Ski Bowl Halts Biking Operations

[raisingarizona13]

Northwest Trail Alliance

In affluent, bike crazy cities, like Portland and Seattle, the limiting factor isn't money or labor to build the trails, it is convincing the land agencies to allow the trails to be built. Hence all the illegal trails in the PNW forests.

Ski Bowl claiming that Oregon's liability laws prevent them from operating a bike park would be a perfect opportunity to convince the Forest Service to allow trail maintenance and construction on Ski Bowl's leased land (which does not grant Ski Bowl exclusive use, meaning they have to share it with non-paying members of the public). All the typical reasons the Forest Service resists bike trail construction (environmental preservation) is thrown out the window when Ski Bowl has turned the place into an amusement park in the summer.

If your local community/city has that much wealthy people interested in trail development and appropriately organized you can probably get the local land manager to play ball unless they are notoriously that No No No sort of land manager more interested in a pension than any sort of workload.

[raisingarizona13]

Can't blame the guy even if that is the first instinct. Why? Because if you are suddenly facing the rest of your life as a paraplegic and you have an opportunity to make that life less miserable and broke, you are gonna take it even if the morality is slightly dubious from a 3rd party observer's POV, which is all we are.

I'd blame the system.

You're aren't wrong. I can't say I wouldn't. Having someone clean your diapers costs money.

[PNWbrit]

Can't blame the guy even if that is the first instinct. Why? Because if you are suddenly facing the rest of your life as a paraplegic and you have an opportunity to make that life less miserable and broke, you are gonna take it even if the morality is slightly dubious from a 3rd party observer's POV, which is all we are.

I'd blame the system.

He probably had no choice but to sue.

Subrogation.

Probably none of us would have either. Read the small print of your insurance.

[XXX-er]

If nothing else, I bet any bike park with 4 x 4 wood signposts will be replacing them with the floppy ones stat. Probably not a bad thing, even though I don't agree with this verdict. You get on a bike to careen down a mountain, you take full responsibility for that decision, come what may.

I can't google a sign post that wouldn't hurt you if you hit it cuz they are all big big chunks for wood so I will get a picture of something that is safer to hit

[stuckathuntermtn]

Ya know, it's not that hard to have a breakaway signpost. Use pvc and cut it most of the way through. There, that took me 2 seconds of thought. It's cheap, and you don't have to worry about it rotting.
Idk how I feel about this 1 way or another, but if you are the one putting up a 2x4 in a bike park, maybe think about the possible consequences of the likely event of people smashing into it. It sucks that we live in such a litigious society, but they do make road signs and other things that break away when hit.
In fact, while typing this, I just had a funny memory: my hand bumped a reflector thing while riding and I jumped off the bike thinking my handlebars were gonna get spun. I wasn't going very fast. Turns out, the thing was plastic and just flopped over. Because when you put things on trails, you should consider people running into it. Just look at all the SLOW signs in the middle of ski trails. They are made of ski poles and fabric and they are bright orange.

I couldn't comment on what their actual financial situation is, but it seems a bit of an "if I can't have this, nobody can" situation.
If that had been a fallen log, I would probably have a different opinion, but that is an unnatural object they put there, people hurt themselves on it, and they kept it there.
Does liability insurance have some kind of claus where they don't have to pay out on that for some reason? That would sure make continuing to run the bike park difficult, but if they covered it, than it's just a fuck you to give it up.

[Peruvian]

He probably had no choice but to sue.

Subrogation.

Probably none of us would have either. Read the small print of your insurance.

In my experience that’s not how it works. The health insurer may have a right of reimbursement if their policyholder pursues a tort action to include medical damages as part of the recovery, but they insurer doesn’t generally force the policyholder to sue.

Also a $11+ million verdict doesn’t mean that the Ski Bowl was found 100% at fault as the jury may have reduced an even higher award by some amount to represent the plaintiffs own contributory negligence. Without the actual verdict we just don’t know.

