Thoughts on Ned...

[Danno]

Brutah, I thought those last posts added to the discussion, not sure why you deleted them.

I don't want to bad mouth Vogel or anyone else from BMA. I think their intent is to do good, it's just that they define good differently, and/or I disagree with their approach and methods. And reasonable minds can differ here. A good friend of mine (mag who doesn't post much) has a completely different opinion, he loves the trails BMA is building, thinks they're doing great stuff, and thinks NATO is off base.

stapes (and beece and anyone else local, except adrenalated, that guy's a dick ), we should ride up there sometime. Before it gets fucked up more. TBH, the trails I ride are gonna remain mostly unchanged for quite some time. Ride up there one evening a week (usually Wednesday) all summer.

[nest]

The people of Boulder sound like a treat

Boulder is the worst - no irony

[doebedoe]

....
stapes (and beece and anyone else local, except adrenalated, that guy's a dick ), we should ride up there sometime. Before it gets fucked up more. TBH, the trails I ride are gonna remain mostly unchanged for quite some time. Ride up there one evening a week (usually Wednesday) all summer.

I will buy beers if I can join. And never post about it on the interwebs -- fuck my ski buddy who did that this year.

Really appreciate this thread -- read the piece right after it came out but didn't grok it like now.

[Danno]

I will buy beers if I can join. And never post about it on the interwebs -- fuck my ski buddy who did that this year.

Really appreciate this thread -- read the piece right after it came out but didn't grok it like now.

I'll be happy to take you out. I'm slow as fuck on the uphills, but if you like climbing and descending in the woods, we'll have some fun.

[klauss]

It was closer to y2k since I was out that way with a bike but I recall riding walker ranch often and alternating the loop sometimes biking there from town. It was never crowded although I was in school likely going on off hours. I went up to Nederland a few times too but hardly recall the specifics of the trail systems.

At least you have closer access than out in PDX. The bird watchers and hikers out here have a death grip on things and aren’t sharing

[raisingarizona13]

It sounds like this BMBA is doing a good thing if the FS was really going to obliterate those trails. But it also sounds like the BMBA guy could have been a bit more transparent and invited the Ned folks in to the discussions.

[jono]

Sad ring of truth in Danno's and beece's posts. This system where the voice of "citizens" is reduced to those who pay a poll tax to sit at the table and claim to speak for a group they won't listen to is pretty familiar.

Good on anyone who pays the tax of working your ass off to find out when and where, moving your life around and driving out to argue with extremists and is then willing to bring others along instead of claiming the seat and slamming the door behind them. OTOH, the IMBA's of the world deserve a solid beating.

[JerseyDave]

"Self Appointed experts bring change without improvement."
Art Goodrich, DH racer in the 1930s and 40s talking about the dumbing-down of Nosedive at Stowe.

"A scene that grew like mold around a handful of passionate riders and builders that started a decade before I ever got to #Yourtown was “legitimized”. It was also neutered. The landscape changed and the skiddish group of dirt baggers struggling to keep their beat old hand-me-down rigs running diverged. All that remains is a vestige feature or two on the old town trails. Trail builders began building for the masses and attempted to sneak in the odd, hidden feature that offered a tease of what it was once like to go out for a ride in Stowe. Dirt bags on Banshees were replaced with bros in trucker hats on $10,000 carbon bikes riding tame trail as if…

I read once that real Mountain Bikers are like roaches. They live right under our nose but when the light is shined on their home they scatter for darker corners. They are viewed as pests by those who prefer well-lit, squeeky-clean surroundings despite the fact that they were there first. And they will remain after the light goes out, crawling out from under some forgotten pile of shit to spread their filth: Illegal, technical, under-built lines for the dirt bags, by the dirt bags, with scavanged lumber, built on their own time for the love of riding and their own personal progression, Dirty and untainted."
-Unknown


Always be suspect of the Inevitablist.

Edit to QFT..."When you try to get involved, you understand that their agenda has nothing to do with enhancing the user experience and everything to do with increasing their sense of self importance."
-FG

[Foggy_Goggles]

The whole issue is "so Boulder" because it should be about trails on public land, advocacy groups, lack of public comment and disclosure etc. But instead it is about stereotyping people based on where they are from. An asshole is an asshole regardless of there home address.

