Encountered Environmental Hippie Types today
 

Went for a morning ride today with a friend at a local park that has designated multiple use single track as well as dedicated hiker and horse trails. It rained yesterday So the trails were wet, but not muddy. Occasionally there were low spots that were mud, and our bikes picked up some mud as a result. I didn't think anything of it until...

We came around a corner and I could see a truck parked in the distance with some people standing outside of it. At first it looked like some off roading mis adventure going on. They saw us coming and a lady came walking down to the trail towards us, flagging us down. We stopped, I figured she was going to ask us for help or something.

It became obvious really quick that this chick was a crazy hippy type. She had on some white linen pants , a t-shirt with bare feet and had a crazy look in her eye. She started talking to me, but instead of talking she was kind of like singing...

"Look at your tires!". "poor mother earth". "Why are you out here?". "Look at your tires!". "the trail is muddy!" "poor mother earth!" Just stuff like that over and over and she was, like I said, singing.

The trail WAS wet, but we weren't making ruts or visibly damaging it by riding.

I said to her:"look at your truck. How did YOU get here?"

She sang back to me about how they had driven on the crushed limestone MUP near there and drove down into this clearing so they could clear the trail of a couple fallen trees from a storm the week before. She also informed me, via song that they had a permit, and that WE were riding on a trail marked for hikers only, no bikes. Then it was more "poor mother earth! Look at your tires!", etc.

Anyway I was getting really creeped out. The two guys she was with were just going about their business and putting on packs and getting chainsaws out of the truck.

She was now blocking the single track and as I tried to go around her to GTFO and continue where I was going, she put her hands on my handlebars! She told me "NO!" and to go through the clearing to the MUP.

After another brief verbal exchange, I wasnt interested in getting stabbed, I just said "whatever" and we rode to the MUP. Then got back on the trail a little further down.

Anyway, this crazy hippy chick really got into my kitchen. The whole thing really ****ed with my head and basically ruined the rest of my ride.

I live in the midwest, I didn't think people like this lived in my area! Anyone else have similar run ins with people like this? It's still really bothering me for some reason.

there are crazy people all over, i'm surprised something like this hasn't happened to you yet. look at it this way: you got a pretty cool story out of it. thank god/the gods/the universe you aren't like that and let it go.

I used to think that mountain bikes tore up the hiking trails.....then i started mountain biking myself.. :)

What a moonbat! I'm sorry that happened to you. That would have really bugged me too. Good for you for being the bigger person as I might have been tempted to engage in a spirited discussion (although the dudes with the power equipment may have been encouragement enough to move along).

smh... I actually think the heavy foot traffic caused by her and her clan clearing the trail did more to damage the trail than a mountain biker does...

She sounds strange, but was she right about the trail not being open to bikes?

Cool...

Sounds made up to me.

I heard that Mother Earth thinks the Knobbies of a good bike is like a good scratching on your back after a day of working in the yard. She likes a back scratch. That hippie chick was cheating Mom Planet of a back scratch.

If her Hippie mates were toting chainsaws, they were probably harvesting something just off the trail and didn't want you watching. Us 70's hippie are now capitalists. Good smoke costs big bucks ya know, peace, love, far out, radical and groovy people, lets all just get along!

You were lucky, I lived in NM and rode trails in Northwest NM and SW Colorado when there were some battles over where indian burial grounds started and stopped. Those trying to extend the "Agreed Upon Lines" would booby trap the trails. Barbed wire stretched out 12" above the trail, Boulders buried in sand with 1/4 of sand on top, sharpened jacks left on the trails kinda stuff. Had some interesting hikes out. Some of those peace loving people can be pretty violent.

Just be nice and offer them some moonshine and a pinch of white powder and it'll all be cool . . .

Not a problem at our local parks; if it rains enough for mud to exist (even in low spots) the trails are closed...with a chain/gate and giant sign across the entry points, and signs on the park entrances. We learned that the hard way when we showed up the day after a rain shower.

Should have asked her what she had smoked and where you could get some. Of course the question would have to be in the form of a limerick, perhaps that is why you failed to communicate.

