Thus far, 2016 has been a controversial year for federal public lands, especially in Oregon where the federal government manages more than 50 percent of the state’s geographic area. First, there was the armed occupation of the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge south of Burns. Then, Malheur County residents overwhelmingly voted against creating a possible National Monument in the Owyhee Canyonlands area in a symbolic, non-binding vote, sending a message that they don’t want more of their county’s lands managed by the federal government.
Now, a group representing mountain bikers—the Sustainable Trails Coalition—wants to change the 1964 Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes into these secluded areas where no motorized or mechanized travel is allowed. According to the organization’s website, “Outdated rules are keeping human-powered travelers from visiting some of America’s best public lands, notably its Wilderness areas and National Scenic Trails.” The definition of human-powered includes mountain bikes.
Erik Fernandez is wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild, a leading statewide conservation organization. He feels that the Sustainable Trails proposal represents only a small group of mountain bikers with an extreme view. “I think a lot of mountain bikers are conservationists and want to work to find the right balance for wilderness protection and mountain bike access.”
Oregon Wild and mountain bike organizations have worked in partnership to find that balance in OW’s National Recreation proposal in the Ochoco National Forest, he says. The proposal creates mountain biking opportunities while protecting new wilderness proposals where bikes would not be allowed. “Going back to try to change the Wilderness Act is not going to bring anyone together,” says Fernandez. It would be a controversial fight that no one would win.”
Wilderness designations are considered the gold standard of conservation protection. Oregon Wild and other conservation groups fear mountain bikes would be destructive to them. “It’s really about balance. Bikes are great in most places, but there are a few places on the landscape where they aren’t appropriate.”
Central Oregon is considered by many to be Oregon’s unofficial capital for mountain biking, boasting hundreds of miles of formal trails on federal lands outside of any wilderness areas. Woody Starr is a well-known mountain biker and the founder and former owner of Cog Wild Mountain Bike Tours, a company in Central Oregon. He believes in human-powered travel including bikes, horses, and hiking, but not motorized travel in wilderness areas. Emphasizing that he speaks as an individual and not on behalf of local mountain bike organizations, he told the Source Weekly, “I don’t think the Sustainable Trails Coalition proposal is fringe at all. They seem to have some pretty reasonable arguments.” When asked if he favors allowing mountain bikes in wilderness areas, Starr says that in some cases there may be merit to the proposal, but he adds, “I don’t think every wilderness trail should be open to mountain bikes.”
Starr also sees merit in the Sustainable Trails proposal that would allow federal management agencies to determine on a case-by-case basis whether certain wilderness trails could be compatible with mountain bikes. Locally, he suggests the Corral Lakes trail in the Three Sisters Wilderness near Cultus Lake could be opened to mountain bikes. He says that the trail has largely returned to nature for lack of use and lack of money to maintain it, suggesting that mountain bikers could open and maintain it for all to use. “With the evolution of technology and the way things are spinning, I think an argument can be made that some trails might benefit from mountain bike use being allowed on them,” he says.
Managing public lands in a way that balances recreational use with the purpose of wilderness designations will require great consideration. For Oregon Wild’s Fernandez, modifying the Wilderness Act is a non-starter. “One of the big concerns with opening up the Wilderness Act to changes is that the current anti-environment Congress would make a host of other changes, likely creating loopholes large enough to drive log trucks through. To think otherwise is politically naïve,” he says.
This article appears in Apr 7-13, 2016.
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Interestingly, this “small group of mountain bikers” has touched a nerve that has resulted in something like $130K in donations to pursue this action. It’s not that small.
“I think a lot of mountain bikers are conservationists and want to work to find the right balance for wilderness protection and mountain bike access.”
Balance is not losing access to trails mountain bikers have ridden and possibly even maintained for years. You can still protect the land without kicking bikes out. I don’t see how that is an “extreme” view.
The Sustainable Trails Coalition doesn’t want to “change” the Wilderness Act, rather, to restore it to its pre-1984 interpretation, which allowed local administrators to determine whether or not to allow bicycle riding on Wilderness trails. Before 1977, bicycles were allowed on all Wilderness trails, and the STC does not propose going back his far. Non-motorized, wheeled vehicles were not originally prohibited in Wilderness, and this is clear in the debates about the Wilderness Act prior to its passage, where even horse-drawn wagons and buggies were to be allowed, trail and terrain permitting. I am old enough to remember legally riding a bicycle in designated Wilderness prior to 1984, and I wish these comments allowed photographs, as I have one of a pre-1984 Wilderness sign, before “hang gliders and bicycles” were added to the prohibitions. “Wilderness” is not the “gold standard” of environmental protection, if the goal is to completely remove human influence. If we want to remove human visitation, then the proper designation is National Wildlife Refuge. The romanticized idea of the human-free”wilderness,” a Euro-American literary invention, the result of genocide on the American continents, is not the same as the WIlderness Act, a piece of legislation that sets aside non-motorized recreation areas for the “use and enjoyment of the American people,” and that these areas are maintained in such a way that future use and enjoyment is not impaired. They have a “wild” appearance, but their purpose is not to exclude people, nor to completely conform to preconceived notions of what “wilderness” ought to look like.
