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Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!



 
 
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  #1  
Old March 26th 08, 04:41 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

Jim Hasenauer teaches Rhetoric -- the art of effective lying.... Not
too effective, huh?

Mike


Vol. 35 No. 4 | March 3, 2003
Essay
Printable Version

Let bikers in, and we'll stand behind wilderness

by Jim Hasenaur


I'm a mountain bicyclist. The pleasure of my life is pedaling through
wild places, experiencing the views, the changing colors and textures
of the plant life, the occasional animal sightings. On the trail, I'm
renewed, and my commitment to public-land preservation is
strengthened. I think that's the way most mountain bikers feel, and
historically, we've been eager to back conservation efforts.

We're troubled, though, that designated wilderness, the highest level
of protection, is encumbered with regulations that ban bicycling.
Across the country, wilderness advocates are advancing new proposals
while mountain bicyclists struggle to find a meaningful place at the
table. It's a wedge issue with a capital W.

The 1964 Wilderness Act is a remarkable tool. Once Congress acts,
wilderness areas are protected in perpetuity for their own sake and
for the recreational and spiritual sustenance they provide visitors.
Wilderness recreation offers adventure, discovery, solitude and awe -
exactly the kinds of exxperience most valued by bicyclists like me.

But wilderness advocates, like kids with a jackknife, are inclined to
use the tool at hand. They mark their accomplishments in acres
designated and their losses as anything less than wilderness as
proposed. Though bicyclists should be natural allies of the wilderness
movement, because of the bike ban we're understandably reluctant to
embrace proposals that would kick us off cherished trails.

It would certainly be easier for cyclists to oppose wilderness
outright, but that's not who we are. We value wild places. We've
endorsed preservation of all roadless areas as the foundation of real
resource protection.

We try to support wilderness where possible, and when proposals
include significant bicycle trails, we work to find ways to protect
the land and still preserve the riding. These tools include boundary
adjustments, cherry-stem trails and land designations that provide
wilderness-like protection from roads, motors and extraction, but
still allow bikes.

Unfortunately, many wilderness advocates see these measures as losses,
discounting alternatives as "wilderness-lite." They characterize
bicyclists as selfish and uncooperative. The cost of this infighting
has been acrimony, poisoned relationships and lost time, energy and
trust. Meanwhile, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and other anti-wilderness
groups court cyclists.

The 46 million U.S. mountain bicyclists are a giant constituency of
public-land enthusiasts. They're increasingly committed to wild land
protection, but they're understandably wary of wilderness
designations. That's why it's clear to me that there ought to be a way
to work for wilderness protection that doesn't ban bicycles. If the
regulation were changed, and bikes were allowed on some trails in some
wilderness, the entire nature of this debate would shift.

Most wilderness advocates are astonished to learn that the Wilderness
Act did not ban bicycles. It banned "mechanized transport," which was
defined in Forest Service regulation as "powered by a nonliving power
source." Bicycles were allowed and ridden in some wilderness until
1984, when a ban first introduced in 1977 was made final. This is
significant because it means the bike ban is regulatory, not
statutory. It was imposed 20 years after the Wilderness Act by folks
who mistook mountain bikes for motorcycles.

It's time to get past this. Bikes are muscle-powered, human-scale,
quiet and nonpolluting. The tradition and history of bicycle use on
the wild lands of the West goes back to the 1880s. Bicycling is
trail-based recreation. We may range as far as horses and runners, but
our impacts on the trails and on plants and animals have been shown to
be similar to those of hikers. Yes, bikes do provide a mechanical
advantage, but it's only a degree of difference from oarlocks,
suspension poles, skis and the high-tech alloys and composites
associated with other outdoor equipment.

I believe that if mountain bikers were allowed on some wilderness
trails, cyclists would overwhelmingly endorse new wilderness. Rest
assured: Trails would never swarm with bikes; most would still be
earmarked for hikers. Yet in the same way that backpackers cherish
wilderness regardless of whether they ever visit it, mountain bikers
would support more wilderness, both in principle and at the ballot
box.

