dahut

Hippy chicks are hot. You know you wanted to take her, right there in the mud.

z90

Huh. And here I thought it was a forum to talk about mountain biking. We should contact the mods and get them to change the name, because it's kind of misleading.

larwyn

I think the chip on your shoulder must have fallen from a male of the bovine variety. You are the one complaining about having to share the trails with others.
You are the one complaining about having to follow the rules.
You are the one willing deck a lady for asking you to follow the rules.

And I am far from being a Sierra Club troll, lousy or otherwise. But any fool can see that a man on a mountain bike, in contrast to a hiker or horseman, is wearing a helping of the trail when he leaves the area on a muddy day. It has been a very hot and dry summer for us here but I can walk across my dried out lawn and see no evidence that I have done so, if I ride my bicycle across the lawn the the tire leaves a mark that can be seen quite clearly for several days. It seems like that, rather than pointing out issues that clearly demonstrate that bicycles do more damage than hikers you could find some aspect of the sport to promote that does not challenge the common sense of even the average fool.

I do not want mountain bicycle trails closed, but I do choose hiking trails that exclude bicycles because I can relax, watch the wildlife and stroll at my own pace through the woods. You no more want me standing there in the middle of a narrow trail as you come flying down the hill than I want to step out of your way as you do so. I also hiking as well as bicycling and I know from experience that both work best if not combined on the same trail. When a facility offers both it is just as important for the hikers to stay off the bicycle trails as it is for the bicycles to stay off the hiking trails. When they are combined both the hikers and the bicyclists are required to make compromises which it seems are not popular with either.

The point remains that the OP was riding a bike on trail that was not open to bicycles. The lady asked him not to do so, he was wrong, she was right. So now that you have decided that she is a "singing hippie chick/old bag, high on LSD" and I have become a "lousy Sierra Club troll" in your eyes it is my opinion that you are a master fabricator of far fetched and false descriptions of people you do not know. I'm sure you have a fine opinion of yourself.........................nuff said......

electrik

Wrong, you and the fellow nature-humping hikers are the loudest complainers about anything that doesn't fit with the character of the outdoors as you narrowly define it. Snob.
Sorry but this guy wasn't wearing a wheelbarrow worth of mud, probably not much more than would be stuck to your hiking boots. I've seen a dry lawn and i know that footprints are left, it's just your ****ty observations skills because a straight line is a lot easier to make out than depressed spots.
Elitist.
Thanks for admitting you don't mountain bike and just came here to defend a crazy hippy accosting cyclists.

scyclops

larwyn

Wow that's a very active and angry imagination you have there!!!!!!!!!!!

electrik

You're showing true colours more and more... how long do you want to pretend you're not trolling here?

sunstorm

First, my comment about him getting out there and working on maintenance was that his EXCUSE to be a on a trail that was CLOSED to mountain bikes was that the bridges on the mountain bike trails had been washed out. If my mountain bike breaks down and I'm not willing to fix it, can I just take someone elses? Would you be all right with that, particularly if it is your bike? How about if I decide that lovely, well maintained, hard packed mountain biking trail is perfect for a motorized dirt bike or a quad? Still ok with it? I am a heavy trail user; I bike, run, orienteer, letterbox, and hike on trails. I am also a biologist and spend a lot of time volunteering in restoration and maintenance of nature settings.

I agree, in many places, it is the locally organized groups of hikers, bikers, orienteeers, SAR teams, etc that do the vast majority of the maintenance and improvements in parks, but your assumption is that the woman wasn't part of that, and that the OP, just by being a mountain biker, is contributing. My assumption is the opposite, since the OP shared that the 'hippie' said she had a permit and admitted to being on a closed trail that wasn't generally open to bikers, then griped about being forced onto other trails due to washed out bridges on the mountain bike trails....and that his solution to those bridges was to go gripe to the council in charge of the park to have that fixed (rather than to develop a plan to replace the bridges and take that proposal to the councile.)

Yes, the OP could have decked someone.....so the failure to do a more extreme inappropriate act makes other inappropraite acts acceptable? By that logic, if you violently assault someone it's appropriate as long as you didn't go the extra step and murder them? I agree she probably went over the line, but he was not a model of behavior either (having already decided that rules didn't apply to him.) I never said the OP was criminal, I said he was a complainer rather than a contributer, based on his own comments. I am not aware whether or not there was a gravel path or other preperation to handle the vehicle the woman was in; I know our parks all have access trails for maintenance and emergency crews. I wasn't assuming this place did or didn't have such access. Heck, I didn't even assume that she owned the SUV or truck or whatever auto she had.....around here it's the ranger's that provide vehicles for trail maintenance.

I will say, as a hiker and biker, I adore 90% of the bikers I encounter on the trail. I also know that it only takes that 10% acting like jerks and/or abusing the privelages of access to create an uproar that can close the parks off to the rest of us.

larwyn

We can continue this when you grow up. Hopefully by then you will have developed the ability to distinguish between what you have read and what you have imagined. As for the now, you have just been a waste of my time.

electrik

Haha, good lord. I fail to comprehend your objective reading. You can have no opinion on anything if that is your concept. Good luck.

electrik

What you're trying to say is bicycles are to hikers as dirtbikes are to bicycles? If so you're dead wrong. A bicycle weighs 30lbs and it doesn't turn into a magical trail shedding sulfurous flame spewing demonic machine ready to thrash your rainbow coloured hike. There is plenty of evidence a bicycle isn't going to ruin a trail anymore than hikers. Common sense means the largest factor is weight and width. Lets hope we don't have to ban obese people.
I don't know if he is a contributor, but the fact is the system isn't designed as a club - it's public and voluneteer. Volunteers acting in a reckless manner are going to get themselves kicked out or arrested and thereby are sabotaging themselves.
He sure could have and legally too... simply to push her off him would be fine. The fact he didn't probably has a lot todo with him outnumbered. Coincidentally her comrades didn't seem surprised at her behavior which makes me think they've seen her go ballistic more than once. My point about the gravel is that you've got a person complaining about muddy tires when somebody has laid and paved a roadway large enough to drive their SUV down 50m away. Does that not seem hypocritical? IF this area is so ecologically sensitive then what the hell is a hiking trail doing there let alone a limestone laneway.
Sure, and most hikers are just fine and in touch with reality. There are a good 10% it seems - the real elitist environmentalist zealots - which are embedded in the groups and furthering an agenda which isn't related to the real needs of a park but to their perceived image of it. Typically it's a stifling image.

z90

Electrik, instead of advocating and defending riding on closed trails, how about working with your local mountain bike club to create well maintained trails?
If you think there are trails that are closed to mountain bikes that should be opened, how about advocating for that?

electrik

z90, thanks for your concern about my personal choices regarding how and when I chose to support local trails. It it well know here that anti mountain bike attitudes are entrenched among the leaders in the hiking community. These people have seen the studies and chose not to accept the fact that cycling isn't the Great Satan. These types want the forest all to themselves and would ban other hikers if they could get away with it. You come to realize those most commited, the leaders of such groups, often despise seeing another person or group of person in the wild. Frankly i suspect they are a bunch of misanthropes hiding under an environmentalist umbrella as an attempt to keep their precious away from the hands of others.

cyclops

Hey Ubergeek, is this the guy? He used to get around my town too.

Nightstalker 6

This Needs some of these ........................ in conjunction with the ,,,,,, that were used.

kralizec

and this hippie in all her wisdom goes about getting you to change routes by criticizing you. Not the best method for you to conform to their plans.

I think it would have gone alot better if she had asked nicely to not use any route which they might be working on.