Can Mountain Bikers and Hikers Share Trails on Federal Lands?

Travel Blog  •  Joanna Kakissis  •  11.04.08 | 12:01 PM ET

imagePhoto by brimelow via Flickr (Creative Commons).

The National Park Service is considering a regulation change that will allow park managers to open some trails to mountain bikers, and it’s stirring up advocates on both sides of the issue. At least one environmental group, Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, says such a change will invite hiker-biker friction and disturb the land. The International Mountain Bicycling Association, on the other hand, supports the change.

The lame duck Mountain Biker-in-Chief, aka President Bush, has also thrown in his support.


Joanna Kakissis's writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Boston Globe and The Washington Post, among other publications. A contributor to the World Hum blog, she's currently a Ted Scripps fellow in environmental journalism at the University of Colorado in Boulder.


12 Comments for Can Mountain Bikers and Hikers Share Trails on Federal Lands?

Mark Eller 11.04.08 | 2:35 PM ET

Mountain bikers, equestrians and hikers already share trails on federal lands. In fact, IMBA has partnership agreements with all of the federal land managing agencies—including the National Park Service—to improve and expand opportunities for shared-use trails. A recently proposed rule change for how mountain biking trails would be adopted for national parks would put more decision-making power in the hands of local park staff, and diminish interference from Washington.

Mike Vandeman 11.05.08 | 12:57 PM ET

I wonder why mountain bikers can’t be honest. We hikers have no problem sharing trails with mountain bikers. We only have a problem with the BIKES. BIKES are inanimate objects, have no rights, and have no business in natural areas. Why, after 6 million years of human evolution, are WALKING and OBSERVING suddenly not satisfying for them??? Why should people wanting to enjoy NATURE risk their safety and allow their enjoyment of NATURE to be stolen from them? Why should we put up with having our plants and animals run over, and their habitat disturbed, by people who are only interested in cheap thrills??? The election was a clear mandate: we don’t want MOUNTAIN BIKERS, and other abusers of the environment, like George Bush, in charge of the country….

Jack likes nature 11.09.08 | 10:29 AM ET

Mike, what’s with the over-the-top rhetoric? I do have to wonder how many mountain bikers you actually know or have talked to about their attitudes to the environment and the nature around them.

Most that I know are quite knowledgeable about how to get through the land without disturbing animals or ruining trails or even upsetting hikers.

Also, you should read up on the quite detailed research that the Environmental Protection Agency has done regarding relative impact of bikes / hikers / equestrians. One take home is that in dry weathers, bikes have the lowest impact of any of these recreational pursuits, in direct contradiction to the ‘information’ put out by some organizations that are against mountain bikers.

Mike Vandeman 11.10.08 | 11:50 AM ET

The scientific research on mountain biking impacts clearly shows that mountain biking impacts are several times as harmful as hiking impacts: http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/scb7. I don’t think that the EPA has done any research on their own on this. If you think so, please provide a citation. The impacts are also quite obvious to anyone who has observed mountain bikers, as I have, or even simply thinks about what a large, heavy, knobby-tired piece of machinery will do to the soil. What mountain bikers SAY is not what’s important, but what they DO, that best demonstrates their attitude toward nature. For them, it’s just a playground for showing off their bike-handling skills. For more information, see: http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/mtbfaq.

Jack travels 11.10.08 | 1:54 PM ET

You’re quoting your own research, not referencing it from a peer reviewed journal? OK. Well.

For those who’re more interested, read this:

http://www.imba.org.uk/uploads/papers/white_et_al_study.pdf

Or this:

http://www.imba.com/resources/science/trail_shock.html

Can’t find that EPA study, but feel free to try and navigate their site.

Mike Vandeman 11.10.08 | 9:13 PM ET

White’s “study” is worthless for comparing mountain biking & hiking. It’s a SURVEY study, not an experimental study. They didn’t even collect any DATA on hiking impacts! See
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/white for the details. IMBA, of course, is totally biased, and hasn’t done ANY research.