It's time to make a niche for mountain biking in the push to preserve
wild places. Cyclists, with their commitment, passion and numbers,
could swell the ranks of a new, more inclusive movement. The only
difference between wilderness now and wilderness future would be the
presence of bicycles on some trails and much, much more wilderness.


Jim Hasenauer is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News in Paonia, Colorado. He is a professor of
communication studies at California State University at Northridge and
a board member of the International Mountain Bicycling Association,
though his opinions are his own.



© copyright 2002 High Country News
High Country News* Box 1090 * Paonia, CO 81428 * 1-800-905-1155
To receive two free copies of High Country News, call 1-800-905-1155
--
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
Ads
  #2  
Old March 26th 08, 02:39 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Siskuwihane[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 534
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

On Mar 25, 11:41*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:

Michael J. Vandeman


How gay.
  #3  
Old March 26th 08, 05:01 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Jeff Strickland
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 613
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

I think you are on the wrong side of this one Vandeman. The author makes
several valid points about you and he having common goals, but because you
are a crybaby you shut him out of the table where the common ground can be
leveraged to arrive at a conservation plan that works for all. There is
plenty of room in the wilderness for transient visitors of all types. What
wilderness can not sustain is any form of permanant encampment.

But, you're an idiot that refuses to look at facts in any sort of rational
manner.

Speaking of the fine art of lying, did I mention that when you point out a
lie it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?

You should try embracing allies instead of alienating them. It's the whole
catch-more-bees-with-honey thing ...





"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...
Jim Hasenauer teaches Rhetoric -- the art of effective lying.... Not
too effective, huh?

Mike


Vol. 35 No. 4 | March 3, 2003
Essay
Printable Version

Let bikers in, and we'll stand behind wilderness

by Jim Hasenaur


I'm a mountain bicyclist. The pleasure of my life is pedaling through
wild places, experiencing the views, the changing colors and textures
of the plant life, the occasional animal sightings. On the trail, I'm
renewed, and my commitment to public-land preservation is
strengthened. I think that's the way most mountain bikers feel, and
historically, we've been eager to back conservation efforts.

We're troubled, though, that designated wilderness, the highest level
of protection, is encumbered with regulations that ban bicycling.
Across the country, wilderness advocates are advancing new proposals
while mountain bicyclists struggle to find a meaningful place at the
table. It's a wedge issue with a capital W.

The 1964 Wilderness Act is a remarkable tool. Once Congress acts,
wilderness areas are protected in perpetuity for their own sake and
for the recreational and spiritual sustenance they provide visitors.
Wilderness recreation offers adventure, discovery, solitude and awe -
exactly the kinds of exxperience most valued by bicyclists like me.

But wilderness advocates, like kids with a jackknife, are inclined to
use the tool at hand. They mark their accomplishments in acres
designated and their losses as anything less than wilderness as
proposed. Though bicyclists should be natural allies of the wilderness
movement, because of the bike ban we're understandably reluctant to
embrace proposals that would kick us off cherished trails.

It would certainly be easier for cyclists to oppose wilderness
outright, but that's not who we are. We value wild places. We've
endorsed preservation of all roadless areas as the foundation of real
resource protection.

We try to support wilderness where possible, and when proposals
include significant bicycle trails, we work to find ways to protect
the land and still preserve the riding. These tools include boundary
adjustments, cherry-stem trails and land designations that provide
wilderness-like protection from roads, motors and extraction, but
still allow bikes.

Unfortunately, many wilderness advocates see these measures as losses,
discounting alternatives as "wilderness-lite." They characterize
bicyclists as selfish and uncooperative. The cost of this infighting
has been acrimony, poisoned relationships and lost time, energy and
trust. Meanwhile, the Blue Ribbon Coalition and other anti-wilderness
groups court cyclists.