That said, we all gotta own and recognize the stereotypes that exist. "I'm from Boulder" brings with it this deserved expectation of a closed minded, entitled, smug, wealthy douche...right or wrong. This is generally manifested by a complete lack of awareness and tolerance of behaviors that would be considered unacceptable within the bubble. Think guns, hunting, off leash dogs, death metal, beater cars etc. I find this really odd as Boulder was at some point a hot bed for counter culture.

But back to the issue of sanitation and eradication of MTB trails. It is everywhere, here is Grand County we have a mostly tax payer funded trails organization that supports decommissioning great user built trails and replaces with "flow trails" that could be ridden on a skateboard.

When you try to get involved, you understand that there agenda has nothing to do with enhancing the user experience and everything to do with increasing their sense of self importance.

[Foggy_Goggles]

I like to just hide my rants in random threads, I think TGR is better that way.

There is a trail network 5 mins. from my house on BLM land that I have been riding for over 20 years. To be clear, I'm far from a huge biker but usually get my 20 miles a week in for exercise. These are 100% user built trails by a handful of local dirt bikers. We have zero MTB/dirt bike conflict around here. The way it has always worked is that the dirt bikers burn in the trails and ride them for a few years and then leave them for the MTBers. I have personally cut out hundred of trees in this network.

A few years ago, the BLM decided to "inventory the trails". With some fucking magic wand, these blessed some trails and put them on the local map. The map sucks and the signage is not existent so people are getting lost all the time. All of a sudden these trails are non-motorized. Simultaneous, other trails have been "decommissioned" meaning that the BLM spends money to drop hundred of large trees, often green, across the trails. With all the beetle kill, we don't need any help making pickup sticks.

Literally within the same week, Mrs. "I'm the executive director of the trails alliance and get a pretty fat salary mostly funded by the tax payers with zero accountability and a very closed minded approach" and "BLM office guy" are featured in a spoon fed newspaper story about how awesome they are for "making this network better" and "Mr. Twig Pig LEO with a gun" waits for my by my truck and threatens to arrest me for riding a "non-system trail".

Fuck this whole circle jerk of government, NGOs, drain on tax payer dollars that simultaneously makes the trail network worse for many users and the criminalization of mountain biking. Not every trail needs to be a green trail.

[bagtagley]

I'm rarely surprised by dumb decisions made by the FS and BLM, but the practice of cutting down trees to block trails is shockingly, mind-blowingly stupid.

[fastfred]

the same thing happened in breck
there was a huge area of moto trails and jeep roads that just got created over the years, it was awesome you could get lost so easily and too me that was part of the fun
well it's all cleaned up, closed, rerouted, rebuilt etc

on one hand it totally sucks that it has been cleansed on the other hand it needed to happen
if it was the same small group of people that used these trails 25 years ago who cares
the problem is that group of people has ballooned 10x and it wasn't going to work anymore

the other thing in life I've come to realize is how little people are involved in their community
everyone is oblivious until they actually see something changing, little did they know for years committees and groups of people were meeting, weighing options budgeting and planning
but since people are lazy and rather point the finger after the fact that's the best course of action for most

I"m one of those people who sits bored to tears in meetings for hours on end debating and dealing with the bullshit, we end up making a change and people are all up in arms
I now have a really shitty attitude when people try to call me out on my decisions

you can say the group won't let you in or doesn't value your opinion, blah blah blah, but when you just show up out of the blue and start running your mouth and then disappear of course no one gives a shit what you think

get involved, be there for the long run

i can only imagine the nederland group is pretty disorganized, acts more like a bunch or revolutionaries
unfortunately today you need to get along to go along this isn't colorado circa 1992

[ill-advised strategy]

I liked 1992

[ill-advised strategy]

I like to just hide my rants in random threads, I think TGR is better that way.

There is a trail network 5 mins. from my house on BLM land that I have been riding for over 20 years. To be clear, I'm far from a huge biker but usually get my 20 miles a week in for exercise. These are 100% user built trails by a handful of local dirt bikers. We have zero MTB/dirt bike conflict around here. The way it has always worked is that the dirt bikers burn in the trails and ride them for a few years and then leave them for the MTBers. I have personally cut out hundred of trees in this network.

