shipwreck

How much time have you spent volunteering on trail maintainance? Have you ever built or designed a trail? Professional trail builders I know would not agree with you.

The existing trail systems were not designed for the kind of abuse that mountainbikes can do. Bikers will find cuts, alternate switchbacks, and rut out that fun mud hole. properly designed and planned trails take this into consideration, and bikers still find ways to create problems. Working on trails I have seen bikers do more damage than horses on certain surfaces, slopes, ridges, and wallows.
For every one considerate and concientious mountainbiker out there, there are four of you.

shipwreck

This. No doubt the meany officials who choose to shut down a trail to certain or all users have a better understanding of the impact those users have been having up to that point.

I love caving, but when almost all caves were blocked off because of the effects on bat populations I and almost everyone else respected that. The few who don't are widely recognized as pieces of bat Sh-tt.

DirtRoadRunner

Article I found, describing the area the OP is talking about:

https://www.bozemandailychronicle.com...cc4c002e0.html

I have a little more sympathy now. I can't help but wonder if the MTBs were banned because of actual overuse and damage to trails, or for political reasons (e.g. hiker-only types wanting a new wilderness are and banning MTBs is the first step to that). Without actually hiking the Gallatin National Forest, and the banned trails of interest, it is impossible for me to know.

howsteepisit

I lived in Bozeman for the last 10 years, and there is a strong movement to designate more of the Gallatin National Forest as wilderness area. There is still huge amounts of area to ride in that will not be closed, there is room for all. The OP has demonstrated that he is not concerned with law and regulation, or the elements of the social contract that helps to make a functional social structure. He is not concerned with the impacts to wildlife nor the fragile high altitude flora in that area, he just wants to have fun. Hope they nail his butt, and really I hope that he strays into the designated wilderness so that the penalties are severe enough to give him reason to pause.

Flame away.

GrouchoWretch

I'm leaning more towards your side on this one. I don't see why you'd get flamed. But I hope Angio sees some sense in what we've said, not so much that he'll get nailed.

Angio Graham

The truth comes out.

Its not about the environment. Its not about the flowers or the trout or the bighorn sheep.

Its about the federal government having control over everything people do.

You are a freedom robber.

Stay tuned for my future threads this summer because I will post videos and pictures of me riding on your holy land.

Bikepacker67

I ♥ Canada. It's like America, if it were smarter and saner.
Been here seven years. You ain't ever getting rid of me.

GrouchoWretch

Haha. Well. So much for hope. Behold the tragedy of the commons in process.

howsteepisit

post deleted, its not worth it.

GrouchoWretch

This is Angio.

gcottay

The OP's attitude reflects a completely understandable phase in human development often observed beginning at about age two years and recurring every so often until full adulthood.

Leebo

Many studies have shown that mt biking and hiking have similar trail impacts. That said, don't poach. Here in the Boston.MA area, my mt bike group (NEMBA) has great relationships with local land managers. This partnership has led to trail improvement projects, new multi use trails and new access to areas once off limits to mt bikers. Responsible trail use and trail stewardship goes a long way. YRMV. The actual ban on mt biking in wilderness areas has to do with faulty language. It bans mechanized transport, so you can ride a horse but not a horse and wagon. This wilderness ban was drafted before mt bikes were around.

noisebeam

incorrect x2

CB HI

How so?

CB HI

"Congress passed and President Lyndon Johnson signed the Wilderness Act on September 3, 1964"

"Marin County is the birthplace of the mountain bike, which had its origins in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Steve Potts, who was already building bike frames in Mill Valley in 1980, teamed up with Mark Slate to help meet demand. Charlie Cunningham, in Fairfax, had been building mountain bikes since 1979 with heat-treated aluminum frames which had unique Type II forks, roller-cam brakes, custom-made hubs and other components that were among the first of their kind designed specifically for mountain bikes."

"The Wilderness Act was reinterpreted by the Administration in 1986 to ban bicycles from Wilderness areas, which led to the current vocal opposition from mountain bikers to the opening of new Wilderness areas."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilderness_Trail_Bikes

Leebo

Uhh, 1964 came before 1979.

cderalow

but the reinterpretation in 1986 definitely occurred after 1979.

CB HI

Yes, to twist the original meaning of the law in such a way to outlaw bicycles. Which is what Leebo stated with noting the faulty wording as it was applied to bicycles.

Chicago Al 

The reinterpretation in 1986 must have been by those tree-hugging, sandal-wearing, owl-worshipping environmental extremists in the Reagan Administration.

CB HI

Actually true. Too bad Reagon did not fire all the career environmental nut job bureaucrats within the forest service and BLM, the way he fired air traffic controllers.

rydabent

The problem as I see it is that all these trail bans were instituted by the bike hating granola and rudabaga crowd.