Mike Whitehead 01.01.09 | 1:27 PM ET

I am an environmentalist who has hiked and mountain biked and mountain biking is no worse of an impact, as long as the riders stay on the trail and ride responsibly.  Same can be said for hikers.  Mike Vandeman is a little bit stuffy and is citing biased research.  Mike, just because you don’t like bikes doesn’t mean they should not be allowed.  I’m going to go donate some more to the IMBA.  We need to fight this intolerance

Mike Vandeman 01.01.09 | 3:35 PM ET

Mike, I have yet to meet even ONE mountain biker who is willing to tell the truth about their destructive sport. Your post is incorrect from the 4th word on. An environmentalist is someone who cares about wildlife and nature, and hence does not mountain bike. There is absolutely NO unbiased research supporting mountain bikers’ claims. NONE. ZIP. IMBA and its web site are the last place a reasonable person would look for honesty about mountain biking impacts. Do your home work first, as I have, and actually READ the available science. Most mountain bikers don’t, and even those that do, can’t or won’t tell the truth about what it demonstrates.

Mike Whitehead 01.01.09 | 6:38 PM ET

Mike V, I know I may be wasting my time responding, but what the heck.

First of all, you are clearly not in this for the purpose of helping the earth. If you were, you would have become an advocate of something other than hating mountain biking.  It is pretty low on the list of things that are tearing up the earth, many of which you probably do every day (it’s on the list somewhere around the level of hiking, which is below driving and generally being an American consumer).

This leads me to believe that bashing mountain bikers is just your social outlet.  Fine, so be it, although you have to admit, it is a pretty strange past time.  I guess if there were no mountain bikers you be pretty bored.  It’s good for you we are not going away.

Whether you like it or not, the mainstream is in control and your little projects will never take root. The best way to protect nature and the environment is to get more people out there enjoying it.  Sure it does some damage to have people out there on the trails (hikers, bikers, and worse yet ATVers ) but the more people do this type of activity, the more people we will have wanting to preserve wilderness and habitat.  Trails are made for a purpose—to use.  It doesn’t matter if a few trails get whacked, it is the surrounding non-trail area that matters. 

Anyway, I’m sure you will have your arguments, and continue to engage in your weird social outlet.  (but if you like us so much, you maybe ought to give mtn biking a try and interact with us in the normal way).  Enough of this, I’m off for a mountain bike ride.  Woo hoo.

Mike Vandeman 01.02.09 | 2:57 AM ET

Mike, attacking the messenger is invariably the way that mountain bikers try to avoid discussing the impacts of their destructive sport. The fact that it has nothing to do with me is proved by (1) the huge number of other people who also oppose mountain biking, for many of the same reasons, (2) the Wisdom et al study documented at http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/scb7, which found that mountain biking has greater impacts on elk than either hiking ot horseback riding, (3) the fact that mountain bikers have to do a lot of trail maintenance to repair the damage that they do, and the cost of maintaining parks greatly increases when mountain biking is permitted, and (4) mountain bikers, because they travel so fast, don’t really experience what they are passing, quickly get bored with any trail, and then want more and more trails; this destroys a lot of wildlife habitat!

You say “The best way to protect nature and the environment is to get more people out there enjoying it”, but (1) allowing bikes on trails destroys the enjoyment of all other trail users, and (2) the presence of humans is harmful to wildlife; The best way to reduce the human footprint is to ban bikes & other vehicles, because they multiply the distance that someone can travel in a day by up to 10 times or more.

Mike Whitehead 01.02.09 | 2:01 PM ET

Mike, I must warn you that I am a bit selfish and will probably not spend much more valuable time responding to your posts that could otherwise be spent biking.  But to humor you to feed your strange hobby, here goes one more.

I don’t mean to attack the messenger, but you are unique. As google has shown, you have a strange and persistent infatuation with mountain biking, and it is quite evident that it is some type of social (sociopathic) thing for you.  I talk to hikers all the time while biking and they all seem happy to share the trail and are often happy to see someone else.  Believe it or not, there are a lot of pleasant people out there.

If you really wanted to get to the source of the problem, it is the trail itself, not the hikers and bikers.  Building the trail has the most impact on the environment, and thereafter the trail is a channel for water runoff and constant erosion.  But we all still need to enjoy nature and so the trial is good for the reasons I mentioned in the previous post.

You should devote your remaining energy to actually helping this planet.  There are plenty of good causes (take urban sprawl for example).  You don’t want your epitaph to read “angry old dude who angered himself and a bunch of bikers but didn’t accomplish much else”. 

Good luck and happy new year.

Mike Vandeman 01.02.09 | 10:31 PM ET

Mike, you say “You should devote your remaining energy to actually helping this planet”.  It would seem that you should take your own good advice, and stop mountain biking! It’s obvious that you put the practice of your favorite extreme sport above protecting nature. You are fooling no one. By attacking me, you only make people wonder why you are afraid to confront the real issue: the harm that mountain biking does—which is obvious to everyone but mountain bikers.

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