[XXX-er]

I bent a post forward and stepped on it to take the picture, so as you can see if a biker hits one of these sign posts at our local area they just spring back up

on close examination there is some kind of weave in the plastic like maybe an FG cloth or SFT ?

You can put as many stickers as you want on them and they were easily instaled with a post pounder by a pregnant woman albeit a very fit woman

[tellybele]

^^^^carsonite

[toast2266]

I bent a post forward and stepped on it to take the picture, so as you can see if a biker hits one of these sign posts at our local area they just spring back up

on close examination there is some kind of weave in the plastic like maybe an FG cloth or SFT ?

You can put as many stickers as you want on them and they were easily instaled with a post pounder by a pregnant woman albeit a very fit woman

Those things are great for intersections where people are going slow or are stopping and just need a sign to point them in the right direction. They're fairly useless for bigger signs that are meant to be viewed at speed.

[XXX-er]

What more do you need, so how fast are you going if don't know where your are going ?

its 4 " and so if sky bowl had these instead of 4x4 wooden posts they wouldn't be halting bike operations and someone wouldn't be injured

edit: singlesline had a pict of the same post which I didnt see but In view of what has happened at skibowl I think you are gona see these posts everywhere

[toast2266]

What more do you need, so how fast are you going if don't know where your are going ?

its 4 " and so if sky bowl had these instead of 4x4 wooden posts they wouldn't be halting bike operations and someone wouldn't be injured

edit: singlesline had a pict of the same post which I didnt see but In view of what has happened at skibowl I think you are gona see these posts everywhere

Those posts are already everywhere. They're not a new thing. They've been around for decades.

But they're not big enough to display any large map, and they're not large enough for caution / trail crossing signs (which is what the skibowl sign was). Those signs work fine if you're looking at them stationary from 8 feet away. But they're fairly useless for conveying cautionary information to a rider going 20mph.

Pretty much every bike park I've ever been to (and most other organized trail systems too) uses those posts for small directional signs and larger wood posts for bigger signs. I don't see that changing.

[altasnob]

they're not large enough for caution / trail crossing signs (which is what the skibowl sign was).

Do you know what the sign was displaying that the guy crashed into? I don't. The area of the crash was where a hiking trail was crossing the biking trail. But I am not sure if the sign in question was to tell bikers to not go on the hiking trail, or to tell hikers not to go on the biking trail. In any event, I don't understand why this sign needed to be at the exact point of the intersection and not down, or up, the hiking trail a ways so it would be out of play for the biker. Or if it was to keep hikers off the biker trail it also could have been out of play and still gotten the message across. A hiker trail (or uphill biking trail) crossing a high speed part of a double diamond DH bike trail is the most dangerous kind of intersection possible.

[John_B]

A hiker trail (or uphill biking trail) crossing a high speed part of a double diamond DH bike trail is the most dangerous kind of intersection possible.

I've always visualized the most dangerous kind of intersection possible as where a high speed part of a double diamond DH bike trail crosses a bullfighting arena. Or the pool that has sharks with fricken laser beams on their heads.

[toast2266]

Do you know what the sign was displaying that the guy crashed into? I don't. The area of the crash was where a hiking trail was crossing the biking trail. But I am not sure if the sign in question was to tell bikers to not go on the hiking trail, or to tell hikers not to go on the biking trail. In any event, I don't understand why this sign needed to be at the exact point of the intersection and not down, or up, the hiking trail a ways so it would be out of play for the biker. Or if it was to keep hikers off the biker trail it also could have been out of play and still gotten the message across. A hiker trail (or uphill biking trail) crossing a high speed part of a double diamond DH bike trail is the most dangerous kind of intersection possible.

My understanding is that it was some sort of cautionary sign dealing with the trail crossing. After the accident (but before the lawsuit), they replaced it with a big banner type thing strung up in the trees above the trail.

[singlesline]

The sign in question was "Hikers Only, No Bikes"


The banner that was added after the accident was "SLOW"

[TBS]

^^^To once again reiterate the obvious, you have to work really hard to hit that sign when buzzing down that fire road.

