"Blackblade" wrote in message ...

Edward Dolan wrote:

You obviously do not read your own mountain biker propaganda.
It is just chock full of nothing but enthusiasm for riding bikes on hiking
trails. I see very litte there about the dangers of mountain biking. I assure
you that most cyclists who ride their bikes on trails have no sense of the
danger of it.

We already had this conversation, and I posted links to a number of MTB sites which have crash and injury sections. Anyone who rides a bike understands that it is inherently unstable and they may fall off it.

It is a minority of cyclists who read that kind of ****. A bike is NOT inherently unstable, but it most certainly is when you are riding on a trail which was intended for walking.

I simply pointed out that the odds are not as extreme as you might
expect. And, for this reason, a goodly number of hikers do succumb to
fatal injuries as a result of hiking.

Hikers occasionally come to a bad end too but almost always
from doing something they shouldn't have been doing. With mountain bikers it is
just the opposite. They are doing what they think they should be doing and come
to a bad end as a direct result of it. The two cases are very
different.

This is your judgement ... you approve of hikers and disapprove of bikers. However, viewed objectively they are both doing the same thing .... recreation in a natural environment.

I have already stated many times in another thread on this newsgroup that hikers and bikers on trails are NOT doing the same thing at all. One is communing with nature and the other is desecrating nature for thrills and spills. It is why bikers need to have their own trails. What bikers are doing is not compatible with what hikers are doing. It is a conflict of both purpose and means.

That is NOT the norm with young males cycling on hiking
trails. The injuries and deaths are out of all proportion to any enjoyment
derived therefrom. It is an extremely dangerous thing to be doing. But there are
plenty of older males and women and children who also suffer injuries while
engaged in this "sport" because they are entirely ignorant of how dangerous it
is.

It's not that dangerous ... 0.00123 is a lot less than driving ... and most people do that quite happily every day.

And, even if you were correct, adults are entitled to risk their own necks.

These so called adults will soon be suing the owners and managers of these public and private lands for providing an unsafe venue for recreation.

I am just waiting for the lawsuits to commence. Someone needs
to be held responsible for this carnage.

You and I live in very different worlds. In mine, an adult is entitled to make their own decisions and then has to live with the consequences. Who do you propose is sued ?

See above sentence. This thread is going to contain many reports about cyclists who have seriously injured themselves doing what you are doing – riding their bikes on trails. I wish them dead for doing what they are doing, but you are far more cruel and callous because you encourage them. I want them to stop; you want them to continue. Who is the real death merchant here?

And, were your proposal to be adopted, think of all the other, more dangerous, sports ... what would happen there ? No more American Football for a start.

The fact is that most cyclists simply have no idea of how dangerous it is to bikes on trails. They buy a particular style of bike, see the trails and assume they are safe to ride. But they are NOT! This is fertile ground for lawsuits. ALL football players know full well the dangers of playing that incredibly stupid game. All the protective gear they wear tells the tale.

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