Yeah we were guilty of that. On the bike only trails, several bridges that Span a large stream have washed out. Since the hiker and biker trails intersect, and share the bridges a lot of bike traffic ends up on the hiker trails, which lead to MUP, which lead to more bike trails. The loss of the bridges has turned the bike trails into dead ends.
She didn't seem to think it was wrong for them to drive on MUP, which I thought was funny.


True story.

On the return trip we retraced our route (avoiding the spot where crazy lady was. We could hear them using their chainsaws!) and there was no trail damage anywhere. You couldn't even see tire tracks. All the mud we picked up was from one short stretch of low ground that was wet all the time.

I really had no problem with what she was saying, she can say and think whatever she wants, just the whole approach, the way she talked and the physical blocking of the trail kind of threw me.

Don't let the mountain bike trail builders catch you riding wet trails around here. Riding wet trails destroys to top, hard packed surface, and it causes ruts which hold water and cause erosion. That hippy chick should have whipped up on your a$$ for tearing up the trails.

So you were on a trail that was closed to bikes, on a muddy day, and a women called you on it. You turned around and slagged her on an internet forum for being a hippie.

She says she was doing trail maintenance and had a permit to be on the MUP, but you rag on her for that, too.

Is that an accurate summary?

Are you saying she isn't a hippy?

Readin' comprehensions, u failed.

Why didn't you ask her about clomping around in the mud and tearing up mother-earth with her boots?

Also, her grabbing your property or person is not acceptable(you must be young i'm guessing) and i'm glad you kept your cool. Maybe worth to report it since we know vandemann types often have had other small incidents and are prone to escalate.

Can we revisit the reading comprehension remark? Those low spots are characteristic of trail damage caused by riding while wet.
If the trail was wet and you had mud on your bike there is a good chance that trail damage was happening. The OP probably didn't know enough to recognize it.
Mud on your tires? Another indication of damage.
Your turn.

Look, there are unavoidably ALWAYS low and marshy spots on any trail... such as what he described when talking about "the mud was from a section that was always a bog".

Why you trying to skewer the guy? If he rode the trail and there wasn't any damage beyond the already existing mud pit section why are you so upset.

Further, if he was trashing the trail then this woman was trashing the trail, so she is a hypocrite too. Don't doubt that hiking in mud damages a trail.

Ha. Yeah like I said the trail conditions weren't even worth of a second thought. They were very typical. There were other bikes out this particular morning. At one point on the trail we met up with a fellow riding a specialized road bike with 700x23's, taking nature pics with an SLR. He was riding. There was no trail damage from us or him riding.

This is a city park and the trails are maintained by the city. I'll stop into a city council meeting and see if I can get those low spots taken care of. while I'm there I'll tell them that because their bridges are washed out I have to ride on hiker trail for a mile to connect back up with the bike trail. I'll ask if they'll change it to a multi user section of trail. When I go ride there this Saturday, I'll dismount my bike, throw it over my shoulder and run this section of trail, cyclocross style. It'll be good training.

The woman that I refer to as a "hippy" was barefoot on the trail. Her feet weren't muddy. She knew the trail wasn't muddy. I wasn't muddy. My tires had mud on them.

She got there by driving a ford ranger 4x4. She was parked no more than 10 feet off the trail she claimed was being damaged by a bike.

The point was, here was a crazy lady who communicates to others by singing instead of talking, and was willing to throw herself in front of bikes and possibly get into a physical confrontation...I'm reasonably sure I could have kicked her ass, but it's hard to tell once chainsaws are involved. I just wanted to ride.

Anyone else meet up with people like this singing crazy woman?

There's this one guy in Downtown that walks leaned over backwards, at like 30 degrees. All the time.

Really interesting to watch.

Then, there's another woman who is always screaming at herself. Our local alt rag ran a piece on her once, actually.

Yes... the strangest was uh "father nature" who was busy picking bulrushes and blowing them apart into the wind in ceremonial fashion... all sorts of new age stuff was going down with his getup. He projected an air of somebody who might waft their own farts in public. Though he didn't speak in song like the forest nymphs of yore, he did speak in a strange and deliberate fashion to make sure we didn't leave any garbage behind. :lol:

He was a lot more harmless than your hippy though.

That can actually be from pathology. Some people lean backward when they have a problem with their glute max.