Comparing relative impacts of various trail user groups--No Surprise, Hikers and Equestrians Cause More Trail Damage than Mountain Bikers

On Tue, 20 May 2008 18:51:08 -0700 (PDT), Ed Pirrero
wrote:

On May 20, 5:43*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:
On Tue, 20 May 2008 08:57:46 -0700, SMS
wrote:





SMS wrote:
OK, now it really is getting boring. Yet another article about how
mountain bikers cause less trail damage than hikers and equestrians.

"http://www.americantrails.org/resources/ManageMaintain/WKeenImpacts.html"

Can we finally begin to work on public policy changes that work to
reduce trail impact by reducing the number of hikers and equestrians,
and that encourage more mountain biking? The facts are clear and
indisputable.

There's never been any study that showed more damage from mountain bikes
than from any other non-motorized trail users. You had a lot of hikers
and equestrians not wanting to share trails that they felt they owned by
"being their first" as if that was justification for banning other
users, and they made a lot of outrageous and totally wrong statements
about trail impact.

The issue of trail usage needs to be raised at the highest level of
government. There are many trails in National Parks and National
Recreation Areas that should be open to mountain bikers.

Another article is at
"http://web.archive.org/web/20050419115944/http://www.uoguelph.ca/medi..."
thanks to the wayback machine.

"Botanist Richard Reader and graduate student Eden Thurston say hikers
have long argued that the deep treads of spinning mountain bike tires
tear up more dirt than a simple pair of hiking boots. But their study of
trail use found that with average amounts of activity, cycling and
hiking have similar effects on the great outdoors."

They lied about their results. Seehttp://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/scb7.

We need to work hard to open more trails to mountain bikers, to expand
the use of our parks. Outdoor users of all types need to band together
to prevent destruction of valuable park land for development.

That's exactly what we are doing: ...

Again with the "we". Who is this mythical "we" of which you speak?

The people who care about nature, which doesn't include you or other
mountain bikers.

E.P.
--
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