[TrailLover]

The question of potentially allowing bicycles in federally designated Wilderness (they are currently excluded) has popped up before, most recently in a separate string focused on the prospect of bicycles on the Pacific Crest Trail. In an effort to keep that string focused on the PCT, and with a desire to hear what people think about bicycles in the backcountry more generally, I thought I should start a fresh discussion on the topic. My goal is to learn more about people's personal feelings regarding bicycles. I'd like to hear about individual reactions, perceptions and expectations when considering the idea of possibly encountering legal cyclists in some of our most wild places. I'd like to avoid discussions of politics, legal matters, history of the Wilderness Act, the intent of early conservationists, etc. Those things can be discussed separately. Of course, all of those things may inform the personal views, feelings and expectations of individuals, so it's bound to be hard to keep policy issues out of it. But maybe we can try. In fact, for the purpose of this discussion maybe we don't even need to think about Wilderness (meaning federally designated Wilderness) at all. It's really a question of how people feel about encountering bicycles in our most remote places. While there certainly are remote and undeveloped places that are not designated as Wilderness, federally designated Wilderness has become a kind of shorthand for many of the most undeveloped areas. So whether it's federally designated Wilderness or just your favorite remote spot, what would or wouldn't it mean to you and your experience if some of the trail users you encountered were riding (or pushing) bicycles? In some non-Wilderness places, bicycles may already be allowed. How does it effect you when you encounter them? Why? Do your expectations match your actual experience?

[contour5]

[treeswarper]

Being lazy, I can't think of many trails in the wilderness that I'd care to have to work that hard to peddle on. They are steep, they have scary dropoffs, and I'd be walking and pushing my bike. I could see getting a ride up the chairlift to the Goat Rocks and riding the PCT. I guess the north part from White Pass wouldn't be that hard either. Labeling bike riders as "stupid macho" is well, kind of, well, stupid. I have never met a bicycle rider on any of the legal to ride them on trails here. I seldom meet anybody on trails here. So, I have no experience with the subject. I'll bet that the non wilderness bike legal trails here are more wildernessy than the ones near that large population center. You might have some problem with the pumice soils. It would be nice for people with foot and leg problems to have an option besides riding a horse. Stereotypes abound. I have not met up with any rude motorcycle riders either. They've been polite, and I've been polite back. A more worthy cause would be to allow chainsaws in the wilderness for a week of trail clearing. I'd buy a box of earplugs to hand out at the trailheads. That won't happen either.

[HunterConservationist]

I don't really care if bicycles are on trails. Like has already been said, I don't know why they would want to be on most of them. What I would like to see is pushcarts allowed in wilderness areas. They are a traditional technology and removing the monopoly of horses and packers would be nice.

[Alpendave]

[cascadeclimber]

[DigitalJanitor]

FWIW: Ask the same question on mtbr.com and you'll get very different responses. Just sayin'. When I'm queen of the universe.... rude bikers, hateful hikers, hunters that leave their crap strewn out all over the place, and horsemen that blame the universe at large for their lack of beast-training will all be banished to an asteroid somewhere in the outer solar system. The rest of us will coexist just fine together, and we'll finally be done with this discussion. P.S. StupidMacho?!? Nobody sent me the memo, must be Doing It Wrong again....

[DigitalJanitor]

[Randito]

Wilderness or not -- mixing mountain bikers and hikers on the same trails is often messy. I recall it being pretty nasty on Tiger Mountain in the '80s. Certainly much of the conflict was due to a minority of users (either on foot or on wheels) being inconsiderate jerks. With Tiger Mtn what developed was seperate trails on different sides of the mountain for wheeled and booted travelers. On Grand Ridge a new park with Mountain Bike specific trails has been developed -- these trails feature banked turns, jumps and other obstacles that providing a fun and challenging riding environment. Trails with those improvements are designated "biker only" and "one way" so that cyclists can ride full tilt on those trails without having to worry about colliding with a pack of hikers. I feel like this agenda about being able to ride a bike in a designated wilderness is TrailLover being obsessed with the one thing he or she cannot have. The Wilderness Act contains the langauge "Untrammeled by man" -- one of the goals of the act is have a few remaining bits of a wild natural environment left. So along with no bikes to ease access -- this also means no chainsaws for clearing blowdowns and when a flood washes away a bridge over a river the forest service can't just helicopter in a new bridge. Certainly this makes accessing all parts of the wilderness more difficult -- but I think that is actually the intent of the wilderness act.

[TrailLover]

[joker]

It tends to change a place when it is accessible w/in one day from a road versus multiple days (or 2 hours versus 8 hours). I like that there are some places that will remain more remote as a result of the maximum speed of travel for most humans (yes, ultra runners and ultra hikers who mostly run will sometimes appear, but I've not encountered many of them except on some close-in and already-popular hikes like Cougar, Tiger, Si...). It's also cool that there are some places where folks can make deep forays more quickly via bicycle, but I'm glad that there are spots where they can't. I've had bikes pass me on the trail where it's been no big deal (e.g. just this past July on the way to Navaho Pass, with folks coming uphill at a very slow rate) and have had people come by at fairly high rates around blind corners in some more local parks, and I've had them come by at even higher rates of speed in evenings as well as in full-on-dark at night out on the Tolt Pipeline. While I don't begrudge them the access in any of these cases (in fact I've ridden my own mtn bike in the same parks as well as on the Tolt), it is not a pleasant experience. Some of the folks on the Tolt in particular seem clueless about the value of slowing down and giving a bit of a berth to walkers (we do get off the smooth part of the road when we hear them, though sometimes they come up rather quickly on the hills...); even if this is a minority, it makes the encounters with even the more careful and respectful folks a bit more nerve-wracking, particularly on their downhill stretches. Since I'm usually also walking a dog, that adds to the challenge for me. I like that there are places where I can hike where I have next to zero concern about this, even on moderate well-graded trails that I know would be fun for biking too. I'm sure there are people who feel the same about their ability to avoid me and my leashed dog by going into national parks.

[joker]

[HunterConservationist]

un·tram·meled (n-trmld) adj. Not limited or restricted; unrestrained. Kind of a weird word if that's what's in the law. Untrammeled by man would seem to mean not limited by man or not restrained by man. I'm not really sure that chainsaws or bicycles or hand carts or high tech hiking gear "trammels" wilderness. I don't think the idea was to restrain man FROM access to the wilderness either.

[TrailLover]

[joker]

Well, I'm not going to argue. You asked for a touchy feely discussion and asked for people's personal takes. It doesn't seem in the spirit of the OP for you to then pick each reply apart...