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I’m addressing a sensitive subject. It’s what I call “bike lust,” but it has nothing to do with bicycling in the buff. What the term refers to instead are those luscious, scenic pictorials in outdoor and cycling magazines. These jaw-dropping, mouth-watering photo
essays depict amazing rides in places like Moab, Costa Rica, British Columbia, and Iceland.
Many of these places will never be visited by any of us. They are fat-tire fantasies to
titillate gawking, urban-bound subscribers.
Adventure-Travel Voyeurism
Usually a first-person article will accompany these sensational photo essays. The writer/rider
discusses his single-track experience with passion, anecdotes, emotion, wonder, and awe.
There is two-wheel lust in his or her heart. The reader, on the other hand, is exposed to
these centerfold scenarios with desire best approaching adventure-travel voyeurism.
These rides are usually way off the beaten path. In fact, some of these rides don’t even
take place on trails open to the public.
How do I know? Because I have been there, both as a journalist and as a friend of a
photographer whose two-page photos would often appear in these magazines.
I’d see one of his photos of say, a mountain biker tearing through some redwood forest,
with the sun breaking through this moss-covered paradise, and I would call him up to say,
“Great photo, so where was it taken?”
His usual reply: “I can’t tell you. Bikes aren’t allowed there.”
The Sagebrush Scandal
Back in the mid-80s, I went with another photographer friend on several off-road mountain
biking assignments for a leading bike magazine. Our first story was riding in the Grand
Tetons. I had spent several summers right out of college backpacking all over this Wyoming
wonderland of jagged peaks, wide-open meadows, alpine lakes, and breathtaking vistas. We
had planned on cycling some of these same hiking trails I had once traversed by foot and
pack. Except when we arrived at Jackson Hole, we discovered that the national park service
had specifically prohibited all “mechanically powered vehicles” from the backcountry.
We thus had to find new trails outside the park, fire roads that criss-crossed Bureau of
Land Management districts. While the riding was great and challenging, it was not the same
as say, cycling up one of the glacier-carved canyons of the Tetons.
Before we left the Tetons, I mentioned to my friend that we needed a photo of me riding
with the Tetons in the background. So we took our bikes into our rental 4x4 and headed up
to Togowtee Pass. After a lunch in the nearby lodge, I picked out a roadside vista where I
could be seen riding with the Tetons off in the distance. Picture-postcard perfect. Except
for one small detail. To simulate the off-road wilderness experience, I needed to leave
the road and bike about 50 yards into a meadow littered with chest-high sagebrush.
Ten minutes later, we were back in the car and headed back down to Colter Bay for more
sightseeing.
When the article and photos were later published, the magazine received flack from readers
criticizing the fact that we were encouraging mountain bikers to ride on illegal trails
and desecrate our national parks. They pointed to the photo of me riding through sagebrush
as evidence of our heinous off-road crime.
The Battle Lines Between Hikers and Bikers
Yet, apart from that one ten-minute photo shoot, all week long we had scrupulously obeyed
park regulations about where it was legal to ride.
That article appeared almost 15 years ago, long before the popularity of mountain biking
reached the masses. Biking off-road was still a purist’s sport, and big money and big
races had yet to enter the fray. The majority of bikes sold then were road bikes. And this
was at a time when many hiking trails were still open to mountain bikers. Battle lines had
not yet been established between hikers and bikers.
The sad, historical irony is that while mountain biking began to increase in popularity,
the number of places where it was permitted to ride seemed to decrease. This zero-sum
oddity is most evident in Marin, which is the birthplace of mountain biking. Most
singletrack trails there are now off-limits to bicycles. If a cyclist gets nabbed on one
of these hiking or horse trails by park or water district rangers, the fine is a hefty
$250.
Mountain bikers in Boulder have it even worse; apart from a few legal trails in this
outdoor mecca, most of the good riding requires a lengthy drive outside of town. I know. I
lived there for a year and got accustomed to riding the same Boulder County trails. I was
a hamster on a Klein.
What many Marin riders choose to do is ride at night on these illegal trails. They are
outlaws, biking bandits who refuse to succumb to park restrictions. These riders of the
night require a nocturnal outlet for their passionate and illicit desires. They prefer to
skulk about in the dark.
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