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From: kenf@tekigm.UUCP (Ken Ferschweiler)
Newsgroups: net.bicycle
Subject: Re: Mountain Bikes & The Environment
Message-ID: <218@tekigm.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 30-Sep-84 15:43:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: tekigm.218
Posted: Sun Sep 30 15:43:27 1984
Date-Received: Thu, 4-Oct-84 03:16:03 EDT
Organization: Tektronix, Beaverton OR
Lines: 29

[Waiter, there's a bug in my system...]


  I  object to the use of mountain bikes on hiking trails.  While some
  claim (probably correctly) that a bicycle,  carefully  handled,  has
  less  impact  on  a  trail  than does a hiker, the bicyclist has the
  *potential* for doing much more damage.  I have seen  mountain  bike
  tracks  on  trails  which would not have shown a bootprint.  (I have
  heard this same claim from trail motorcyclists, yet have never  seen
  a  motorcycles-allowed  trail  which  had not been churned into dust
  and/or muck.  You can't assume that people are going to be  gentle).
  I  am  also concerned about trails being shared by travellers moving
  at greatly dissimilar speeds; I have had to move off of a trail  for
  mountain  bike  on  a  downhill  run.   To  be fair, that particular
  cyclist slowed down and was quite polite, seemed to  be  careful  of
  what  he  was doing; still, it was bothersome to have to move.  Will
  the cyclists, having been forced  off  the  roads  by  faster-moving
  cars, now force the slower hikers off the trails?  Lest I be accused
  of  looking  at only one side of the issue, (that of the hiker), let
  me say that I have a mountain  bike,  which  I  use  for  commuting,
  general  transportation, and fun on dirt roads.  They *are* fun, and
  I would love to ride on trails, if I thought it fair to the existing
  denizens of those trails, but I don't, so I won't.  (Just  kick  the
  horses  and  motorcyclists  out  of  the woods and give the mountain
  bikes the trails *they* used to  use...   Whoever  thought  up  this
  "multiple use" idea anyway?) 

					Ken Ferschweiler
					...tektronix!tekigm!kenf