[altasnob]

I read there was a funky berm/culvert affectionately dubbed "the widow maker" that is alleged to be the reason the guy crashed.

If Ski Bowl put up that slow sign roped between trees/poles before the crash, there would have been no lawsuit. Tragic that the guy crashed into a "no bikes" sign that easily could have been placed 20 feet up and down the hiker trail and accomplished the sign's goal.

[TBS]

Look at the fucking photos and show me the location of this “widowmaker”
All I see is a smooth fire road and a sign 4’ off the road

[altasnob]

We're not going to be able to deduce the facts of the case by looking at a go pro screen shot. In the Oregonian article, the plaintiff's attorney is talking about the funky ditch. And there is a comment on this article where some guy named Doug Duguay refers to the ditch as the "widow maker." But it wasn't the ditch that is the crux of the case, it was the sign. I doubt the jury comes to the same conclusion if the guy hits ditch and crashed into the ground or tree (or maybe the judge wouldn't even allow the case go to the jury if the sign wasn't an issue).

[One (+) Sentence]

Those things are great for intersections where people are going slow or are stopping and just need a sign to point them in the right direction. They're fairly useless for bigger signs that are meant to be viewed at speed.

Personally I’m not blowing through trail intersections at speed on trails I’m unfamiliar with, especially if I’m the least bit concerned about getting lost.

What does a bigger sign that’s designed to be viewed at speed look like? Genuine question.

Edit: I will concede the context of being in a “Bike Park” changes things a bit.

[toast2266]

Personally I’m not blowing through trail intersections at speed on trails I’m unfamiliar with, especially if I’m the least bit concerned about getting lost.

What does a bigger sign that’s designed to be viewed at speed look like? Genuine question.

Edit: I will concede the context of being in a “Bike Park” changes things a bit.

I mean, caution signs aren't really ever geared towards the cautious user. They're for the oblivious idiot that's going too fast.

On our local trails, intersections and road crossings have signs with a triangle with an exclamation point (somewhat similar to a yield sign), and "caution" in big letters. They're maybe 12x16", or thereabouts.

[TBS]

We're not going to be able to deduce the facts of the case by looking at a go pro screen shot. In the Oregonian article, the plaintiff's attorney is talking about the funky ditch. And there is a comment on this article where some guy named Doug Duguay refers to the ditch as the "widow maker." But it wasn't the ditch that is the crux of the case, it was the sign. I doubt the jury comes to the same conclusion if the guy hits ditch and crashed into the ground or tree (or maybe the judge wouldn't even allow the case go to the jury if the sign wasn't an issue).

Yeah, sure, let’s not rely on a photo - let’s rely on an article from Willamette Week(*) and a comment in that piece from some random! I mean, think about 99.9999% of SumJongGuy‘s posts and apply that!

Here’s a POV of the trail. Mr Owens was injured at about 2:30 on the vid.


You will notice several places where there is a line for air and “Teh TBS Line”(tires don’t leave the dirt). I see some water bars but no widowmaker ditch the WW article’s random commenter references. And the trail is wide and smooth at the scene of destruction.

And this is the first allegation of negligence in the 30yrs Ski Bowl has had Mtn Biking.

I feel for Mr Owens, and hope he can get back out there on a handcycle.

The big problem here is the lack of universal health care in the USA. Without it people have to sue someone with a deep pocket when they experience life-altering injuries.


(*) Willamette Week is the weekly gossip and entertainment newspaper in PDX.

[LeeLau]

FYI I emailed plaintiff's counsel to ask if there were written reasons and didn't get a reply

[TBS]

Here’s what the trail junction markers look like at our local trail system. USFS provides the posts



We get a lot of complements from tourons about how well our trails are marked and how easy it is to navigate.

Guess now we will have to tear all of them out.

[XXX-er]

Whistler claims this bs about their trail signs which are basicly just wooden posts

"The signs were designed to include sustainable and natural materials like wood and naturally-finished metals to fit appropriately into the environment while still providing necessary information."

IMO you wana use them springy signs that won't break anyone's leg