The 46 million U.S. mountain bicyclists are a giant constituency of
public-land enthusiasts. They're increasingly committed to wild land
protection, but they're understandably wary of wilderness
designations. That's why it's clear to me that there ought to be a way
to work for wilderness protection that doesn't ban bicycles. If the
regulation were changed, and bikes were allowed on some trails in some
wilderness, the entire nature of this debate would shift.

Most wilderness advocates are astonished to learn that the Wilderness
Act did not ban bicycles. It banned "mechanized transport," which was
defined in Forest Service regulation as "powered by a nonliving power
source." Bicycles were allowed and ridden in some wilderness until
1984, when a ban first introduced in 1977 was made final. This is
significant because it means the bike ban is regulatory, not
statutory. It was imposed 20 years after the Wilderness Act by folks
who mistook mountain bikes for motorcycles.

It's time to get past this. Bikes are muscle-powered, human-scale,
quiet and nonpolluting. The tradition and history of bicycle use on
the wild lands of the West goes back to the 1880s. Bicycling is
trail-based recreation. We may range as far as horses and runners, but
our impacts on the trails and on plants and animals have been shown to
be similar to those of hikers. Yes, bikes do provide a mechanical
advantage, but it's only a degree of difference from oarlocks,
suspension poles, skis and the high-tech alloys and composites
associated with other outdoor equipment.

I believe that if mountain bikers were allowed on some wilderness
trails, cyclists would overwhelmingly endorse new wilderness. Rest
assured: Trails would never swarm with bikes; most would still be
earmarked for hikers. Yet in the same way that backpackers cherish
wilderness regardless of whether they ever visit it, mountain bikers
would support more wilderness, both in principle and at the ballot
box.

It's time to make a niche for mountain biking in the push to preserve
wild places. Cyclists, with their commitment, passion and numbers,
could swell the ranks of a new, more inclusive movement. The only
difference between wilderness now and wilderness future would be the
presence of bicycles on some trails and much, much more wilderness.


Jim Hasenauer is a contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of
High Country News in Paonia, Colorado. He is a professor of
communication studies at California State University at Northridge and
a board member of the International Mountain Bicycling Association,
though his opinions are his own.



© copyright 2002 High Country News
High Country News* Box 1090 * Paonia, CO 81428 * 1-800-905-1155
To receive two free copies of High Country News, call 1-800-905-1155
--
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


  #4  
Old March 26th 08, 07:26 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Romain
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 58
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

Jeff, I also don't think he can grasp that he is isolating the very
folks that will do the needed trail maintenance and policing. There are
enough responsible folks in any group that will 'stand behind the
Wilderness' to weed out the idiots or to at least report the idiots and
make them feel very unwelcome.

It's the same with any off roading or 'wilderness' related group. Folks
like the snowmobile clubs get right ****ed if 'others' wreck their
trails by misuse and they will turn in any such person in a quick
second. Like our RAMJ+W groups that looked after some trails, once we
are involved, we do tend to 'police' the trails to a certain extent and
are more likely to report someone who littered 'our' trails or went nuts
off trail, etc....

It's too bad Mikey can't get focused to the reality of the world in
2008, he is persistent enough to actually do some good instead of
chasing windmills.

Mike

Jeff Strickland wrote:
I think you are on the wrong side of this one Vandeman. The author makes
several valid points about you and he having common goals, but because
you are a crybaby you shut him out of the table where the common ground
can be leveraged to arrive at a conservation plan that works for all.
There is plenty of room in the wilderness for transient visitors of all
types. What wilderness can not sustain is any form of permanant encampment.

But, you're an idiot that refuses to look at facts in any sort of
rational manner.

Speaking of the fine art of lying, did I mention that when you point out
a lie it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?

You should try embracing allies instead of alienating them. It's the
whole catch-more-bees-with-honey thing ...





"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...
Jim Hasenauer teaches Rhetoric -- the art of effective lying.... Not
too effective, huh?

