticks in your relatively primitive world? I suspect that
you don't have any in your relative reality. Probably fog them every
evening.

And of course, no savage animals, no wolves, bears or catamounts in
your (relatively) primitive wilderness, I'm sure. Maybe a cute little
bunny rabbit or Bambi the deer (neglecting the fact that neither are
actually forest denizens) but certainly nothing dangerous.

Sorry, Dooley but you strike out again. You see a real wilderness
contains all kind of things. Yellow Jackets, mosquitoes and all kind
of creepy crawly things. right along side, heck, sometime right in it,
the big majestic redwood tree.

Even a relatively primitive area will contain many things that an urban
landscape will not. We do not need total immersion in the wild; a partial
immersion will do just fine, thank you. What we don't need are bicycles
whizzing around us when in a wilderness.

In fact, one of the ways that those big Red Wood trees got spread all
over the place is by those loveable little birds. You see the redwood
cone falls down and after decomposing a little exposes the seeds. The
nice birdies eat the seeds, but unfortunately the seed covers are hard
to digest so many seeds pass right through the birds digestive system
undigested.

An interesting thing about the Red Wood seed is that it doesn't want
to be buried like other seeds. Just drop it right there on the ground
and it is perfectly happy while if you bury it down deep away from the
sunlight and it dies. One might even say that over hundreds of
thousands of years the whole Red Wood reproduction system has depended
on bird ****. Horrible but true.

Relevance?

Given that your "relative primitive" has no basis in reality what you
might do is visit
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/20...ilence-714.jpg

I have no interest at this particular time in learning anything about how
Redwood trees propagate. I do know that "relative primitive" is not an
abstraction, but a reality that millions of us appreciate to have at our
beck and call without the plague of mountain bikers present.

Additional nonsense deleted.
[...]

And, it might be added, it will fit right in with your other imagined
realities.

Vast primitive areas set aside for the spiritual recreation of hikers are
not imagined. They exist in reality and it is important to keep them as
unspoiled as possible in an ever increasing urbanized world.

Mountain bikes have wheels. Wheels are for roads.

Trails are for walking. What’s the matter? Can’t walk?

Ed Dolan the Great – Minnesota