so maybe bush isn't all bad... :-)
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/washington/AP-Bush-Mountain-Biking.html
I am all for this.. I find that while there is the element that destroy trails and do hurt ecosystems, the majority are very good people who respect the woods.
Good results but for the wrong reasons. He wanted some places to ride his mountain bike when he was retired and couldn't give two E36 M3s about the ramifications (which in this case, luckily, are basically none).
I really like the fact that its up to the park managers discretion. I believe the park managers should best be able to decide if a park is able to handle the damage (small) of mountain bikers on trails.
It might even create some jobs for those building trails!
I agree. It really should be up to the park superintendents to decide if a bike trail is feasible in their park. It really isn't something that's going to create s ton of jobs, but it does give more folks the opportunity to blow off some steam in a relatively non-destructive manner.
Back to reality, folks. The final decision for things like this does NOT lie with the land manager (the head park or forest ranger), although he or she can speed the decision. There are usually several agencies, both state and federal, involved and all it takes is a 'no' from just one to really screw things up, like a big project I was involved in that was shot down by US Fish and Wildlife with bogus numbers. Or for one NGO (non gov't organization) to mess it up for the rest of the possible recreational users. BTDT.
It wasn't too long ago in a multi use trail document I saw that a hiking organization said they would not support the area in question being open to: motorcycles (too loud), hunters (too much chance of someone getting shot), equestrian use (road apples and trail damage), or mountain bikes (too quiet).
Sounds great to me, only took him 7.9 years to do something I agree with. As long as the trails are built and maintained to IMBA standards then there should be no impact to the environment.
...still funny, equestrians do far more damage to trails... their lobbies are just far bigger then the MTBers... in most areas the MTBers are also predominantly the ones who maintain and building new trails...
glad to see we've got something like this... there really aren't enough trails around... i have to drive over an HR to get to a real trail...
i'm heading to GA this weekend to get some riding in... first trail ride on my karate monkey grin
Not true. All trails will have some impact to the environment in some form, as will any sort of human activity in forests.
A 5 year long western US Forest Service study which wrapped up in the mid '90's and that used to be posted on the Aldo Leopold Institute Web site http://leopold.wilderness.net/ found that the most enviromentally unfriendly management techniques were associated with hunting. Next on the list, 'clearcut' logging (as opposed to 'thinning' operations). Then came the 'super easy' type of hiking trails (like the 4 foot wide wide asphalt and ROC beginner type trails). Then, in order, OHV dirt trails (which included mountain bike trails), snowmobile trails and and the lowest impact was the 'wilderness' type of hiking trails, since those involved no construction of any type.
The funny thing was the 'super easy' hiking trails contributed more to erosion than OHV/mountain bike trails, yet the OHV/MTB trails were perceived by management personnel to be more damaging due to mudholes which actually have a negligible environmental impact even though they are visually unpleasant.
A 2001 study performed by botanist Richard Reader of the University of Guelph (Canada) noted that "We've found that hikers have the same effect as bikers do, regardless of the number of trips along the path. In reality, both are equally damaging to the environment, but there is increased trail wear because twice the number of people are now using the trails." (Impacts of Experimentally Applied Mountain Biking and Hiking on Vegetation and Soil of a Deciduous Forest - Eden Thurston and Richard Reader). A trail impact study from the Aldo Leopold Wilderness Research Institute comparing hiking impacts to horses and llamas noted: "Horse traffic resulted in statistically significant higher sediment yields (the primary indicator of trail deterioration) than either hiker or llama traffic. The low level (250 passes) horse treatment caused more impact than the high level (1000 passes) llama treatments, suggesting that horses can cause at least four times as much impact to trails under the conditions simulated in this experiment. In addition, under dry trail conditions horse traffic caused significant reductions in soil bulk density (a measure of how compacted the soil is) compared to llama and hiker traffic. Horse traffic also caused significant increases in soil roughness compared with the other 2 users. This suggests that the greater impacts of horses on trails is a result of soil loosening of trail surfaces that are otherwise compacted, thereby increasing the detachability of soil particles and increasing sediment yield and erosion." (Llamas, Horses, and Hikers: Do They Cause Different Amounts of Impact? - Thomas Deluca (University of Montana) and David Cole (USFS - Wilderness Research Institute) 1998 study)
http://www.americantrails.org/resources/ManageMaintain/WKeenImpacts.html
donalson, it's funny that you mention who actually works to maintain the trail systems. The Palmetto Trail goes from Bulls' Bay to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Oconee County here in SC. Dirt bikers like me were not allowed to use this trail system, yet we were contacted by the fellow who put the whole thing together and asked if we would take over the maintenance of a 75 mile section (bush hogging, mostly). There was $ involved for my dirt bike club, so we took a vote and went with it. At the end of one year, my group had racked up some 300 hours of trail maintenance time. The next biggest group? A seniors' group out of Awendaw somewhere, 50 hours.