A few years ago, the BLM decided to "inventory the trails". With some fucking magic wand, these blessed some trails and put them on the local map. The map sucks and the signage is not existent so people are getting lost all the time. All of a sudden these trails are non-motorized. Simultaneous, other trails have been "decommissioned" meaning that the BLM spends money to drop hundred of large trees, often green, across the trails. With all the beetle kill, we don't need any help making pickup sticks.

Literally within the same week, Mrs. "I'm the executive director of the trails alliance and get a pretty fat salary mostly funded by the tax payers with zero accountability and a very closed minded approach" and "BLM office guy" are featured in a spoon fed newspaper story about how awesome they are for "making this network better" and "Mr. Twig Pig LEO with a gun" waits for my by my truck and threatens to arrest me for riding a "non-system trail".

Fuck this whole circle jerk of government, NGOs, drain on tax payer dollars that simultaneously makes the trail network worse for many users and the criminalization of mountain biking. Not every trail needs to be a green trail.

I have to pay to go surf a place that was wonderfully left-alone 25 years ago. The fee pays salary for a person there (who does nothing but check that I paid her fee) and a building for her to exist within.
If I don’t pay, she can presumably call men with guns to hassle me. There is exactly zero difference between what’s gone on there and a protection racket.
It ties my mind in a fucking knot of rage.

[EWG]

BMA absolutely plays to the lowest common denominator. Seems everything they’ve built is 3ft wide buff pump track style ‘flow’ bs under the guise of sustainability. They fucked up Heil too.

Do not get me started on Picture Rock. A horrible trail - all off-arc turns with acute corners where you can't get any flow at all. When I asked about it, I was told it was because they were trying to control speed to minimize rider conflicts. However, due to the way all the turns are built, the acute angle apexes hide the trail, so users come around corners and run into other riders blind. It's not just a style difference, it's a fundamental error in outcome.

I took one of the primary builders of Phil's World on it once. If you don't know it, Phil's is flowy, fast, sometimes technical, super fun, and has great visibility so people don't eat each other. This dude was super pissed within 20 minutes, and I didn't even prompt him about the issues. He started critiquing every corner from a technical standpoint.

And yes, Phil's was built with motos. Nothing wrong with that.

[EWG]

I liked 1992

Some of us were lucky enough to be mtn biking in the 90s and early aughts, when the sport came of age. In any endeavour, that coming of age is a special time. Monarch Crest was 6" wide for huge stretches. Ned trails were unknown. The Edge loop was an epic still. Moab was raw and scary. Hardtails and clipless pedals that didn't let you out.

No one knew yet what bikes could do someday. It was pretty amazing - sky was the limit. We had a dedicated group with a motto Clean It or Bleed, that included some pretty talented, strong, national level riders. We bled a lot. We were pushing the edge of what bikes could do, how fast they could do it - and creative ways to break them. We were very young, very dumb, and constantly stoked. It was magic.

It was just like San Francisco in 1964, or the surfing scene in the 70s, or jazz in 1950 in NYC. I was born too late for all of those, but I was there for the most incredible years of mtn biking. I'm grateful for that.

[EWG]

stapes (and beece and anyone else local, except adrenalated, that guy's a dick ), we should ride up there sometime. Before it gets fucked up more. TBH, the trails I ride are gonna remain mostly unchanged for quite some time. Ride up there one evening a week (usually Wednesday) all summer.

I'll ride up there with you for sure. Just know that if we go to Schoolbus, I'm going to convince you to call it Dave's Girlfriend.

No worries on speed. I'm slow now. About 6 years ago or so, everyone in my group started getting hurt - seriously hurt. Skills had progressed to the point where mistakes had huge downsides, age had progressed to the point where bodies started to break down, and the combination started getting really serious. I very nearly stuffed it on top of the pass above Breck on a weekday with noone else on the trail, 12 miles from the car at Kenosha, at a really, really high rate of speed. With my kids in daycare. It would have been really bad, but somehow I stayed upright with my arms unattached to the bars but my sternum on my stem at around 35-40 mph through a rock garden. Wake up call. The pressure from our "Clean it or Bleed" group had become very high, and the fun started trickling out. Clean it or Bleed became Clean it or go to the Hospital. A nagging injury gave me some time away and I kind of never came back in the same way.

