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So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 22nd 11, 03:23 PM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
SMS
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Posts: 9,477
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

On 2/20/2011 1:31 PM, VtSkier wrote:

I'm sorry Ed, but I've been reading this newsgroup
for quite some time. If Mr. V would keep his "crusade
against mountain biking on hiking trails" to just that
I, and many of us would have no quarrel at all with him.


The alleged incident did not take place on a hiking trail, it took place
on a fire road that is signed for no bicycles. There's a big difference
actually. A lot of private land owners that permit public access put up
such signs for liability protection. Without such signs, someone gets
hurt and can claim that the landowner did not warn people about the
condition of the roads.

What irks us is that his crusade is really against
all mountain bikes and people who ride them. You,
except for your unreasoning admiration for Mr. V
seem to be fairly reasonable on this subject.


Vandeman's goal of protecting wilderness has merit. But he's so
_incredibly_ confused about the relative impacts of different activities
on wilderness. Every study on the subject has shown that the impact of
mountain bikers is not any more than the impact of hikers, and less than
that of equestrians, and actually the mountain bike impact is often less
than that of hikers. Vandeman should be redirecting his time and energy
into campaigning against snowmobiles and other motorized off-road vehicles.

The reality is that hikers often make trails unpleasant for use by
mountain bikers and vice-versa. They have to learn to share somehow.
Scheduling some days for each group of users would be fair. It's not a
question of who was there first.
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  #2  
Old February 22nd 11, 03:58 PM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Moderate
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Posts: 8
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?


"SMS" wrote in message
...

Vandeman's goal of protecting wilderness has merit. But he's so
_incredibly_ confused about the relative impacts of different activities
on wilderness. Every study on the subject has shown that the impact of
mountain bikers is not any more than the impact of hikers, and less than
that of equestrians, and actually the mountain bike impact is often less
than that of hikers. Vandeman should be redirecting his time and energy
into campaigning against snowmobiles and other motorized off-road
vehicles.

The reality is that hikers often make trails unpleasant for use by
mountain bikers and vice-versa. They have to learn to share somehow.
Scheduling some days for each group of users would be fair. It's not a
question of who was there first.


I agree that Vandeman's actions may hurt the cause more than help.

Where did your find studies of mountain bike impact on the environment? My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.


  #3  
Old February 22nd 11, 07:53 PM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Brad Anders
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Posts: 759
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

FYI, if you're wondering where the beginning of Vandeman's obsession
with MTB's came from, it was due to a single encounter with MTB riders
on a trail Vandeman was hiking on in the early 1990's. Combined with
his failure to generate any interest in his anti-automobile positions,
and his generally obsessive nature on any environmental topic, he
latched on to this as an "early adopter" against MTB's. He's not
interested in the impacts of equestrians or off-road vehicles, because
in those areas, he doesn't seem himself as a pioneer and a leader,
because many others were ahead of him.

BTW, one of the things that I had to laugh about when I saw Peter's
blog about his defense opening statement is how the attorney
emphasized his employment with Pac Bell for 20+ years as an example of
what a stable citizen he is. Every time we confronted Vandeman with
the fact that his employer destroyed miles of habitat and killed
thousands of trees (telephone poles) and caused far more damage in
California than all MTB'ers combined, he would dodge the issue by
saying "You don't know where I work!". Well, Mike, now that it's
public record, I guess it's time for you to answer those questions we
posed so long ago.

I'm not holding my breath.
  #4  
Old February 23rd 11, 12:56 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Edward Dolan
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Posts: 14,212
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

"SMS" wrote in message
...
[...]
The reality is that hikers often make trails unpleasant for use by
mountain bikers and vice-versa. They have to learn to share somehow.
Scheduling some days for each group of users would be fair. It's not a
question of who was there first.


Mountain bikers need their own trails. They ruin hiking trails as Mr.
Vandeman has well stated.

Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota


  #5  
Old February 23rd 11, 01:42 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Edward Dolan
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Posts: 14,212
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

"Brad Anders" wrote in message
...
FYI, if you're wondering where the beginning of Vandeman's obsession
with MTB's came from, it was due to a single encounter with MTB riders
on a trail Vandeman was hiking on in the early 1990's. Combined with
his failure to generate any interest in his anti-automobile positions,
and his generally obsessive nature on any environmental topic, he
latched on to this as an "early adopter" against MTB's. He's not
interested in the impacts of equestrians or off-road vehicles, because
in those areas, he doesn't seem himself as a pioneer and a leader,
because many others were ahead of him.


The hell you say! How do we know you are not lying?

