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I pay my taxes. I never park in a handicapped space. I always return the pen back to
its little holder at the bank. I’m even polite to telemarketers who call during
dinner. But I ride my mountain bike on trails where bikes are banned. And I’ll
keep doing it even at the risk of runners and hikers cursing at me (which has
happened) or getting a $100 ticket from a park ranger (which has happened to friends
but not to me—yet).
Perfectly Legal for Now
You see, there’s this great single-track trail in a 10,000-acre park near my home.
You turn off the busy main road, cross some railroad tracks, cross a wooden bridge
spanning the creek, and pedal up this perfectly legal dirt road through the redwoods
on a climb that takes about half an hour. At the top, you can stop at a lookout with
views of wooded hills tumbling down to the fog-shrouded ocean. A log lies in the dirt,
its flat flank worn shiny by the behinds of thousands of people who’ve paused
here to catch their breath, smoke a joint, or just loll in nature’s decompression
chamber.
What you’re supposed to do next is turn around and ride back down the dirt road. Most
people do. It’s a fun, easy descent that I’ve ridden many times. It takes perhaps
10 minutes. What you’re not supposed to do is go on a little farther and turn left
at the broken log onto this single track called...well, maybe I shouldn’t say what
it’s called.
Illicit Trail
This single track descends back to where the ride starts, but it’s a completely
different experience. Barely wider than your handlebar, the trail swoops and snakes
through the woods like a forest roller coaster. The wild ride lasts about 45
minutes. You’re jumping logs, hopscotching rocks, squeezing between trees, dancing
over roots, and whoop-de-dooing through dips. It takes skill, strength, quick
reflexes, and nerve. I can’t do it without hooting and hollering. When I don’t ride
it for awhile, I get grumpy.
I may be a scofflaw, but I have my own rules for this trail. I never ride it on weekends,
when the park gets most of its visitors. On weekdays, I’ve seen a total of maybe 10
hikers or runners over the years. Most folks stay down low, on the dirt road. I
never do the trail during mud season, when it’s most vulnerable to damage. And I
never ride out of control.
I know all that doesn’t change the fact that I’m riding illegally. I also understand
that I’m breaking the first rule of responsible mountain biking: Ride only on open
trails. And I realize that what I’m doing runs counter to the mission of an
organization I admire, IMBA (the International Mountain Bicycling Association;
http://www.imba.com). IMBA’s members help keep trails open to mountain bikers through the
hard, thankless work of sitting on committees, attending land-use meetings, writing
letters to politicians, orchestrating petitions. Without them, mountain biking would
be sunk.
Battling Special Interests
But I still ride that trail. I ride it because I don’t think it’s fair that some
government agency decided to ban mountain bikes from public land without consulting
the public.
It’s not fair that a trail so difficult and remote that it’s infrequently used by
walkers and runners should be off-limits to mountain bikers, possibly the park’s
largest user group. It’s not fair that runners and walkers have full access to every
trail in the park, while mountain bikers are essentially limited to one dirt road.
It’s not fair that entrenched, politically connected hiking and equestrian groups,
who think their way of experiencing the outdoors is the only legitimate one, are often
the driving force behind mountain-bike bans. It’s not fair that all mountain bikers
must suffer for the actions of a few morons-on-wheels who damage trails or endanger
other users when education and cooperation—not automatic trail closure—is the
answer. It’s not fair that mountain bikers haven’t gotten enough credit for
becoming responsible members of the trail community, by doing volunteer trail work, working
to preserve open space for all users, and establishing safety patrols.
So I’ll keep riding my trail.
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