Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

From: A Vancouver, BC resident
Date: Sat, 07 Apr 2007 10:35:13 -0700
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin
County

If every parks and forest ranger just used the "on foot" (small
footprint) rule, there would be no argument about mountain biking.
Horses and hikers, etc. are on foot/hooves/paws/etc.

Mountain bikes have wheels; ditto OVR's and ATV's. All of these need a
special places away from foot trails! So like skiing, mountain biking
needs a specialized bike resort set aside where the sport can be
contained, controlled and regulated. Same with recreational
ATV's/OVR's.

But we all know mountain bikers feel mountain biking is a right, not a
privilege. And that is where most of the problems begin. How
narcissistic of them.

There is no legitimacy, nor merit to the sport of mountain biking if
it infringes on traditional "on foot" trails and wild places. Don't
let mountain bikers wipe their attitude all over you -- it only gets
worse every time you try to appease them. Like spoiled children with
candy, they only want more. Mountain biking has become an addiction,
not a sport anymore.

Up here in BC, their consummate riding and trail/structure building
has pretty much heavily modified the forest in many places.
Intimidation is their tactic.

Four seasons a year riding -- rain, shine, sleet and snow, day and
night. If that is not addiction, I do not know what it is? And this is
healthy?

Let's not get into injury rates, as mountain biking is one of the most
dangerous sports to introduce your kid to. And yet the media glorifies
it?

Slow down!

----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Vandeman
Sent: Friday, April 06, 2007 9:50 PM
Subject: Bikers and hikers face off over trail access in Marin County

http://www.marinij.com/marin/ci_5606179

Bikers and hikers face off over trail access
Rob Rogers
Article Launched: 04/05/2007 11:32:20 PM PDT

Mountain bikers hoping for greater access to the county's trails are
meeting stiff resistance from hikers and equestrians, who say the
majority of the county supports keeping bikes away from trails.

"A bike has no value, except for fitness, and that doesn't have to be
in our open space," said Jean Berensmeier, a Lagunitas resident and
former member of the county Trails Commission.

The two sides faced off Thursday at a meeting of the Parks and Open
Space Commission, where cyclists argued that in the county where
mountain biking was invented, officials ought to acknowledge the
growing popularity of the sport.

"The Northern California High School Mountain Biking League formed in
2001 with two teams," said Lisa Luzzi, a member of Access 4 Bikes, a
nonprofit group dedicated to providing trail access to Marin cyclists.
"Today, there are 25 teams, with nine in Marin County. Every public
high school in the county has a team, with 45 members at Drake alone.
As these riders get more experience, they're looking for more
technical challenges, and they're not finding them on Marin's legal
trails."

Yet hiking and equestrian advocates said cyclists could not be trusted
to use Marin's trails responsibly.

"Bikers don't belong on

footpaths," said Connie Berto, a director of the Marin Horse Council.
"For 25 years, bikers have been saying they'd get their act together
and be safe and responsible. And they haven't. They ignore safety
regulations and put themselves and others at risk. They want
'technical challenges' at the expense of safety."

Cyclist Kevin McClure pointed out that many mountain bikers are also
hikers, and that they share the same love of the outdoors and
commitment to the environment as other open space users.

"I moved to California not just for the people, but because I love the
outdoors," said McClure, a San Francisco resident. "This is the place
that every mountain biker knows about, where every mountain biker
dreams of coming. And then they discover that there's no place to
ride. And I'm not sure why."

McClure suggested that the two sides seek a compromise, such as
allowing mountain bikers to use the county's narrow, single-track
trails on alternate days or during off-peak hours.

"If hikers and mountain bikers can't find a solution that would allow
them to work together, because too much has happened in the past,
surely there must be some compromise," McClure said. "Maybe high
school students could go out there at 6 a.m. on Wednesday mornings to
ride before school. If only 20 percent of the people in the county
ride bikes, then perhaps we could use the trails 20 percent of the
time."

No deal, said Novato resident Rick Freitas, who argued that most of
Marin supports the idea of keeping cyclists off the trails.

Freitas, an aide to Supervisor Susan Adams, said he and other county
officials had completed an extensive study of the county's open space
policies in 2005. The study concluded that most Marin residents,
particularly those who use the county's open space trails, preferred
to keep existing regulations exactly as they were.

"Prior to that review, the old Trails Commission had been told that
our regulations were no longer relevant to today's demographic of open
space users," Freitas said. "What we found, though, was that the
majority of people we surveyed favored keeping open space the way it
was being run at the time, and to continue to put mountain bikers on
separate trails from horses and hikers."

Freitas agreed that cyclists, especially members of mountain biking
teams, deserved to have a place to practice. But those cycling trails
should be separate from those used by hikers and horseback riders, he
said.

"Is there a need for practice areas? Sure. But keep them exclusive,"
he said.

Tensions between mountain bikers and other users of open space trails
has grown in recent weeks since the revelation that county open space
employees placed barbed wire, stakes and boulders across an illegal
path near Fairfax in order to discourage cyclists.

County supervisors have suggested they would try to find ways to work
with both sides, while Open Space District General Manager Sharon
McNamee has pledged to meet with cycling advocacy groups to find a
solution to the dispute.

That d tente has been welcomed by cyclists. Hikers and equestrians,
however, have urged open space officials not to reconsider the
county's policies.

"Don't get into a 'we need to do this' mode," Freitas told open space
commissioners. "We've already done 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