” The Sustainable Trails Coalition doesn’t want to “change” the Wilderness Act, rather, to restore it to its pre-1984 interpretation “
Since Mt. Biking only started in 1980, it was the invention of Mt. Bikes advent of better Mt. Bikes and the actions of the people riding them that that got the change in the first place. The wilderness areas of this country were designated to protect the wilderness not supply you with your personal gym/playground just because you feel entitled to ride your bike where ever you want to.
“Since Mt. Biking only started in 1980…” It can be argued that the “mountain bike” was invented in 1817, when Karl von Drais put a steerable front wheel on a “hobby horse” in order to negotiate the curving trails through the forests he was in charge of. There wasn’t enough food for horses following the “year without summer” in 1816, a result of the explosion of the super-volcano Tambora in Indonesia the previous year. Thus, “mountain biking” predates the Wilderness Act by 147 years. My first “mountain bike” ride down Mount Tamalpias in California was in 1972. I have met people who used to ride balloon-tire paper-boy bikes on the trails of Mount Tam since the 1950s. Wilderness Areas are indeed “personal playgrounds.” At the time the Act was passed, there was concern that Americans were getting “soft” due to too much television, and looking at the wording of the act, “use and enjoyment” is in the first page. Again, “Wilderness” is not the same as “wilderness,” The Wilderness Act does not follow the gospels of Wordsworth, Thoreau, Muir, and Abbey to the letter. If it had, the Act would have never made it through Congress.
The assertion that the original Wilderness Act did not ban bikes is a lie.
PROHIBITION OP CERTAIN USES
(c) Except as specifically provided for in this Act, and subject to
existing private rights, there shall be no commercial enterprise and no
permanent road within any wilderness area designated by this Act
and, except as necessary to meet minimum requirements for the administration
of the area for the purpose of this Act (including measures
required in emergencies involving the health and safety of persons
within the area), there shall be no temporary road, no use of motor
vehicles, motorized equipment or motorboats, no landing of aircraft,
no other form of mechanical transport, and no structure or installation
within any such area.
Tell The Truth don’t pick and choose. Those of you interested in the meaning of mechanical in the Act please read on
http://www.wildernessbicycling.org/bikesbelong/mechanical_transport.html
” Mr White: In the last regulations, you carried it a step further; you tell them how to come in. They cannot come in by jeep, they must come in by horse and buggy.
Mr. Florance: We tell them they must come in by the same means as the general public may come across the nationally owned lands.
Mr.White: We establish then we have horses and buggies all over the wilderness.
Mr. Florance: Horses and buggies are not prohibited.
Mr. White: Just by the terrain and the trails that exist.
Mr. Florance: Horses are used in many of the wilderness areas.
Mr. White: I am talking about the mechanical contraption with wheels that goes behind the horse. The buggy. Or the spring wagon. This is considered–and this is not a mechanical device?
Mr. Florance: No; IT IS NOT A MOTORIZED VEHICLE.
Mr. White: Correct. Well, thank you, Mr. Florance, for your explicit explanation. I have no further questions.”
—Congressional testimony, Wilderness Act hearings, 1964, emphasis added.
“Mechanical transport, as used herein, shall include any contrivance which travels over ground, snow, or water on wheels, tracks, skids, or by flotation and is propelled by a nonliving power source contained or carried on or within the device.” 36 CFR section 293.6(a) (1973), formerly 36 CFR section 251.75 (1966).
Just let the mountain bikers in. They’re good people. Their bikes don’t hurt the environment or trials any more than hikers, and much less damage than horses. Everyone wins.
Mountain bikers will never be allowed into the wilderness, and nor should they. Wheels belong on roads and roadless areas need to increase. Mountain bikers are becoming what cars and urban sprawl is to Los Angeles, an invasive species who spreads out and scares wildlife, squeezing the shrinking natural surroundings without any thought other than their own entertainment. Bikes in the wilderness is a selfish proposition and should never be considered.