Mike


Vol. 35 No. 4 | March 3, 2003
Essay
Printable Version

Let bikers in, and we'll stand behind wilderness

by Jim Hasenaur

  #5  
Old March 27th 08, 03:08 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 16:01:30 GMT, "Jeff Strickland"
wrote:

I think you are on the wrong side of this one Vandeman. The author makes
several valid points about you and he having common goals, but because you
are a crybaby you shut him out of the table where the common ground can be
leveraged to arrive at a conservation plan that works for all.


We already have that: Wilderness allows mountain bikers to hike,JUST
LIKE EVERYONE ELSE.

There is
plenty of room in the wilderness for transient visitors of all types. What
wilderness can not sustain is any form of permanant encampment.


Or erosion-causing, wildlife-killing mountain biking.

But, you're an idiot that refuses to look at facts in any sort of rational
manner.


I wrote the book on mountain biking impacts. That's the most rational
thing ever written about it.

Speaking of the fine art of lying, did I mention that when you point out a
lie it's a bit of the pot calling the kettle black?

You should try embracing allies instead of alienating them. It's the whole
catch-more-bees-with-honey thing ...


Mountain bikers are ALREADY welcome in Wilderness. They are just too
LAZY to hike, like other people.
--
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
  #6  
Old March 27th 08, 03:14 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Jeff Strickland
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 613
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!


"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...

I wrote the book on mountain biking impacts. That's the most rational
thing ever written about it.


It is difficult to use rational and anything you have ever said in the same
sentence.







  #7  
Old March 27th 08, 03:16 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Mike Vandeman
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 4,798
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

On Wed, 26 Mar 2008 14:26:26 -0400, Mike Romain
wrote:

Jeff, I also don't think he can grasp that he is isolating the very
folks that will do the needed trail maintenance and policing.


BS. We don't need their crappy "trail maintenance", which is designed
only to provide thrills for mountain bikers. And they don't police
their own peers NOW. What makes you think they will suddenly start
doing it, if they get bike access to wilderness? You are very naive.

There are
enough responsible folks in any group that will 'stand behind the
Wilderness' to weed out the idiots or to at least report the idiots and
make them feel very unwelcome.


BS. They SUPPORT those very idiots NOW.

It's the same with any off roading or 'wilderness' related group. Folks
like the snowmobile clubs get right ****ed if 'others' wreck their
trails by misuse


BS. Trail misuse is their middle name.

and they will turn in any such person in a quick
second. Like our RAMJ+W groups that looked after some trails, once we
are involved, we do tend to 'police' the trails to a certain extent and
are more likely to report someone who littered 'our' trails or went nuts
off trail, etc....

It's too bad Mikey can't get focused to the reality of the world in
2008, he is persistent enough to actually do some good instead of
chasing windmills.

Mike


Since you don't understand, let me spell it out for you: the mountain
bikers are saying "Let me destroy the Wilderness, so I can help you
protect it." NOW do you get it?
--
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
  #8  
Old March 27th 08, 04:55 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

Thanks for giving his compelling arguments wider distribution!

But you forgot to slander him.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html
  #9  
Old March 27th 08, 05:05 AM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
external usenet poster
 
Posts: n/a
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

In article MpDGj.9051$Oj5.2296@trnddc06, says...

"Mike Vandeman" wrote in message
...

I wrote the book on mountain biking impacts. That's the most rational
thing ever written about it.


It is difficult to use rational and anything you have ever said in the same
sentence.


That's what the word "not" is for.

--
is Joshua Putnam
http://www.phred.org/~josh/
Braze your own bicycle frames. See
http://www.phred.org/~josh/build/build.html
  #10  
Old March 27th 08, 02:03 PM posted to alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc,rec.backcountry,ca.environment,sci.environment
Siskuwihane[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 534
Default Mountain Bikers Lobby to Get Bikes Allowed in Wilderness!

On Mar 26, 10:08*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:


I wrote the book on mountain biking impacts. That's the most rational
thing ever written about it.



What's the title of said book and the Library of Congress Control
Number?
 




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