The Joys & Pleasures of Cycling on Trails

"Blackblade" wrote in message ...
[...]

You complain that you don't like bikes on trails and then assert
that all serious hikers feel the same way. However, you've done nothing to
prove that and, as I am a hiker too and know a fair few hikers, I am not going
to believe your blank assertion without backup. I think it's just you and
a few extremists who have a bee in your bonnets about bikes.

Edward Dolan wrote:

It is very convenient to believe what you want to believe even
though others are telling you that what you believe is nuts.

Indeed ... and I AM telling you that what you believe is nuts. Does anyone on this forum agree with you ? Not noticeably (aside from vandeman perhaps but let's not go there). Do the land managers agree with you ? Clearly not or they would act differently. Do the vast majority of hikers agree with you. Based on my experience of hikers, also clearly not but were you to provide proof of this I would consider it.

One Vandeman is worth a thousand like you. I have already told you that the land managers are idiots and cowards and will do whatever they can to avoid conflict from pressure groups. All serious hikers agree with me. Most importantly of all, the kind of serious scholars who write books on the subject of how mankind should be treating nature agree with me and Mr. Vandeman. None of them have ever expressed a view that nature and wilderness should be used as a playground for idiots on vehicles. You are not only nuts but a desecrator of everything right and good. You are truly evil!
[...]

Unlike you, I DO refer back to what was previously said. And
the original question was WHY you think you are able to represent what other
hikers think, particularly when you tend to hike alone as you report.

Nope, you have to go back a few steps further to arrive at the
point I was making in response to your remark ... something about why I prefer
to hike alone is because I can't get along with others? I told you why I like to
hike alone and enlarged on it ... but of course it was just another case of
casting pearls before swine because you can't keep track of whatever moronic
points you are trying to make.

Ed, read the bloody posts ... in order. I wrote, on May 22, the following ...

"And, if you really don't understand that the tiny number of people with whom you hike ... and I know it has to be tiny because you like solitude and eschew large groups ... cannot count as representative of a community encompassing tens (and globally hundreds) of millions then we should stop now because you simply don't have enough intelligence to hold a reasoned argument."

To which you responded ...

"Most hikers hike alone or with just one other person. I seldom meet groups. Only slobs like you like to hike or ride with others. What's the matter? Can't stand you own company?"

So, yet again, the facts contradict you. The core thrust of the argument is against your claim to represent all hikers and, given that you admit you prefer to hike alone or in small groups, you have admitted that your interaction with a huge global community of hikers is therefore minimal.

The comment about your inability to get along socially with others was an anecdotal aside only.

And then I told you WHY I prefer to hike alone ... to which you had no response. You are a genius at always missing my explanations of why I do what I do and why I think like I think. In any event I do not see what social hiking has to do with what trails are about.
[...]

I have seen plenty of trails damaged by hikers, but they are
still passable. Trails that suffer the most damage from hikers will lie close to
resorts or trail heads and are due to hikers taking shortcuts from the trail.
There is also a certain amount of natural water erosion which takes place hikers
or no hikers. On the other hand, a trail destroyed by bikers is often not
passable by hikers except by scrambling.

Ed, you are really losing it ...

"I have seen trails ruined by biker traffic and have never seen the same from hiker traffic." - Ed Dolan

"I have seen plenty of trails damaged by hikers, but they are still passable." - Ed Dolan

Which is it Ed ?

If a trail is still passable by hikers, then it has not been ruined. Please learn how to read.

Mountain bikers are barbarians and have no right to be on any trail used by hikers – unless they want to get off their god damn ****ing bikes and walk like everyone else. When they crash and injure themselves, I rejoice! If and when they manage to kill themselves, I say good riddance to bad rubbish! Death to mountain biking!

“Tread softly! All the earth is holy ground.�
~ Christina Rossetti (Psalm 24),
from "A Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets"

Mountain bikes have wheels. Wheels are for roads.

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

Ed Dolan the Great
aka
Saint Edward the Great