Originally Posted by
DirtRoadRunner
Around here, our trails are volunteer built and volunteer maintained. The USFS does little to nothing to maintain them. Many of our trails travel through sensitive habitat that gets torn up quite a bit just by hikers. I have no idea how your trails are in MT, but mountain bikes are banned from certain trails for a reason. I would imagine that MT has a lot of fragile alpine environments that could be easily damaged by mountain bikes.
I'm a hiker first and a cyclist second. I like riding my bike, but few things bother me more than going on a hike in the woods and nearly getting hit by a MTBer bombing down a trail.
I'm manily a road biker. But when I climb I expect a decent in return. Not unreasonable to expect the same feelings for Mtn. Bikers. That can in effect severly limit the number of trails that it makes sense to be open for biking.