Then after all that I attended a Forest Service meeting concerning the Francis Marion and Sumter NF 10 year management plans and several members of a hikers' group did as well. They all voted against a proposed 20 mile extension of the 40 mile Wambaw Cycle Trail and also against a 7 mile connector loop for two Upstate trail systems. They had generated a letter writing campaign against the additions as well, they brought several of the letters to display and seemed quite proud of themselves for stopping those nasty dirt bikers. They also had generated opposition to a proposed mountain bike trail in the FMNF which we dirt bikers had not only supported but offered the loan of our equipment for construction and maintenance.
But the hikers wanted to continue with the Palmetto Trail management. So I stood up (for I am stupid) and asked them who was doing the PT maintenance in the Lowcountry. I got blank looks and shrugs.
Imagine their surprise when they found out who was keeping it passable for them. Um, no more maintenance after that little display of arrogance.
They already have MTB trails in the parks in Floriday.
Yeah, Florida seems to be a little more open to that kind of stuff. I've ridden dirt bikes in the Apalachicola and Ocala forests and also at the Croom OHV area. I've also been to Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Colorado to ride, had a ball and felt like the management types were glad to have me there.
Then I come back here to SC and see just how backwards DNR, State Parks and the Sc arm of the Forest Service are and it just pisses me off. 
Jensen,
Your dirt bike riders association should have advertised and announced your trail work when you started. Even asked for signs showing who was doing the maintenance.
If you were the only person at those meetings, than your group was not well represented.
I think mountain bikers and hikers are normally the same people, and therefore normally have a larger representation.
We were noted as the maintenance crew in official documents. The actual signage is a vague catchall, and that's the way the FS etc want it. The signage reads something like 'this trail maintained through federal and state grants'.
I wasn't the only person there, sorry I gave that impression. Quite a few of my fellow club members were there as well. I was the trail maintenance coordinator, grants coordinator and FS liason and took the lead, as was my job with that organization. I finally got sick of all the crap from DNR and other agencies and resigned the post.
At least down here, MTB and hiking people are separate (for the most part). The hikers do NOT like mountain bikes; for instance not much of the Palmetto Trail is open for mountain bikes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palmetto_Trail The complaint is that mountain bikes are too fast and too quiet.
I have seen many times that the hiker contingent requests that things be done their way but at least 98% of them want the Forest Service or other gov't agency to do the heavy lifting. Heck, at the last National Trails Day booth I put together (with club members' valuable assisstance) we had probably 10 people there, the hikers had like 3 and their 'booth' was staffed by a couple of FS personnel. Yet they get the most trail mileage. 
It's all in knowing how to manipulate the political system.
EDIT: I found links to the trail study I mentioned earlier. it was conducted by John Wilson and Joseph Seney and was concluded in 1994. That study concluded that hiking and horses caused the most damage to trails. Of course there was an outcry.
Hikers don't like mountain bikers period.. CAuse they are afraid of getting bowled over by some punk 15 year old kid(same as with dirt bikes)..
"Real" hikers don't like anyone. When I was younger I would help my dad with his scout troop. We would go hikeing and the "Real" hikers would let us know how unwelcome we were because only an avid hiker could truly appreciate the beauty of the outdoors and everyone knows noisy kids ruin mountains.
Wally wrote: "Real" hikers don't like anyone. When I was younger I would help my dad with his scout troop. We would go hikeing and the "Real" hikers would let us know how unwelcome we were because only an avid hiker could truly appreciate the beauty of the outdoors and everyone knows noisy kids ruin mountains.
yeah.. I got a friend who looks down on my wife and I for car camping and not bushwacking up a mountain the hard way...
Everybody likes nobody else! Public land use always involves a lot of politics and some hurt feelings. Its funny, my parents have always been the outdoorsy camping hiking type, but now that the county is trying to open a park that will border their property they want nothing to do with it and are fighting it every step of the way because they are worried about crime. I would like to think I am more liberal when it comes to these types of confrontations but we all have to fight that ever present ego telling us ME ME ME ME ME ME!
Yes hikers and bikers absolutely do not get along, look up the documentary "singletrack minds" the idea of a multi-use is a utopian fantasy unfortunately.
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