Starting up again over the last couple years, trying to be careful to keep it fun, rather than a job - which it was for many of us. When you feel like you are required to perform at a certain level for gear or money, things change after a while. Keeping it lighter now

We'll find a time when the snow melts.

Edit: appreciate the space to reminisce over the last couple of posts. Cheaper than therapy. Sorry for the thread drift.

[Dantheman]

If you don't know it, Phil's is flowy, fast, sometimes technical, super fun, and has great visibility so people don't eat each other.

And, critically, all trails at Phil's are one-way.

[Danno]

I'm no trail builder so can't really critique Picture Rock corner angles and such, but it's super annoying that everything BMA builds is supposed to prevent you from going fast. I am no expert, but I ride bikes to go fast, dammit. It's in a beautiful spot, though; it's a pretty place to ride.

But I have only ridden that trail a couple of times in the last 5 years, because I got PTSD after riding it one popular time of day, where I could only pedal about 50 feet before having to stop for an oncoming rider/hiker, all damn ride. That, of course, has nothing to do with BMA and is part of why they wanted to discourage speed. Anyway, that is a large part of why I ride West Mag so much, the lack of people. I ride mt bikes in part to be in nature, and that feeling is diminished when there's people all over the place. And it's part of why I -- and the Ned locals -- are so afraid of this process, we're afraid that the place will be overrun. Yeah, yeah, I know, the inexorable "progress" of society.

Heh, I'll try to remember to call it Dave's Girlfriend. We have some of our own names for trails up there (we named them before discovering the locals name), the one that many people call Braille we call Sweet, and the one that I think is called Angry Hiker (off of Roots/Rocks and Lost Meadow) we call the Carwash. And there's a trail that basically drops in to that we call Upper Carwash (we used to call it Joe's because Joe found it but decided Upper Carwash made more sense).

I'll try to remember to organize a TGR West Mag ride up there this summer. I love that place so much, it keeps me sane, and I love sharing it.

[Danno]

And, critically, all trails at Phil's are one-way.

yeah, that is critical. We lack that, not a single directional trail in Boulder County (at least none that I am aware of).

[adrenalated]

stapes (and beece and anyone else local, except adrenalated, that guy's a dick ), we should ride up there sometime. Before it gets fucked up more. TBH, the trails I ride are gonna remain mostly unchanged for quite some time. Ride up there one evening a week (usually Wednesday) all summer.

Hopefully will make one of the Wednesday night rides with ya this year.

Do not get me started on Picture Rock. A horrible trail - all off-arc turns with acute corners where you can't get any flow at all. When I asked about it, I was told it was because they were trying to control speed to minimize rider conflicts. However, due to the way all the turns are built, the acute angle apexes hide the trail, so users come around corners and run into other riders blind. It's not just a style difference, it's a fundamental error in outcome.

This style of trail building pisses me off. I get the idea behind controlling speed on multi-use trails, but doing it at the expense of line of sight is stupid. Fast with good sightlines is safer than slow and blind.

[adrenalated]

Anyway, that is a large part of why I ride West Mag so much, the lack of people.... I love sharing it.

[Danno]

Ha, I laughed as I wrote that. But sharing a sweet spot with people doesn't really lead to it getting overrun with people. It's sharing it on the interwebz that does. Or putting up signage that makes it easier to navigate.

And truthfully, you've ridden there, you know that I could lead someone around and they'd never be able to find those places again if they came back without me. Unless they were willing to get lost.

[skaredshtles]

Ha, I laughed as I wrote that. But sharing a sweet spot with people doesn't really lead to it getting overrun with people. It's sharing it on the interwebz that does. Or putting up signage that makes it easier to navigate.

This is a slippery slope, from my experience. You gotta really *know* your audience or be prepared to face the shitstorm.

For trails on Trailforks/MTB Project it's probably irrelevant... those cats are out of the bag already.

[Danno]

This is a slippery slope, from my experience. You gotta really *know* your audience or be prepared to face the shitstorm.

For trails on Trailforks/MTB Project it's probably irrelevant... those cats are out of the bag already.

what's a slippery slope? Taking people out on the trails? Or posting it on the interwebz?