The “mountain bike” was not “invented” – not in 1980, not ever. What we commonly refer to a “mountain bike” is simply an evolution of the bicycle, an adaption to terrain and conditions found in the American west. Below is an excerpt, coincidentally published the year before the Wilderness Act, that illustrates that evolution.
“ROUGH STUFF’ CYCLING IN THE U.S.A.
John Finlay Scott
Rough Stuff Fellowship Journal
September 1963
As far as I know I am the only American cyclist with a special interest in rough stuff riding, but conditions here are such that the interest of others can be expected soon. In the last few years the number of serious cyclists here, both youth and adult, has expanded very greatly; and many of these are persons who also have a special interest in this nation’s vast expanse of unsettled country.
The United States, especially in the western states, affords a tremendous contrast between compact and densely populated urban areas adjacent to the great cities and vast reaches of thinly settled and even totally empty country. An hour’s drive from the ten million souls of Los Angeles will gain cycling country more unsettled and empty than anything in the British Isles; and in the course of a recent automobile excursion through the state of Nevada I passed a highway sign – by no means unique – advising the motorist that there was no gas (petrol{) no water, no accommodation, for the next 112 miles. It naturally follows from this sort of variation in population density that large regions have no surfaced roads or no maintained roads at all. This condition is reinforced by the rough and often mountainous terrain; further, many thousands of square miles of this country are reserved in national parks or wilderness areas where access to motor vehicles is intentionally restricted. Then too, much of the American west was first settled in connection with precious metal mining, primarily in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, which led to the quick growth of many mining communities which have since declined. Some of these still harbour a lingering population, living in memories of past glory in silver bullion; others are literally ghost towns, as they are locally called – nothing but empty buildings, constructed to endure the snows of eternity near ore deposits that lasted only half a dozen years. The era of the frontier, which American ‘Westerns’ depict on British television, is long past, but the vast landscape on which they are enacted is quite real and endures to this day. He who would explore it on a bicycle will of necessity often be a rough-stuffer.
Continues here:
http://www.woodfill.com/Personal/BlackJack/Images/RoughStuff.pdf
Bicycles should not be allowed in any natural area. They are inanimate objects and have no rights. There is also no right to mountain bike. That was settled in federal court in 1996: http://mjvande.info/mtb10.htm . It’s dishonest of mountain bikers to say that they don’t have access to trails closed to bikes. They have EXACTLY the same access as everyone else — ON FOOT! Why isn’t that good enough for mountain bikers? They are all capable of walking….
A favorite myth of mountain bikers is that mountain biking is no more harmful to wildlife, people, and the environment than hiking, and that science supports that view. Of course, it’s not true. To settle the matter once and for all, I read all of the research they cited, and wrote a review of the research on mountain biking impacts (see http://mjvande.info/scb7.htm ). I found that of the seven studies they cited, (1) all were written by mountain bikers, and (2) in every case, the authors misinterpreted their own data, in order to come to the conclusion that they favored. They also studiously avoided mentioning another scientific study (Wisdom et al) which did not favor mountain biking, and came to the opposite conclusions.
Those were all experimental studies. Two other studies (by White et al and by Jeff Marion) used a survey design, which is inherently incapable of answering that question (comparing hiking with mountain biking). I only mention them because mountain bikers often cite them, but scientifically, they are worthless.
Mountain biking accelerates erosion, creates V-shaped ruts, kills small animals and plants on and next to the trail, drives wildlife and other trail users out of the area, and, worst of all, teaches kids that the rough treatment of nature is okay (it’s NOT!). What’s good about THAT?
To see exactly what harm mountain biking does to the land, watch this 5-minute video: http://vimeo.com/48784297.
In addition to all of this, it is extremely dangerous: http://mjvande.info/mtb_dangerous.htm .
For more information: http://mjvande.info/mtbfaq.htm .
The common thread among those who want more recreation in our parks is total ignorance about and disinterest in the wildlife whose homes these parks are. Yes, if humans are the only beings that matter, it is simply a conflict among humans (but even then, allowing bikes on trails harms the MAJORITY of park users — hikers and equestrians — who can no longer safely and peacefully enjoy their parks).
The parks aren’t gymnasiums or racetracks or even human playgrounds. They are WILDLIFE HABITAT, which is precisely why they are attractive to humans. Activities such as mountain biking, that destroy habitat, violate the charter of the parks.
Even kayaking and rafting, which give humans access to the entirety of a water body, prevent the wildlife that live there from making full use of their habitat, and should not be allowed. Of course those who think that only humans matter won’t understand what I am talking about — an indication of the sad state of our culture and educational system.