BTW, one of the things that I had to laugh about when I saw Peter's
blog about his defense opening statement is how the attorney
emphasized his employment with Pac Bell for 20+ years as an example of
what a stable citizen he is. Every time we confronted Vandeman with
the fact that his employer destroyed miles of habitat and killed
thousands of trees (telephone poles) and caused far more damage in
California than all MTB'ers combined, he would dodge the issue by
saying "You don't know where I work!". Well, Mike, now that it's
public record, I guess it's time for you to answer those questions we
posed so long ago.


The hell you say! How do we know you are not lying?

I'm not holding my breath.


Go ahead and choke to death. Just one less mountain biker in the world.

****ing Regards,

Ed Dolan the Great - Minnesota
aka
Saint Edward the Great - Order of the Perpetual Sorrows - Minnesota


  #6  
Old February 24th 11, 03:02 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Brad Anders
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Posts: 759
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

On Feb 22, 5:42*pm, "Edward Dolan" wrote:

Go ahead and choke to death. Just one less mountain biker in the world.


Here long before you and here long after you're gone, which given your
penchant for picking the losing side of any issue, shouldn't be too
far away. Kisses.
  #7  
Old February 24th 11, 04:01 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Bob Berger[_2_]
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Posts: 182
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

In article , Moderate says...


"SMS" wrote in message
.. .

Vandeman's goal of protecting wilderness has merit. But he's so
_incredibly_ confused about the relative impacts of different activities
on wilderness. Every study on the subject has shown that the impact of
mountain bikers is not any more than the impact of hikers, and less than
that of equestrians, and actually the mountain bike impact is often less
than that of hikers. Vandeman should be redirecting his time and energy
into campaigning against snowmobiles and other motorized off-road
vehicles.

The reality is that hikers often make trails unpleasant for use by
mountain bikers and vice-versa. They have to learn to share somehow.
Scheduling some days for each group of users would be fair. It's not a
question of who was there first.


I agree that Vandeman's actions may hurt the cause more than help.

Where did your find studies of mountain bike impact on the environment? My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.


That may be a misleading statistic.

Now, I have no idea if this is true or not; but suppose cyclists did only 30% of
the maintenance while hikers did 70%, and that cyclists constituted 15% of the
trail's users, while hikers constituted 85%.

If so, that would mean the average cyclist did 2% of the maintenance, while the
average hiker did about 1.2% of the maintenace. In other words, the average
cyclist would be doing almost twice as much maintenance as the average hiker.

Or, playing the game from the other side, maybe cyclists as a group do less
trail damage than hikers because there are less of them.

Ya gotta be careful to present the complete statistical picture. :-)

  #8  
Old February 25th 11, 10:24 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
Peter Clinch
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Posts: 4,852
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

On 22/02/11 14:58, Moderate wrote:

Where did your find studies of mountain bike impact on the environment? My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.


I've not seen formal studies, but in Scotland I've seen plenty of
walking-only trails that have degenerated to meandering quagmires that
blot the landscape and have necessitated remedial action (e.g., the
Schiehallion path and Glen Brittle to Coire Laggan).

I've not been on any trail that has obviously been ruined by wheels.

I see evidence of volunteer trail maintenance from across the board.

Pete.
--
Peter Clinch Medical Physics IT Officer
Tel 44 1382 660111 ext. 33637 Univ. of Dundee, Ninewells Hospital
Fax 44 1382 640177 Dundee DD1 9SY Scotland UK
net http://www.dundee.ac.uk/~pjclinch/
  #9  
Old February 25th 11, 02:53 PM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
(PeteCresswell)
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Posts: 2,790
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

Per Moderate:
My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.


That's got to be a regional thing. Soil type, cycling/hiking
populations....
--
PeteCresswell
  #10  
Old February 26th 11, 12:25 AM posted to rec.backcountry,alt.mountain-bike,rec.bicycles.soc
y_p_w
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Posts: 102
Default So, what happened to Mikey "Handsaw" V?

On Feb 25, 5:53*am, "(PeteCresswell)" wrote:
Per Moderate:

My
observation is that bicycles cause more erosion than foot traffic and the
number of cyclists doing trail maintenance is far less than the number of
hikers doing trail maintenance.


That's got to be a regional thing. * Soil type, cycling/hiking
populations....


Quite a few people do both. I think it might be difficult to figure
out exactly what the proportions are. I haven't gone mountain biking
in years, but the sense I get are that quite a few mountain biking
organizations are active in trail maintenance activities. They might
not be doing so with mountain bikes in tow, so how does one know?

The mountain bike trails I know of in my area are mostly hard-packed
fire and maintenance roads. Their maintenance was mostly by the local
land agency. I remember hiking on one trail that was difficult enough
on foot, but would have been crazy on a bike. It was signed for multi-
use including bikes. The whole trail had been turned into a moonscape
by dairy cattle grazing in the area and stepping on the trail after
rains.
 




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