Is Mike Vandeman finally dead?

I don’t blame the mountain bikers for wanting to take advantage of a situation. It is the land managers I blame. They are clearly nincompoops!

Why ? Because they disagree with you ? As public servants they should, and largely do, serve the public. Thus, if the public want to ride their bikes on trails then it is completely correct that this use is accommodated.

Biking and hiking on the same trails is an incompatible use.

Says who ? I am sure that some conflict exists; conflict exists in any arena where people are forced to share resources.

However, to make such a bald assertion is not supportable.

Different types of trails may, or indeed may not, support mixed use … but to state that it’s always the case is nonsense. The South Downs Way, and many other famous trails, is multi traffic and I am not aware of conflict.. Most of Scotland is now multi-use with, again, minimal conflict.

Sure, a downhill MTB trail is not a safe place to walk and certain rocky scrambles uphill are impossible on a MTB. So, yes, there is a safety issue in some circumstances that might prevent shared use but, in general, shared use can be quite sensibly applied.

By the way, cyclists on trails are in fact a small minority compared to hikers.

Not the case. I can point you to many locations where it’s the other way around.

Always have been and always will be.

You have a crystal ball or can see the future ? If mountain biking continues growing at its current rate this won’t be the case for too much longer..

It is not majority rule. Hiking trails are for hikers. If you had ever kept up with Mr. Vandeman’s many posts, you would realize how dangerous cycling on hiking trails is. Maybe the liability issue will eventually kick in and result in some lawsuits against the land managers.

No, axiomatically, in a democracy public resources are for the use of the public. The very statement ‘Hiking Trails’ implies some a-priori ownership of said trail by a specific group which is not, and never was, the case.. The trails do not ‘belong’ to hikers who are then doing all other groups a favour in providing access. The trails belong to the public and the public can decide to what use they are put.

And, citing the criminal Mike Vandeman as a source is not very credible. However, in the following thread on alt.mountain-bike as you can see ...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!ms...g/0KXsYu_iyJ8J

... using a reasonable methology it is estimated that there are around 0.00123 fatalities per million miles travelled by mountainbike vs automobile fatalities at approximately 1.5 per million miles. So, cycling on hiking trails is a LOT safer than riding in a car … an activity that the vast majority of people in the US are quite happy to contemplate daily. So, no, mountain biking is not dangerous when compared with most activities.

Let me leave you with a sobering thought. It is not love that makes the world go around, it is hate that makes the world go around. The day is not far off when the hatred that hikers feel for cyclists on their sacred trails is going to manifest itself in some murders. At that point even the nincompoop land managers will have to sit up and take notice.

I fear you are projecting. Would some hikers prefer that bikes were banned from their favourite trails ? Of course. Is this fair ? No ! Would most sane, reasonable people concede that everyone has, within reason, an equal right to use public natural resources ? Yes.

Therefore, they don’t hate cyclists and many many people now conduct both activites. There may well be a tiny minority that feel this way but they are the lunatic fringe and will, I hope, be dealt with by the authorities in the usual way. Most people are reasonable, they see the fairness of sharing resources and mitigate it with a sensible approach to using particular trails.

The major error you are committing is not recognizing that hiking and cycling on the same trails is an incompatible use. The two cannot coexist peacefully. What cyclists do on a trail is a form of desecration from the hiker’s viewpoint. There will always be this conflict. It is not resolvable.

This simply isn’t true. The vast majority of the world manages to get on fine with sharing without major conflict. There may be some diehards who won’t accept this but they are a very small minority. The conflict will resolve itself as the younger generation, who have grown up always seeing bikes, people and horses together, grows to maturity. It’s a temporary issue occasioned by change and the fact that, yes, for some it's an unwelcome change.