Posted by: Brocklanders
Good points Syncro,
Just to put things in perspective go to the birthplace of Mtb in Marin County. They have the MTB museum which is great, and the worst trail system I have ever rode ( have family there). They had access yanked away years back because things never got sorted with the land managers, so that was the end of that. Kinda like what is going on here, NSMBA is sitting on the fence, to scared to lose sponsor money. I emailed them voicing my concerns and got a generic email back... Pretty weak
We have to look at the long term, the Ebikes will get faster and faster doing upwards of 30km up climbing multi use trails shared by hikers, things will not turn out in our favor. This city is growing by the day, the bridges are jammed on sunny weekends with hikers coming to the shore. Here will be the litmus test on how it all plays out.
I'm going to hazzard a guess and say that a large part of mtb access issues in Cali come down to the heavy influence environmental groups have down there. I don't think that the NSMBA is sitting back due to being afraid of losing sposor money, but I think the lack of public discussion is troubling.
Long term ebikes may get faster, but whether they can be sold here comes down to provincial regs which currently sit at a max of 32 km/hr. The bike co's will be able to up that but it won't serve them at all if they can't sell them here. Of course the regs do nothing to take into account people modding their bikes.
Someone mentioned earlier about getting buzzed by a pedelec - that shouldn't be happening and is an example of poor trail etiquette. Question is, how can that be stopped? Is there a potential teaching moment to not get out of the way and let that rider know these are the rules for passing? It's not a race out there, we all have equal access to the trails.
I'd posit the question of what if you're grunting up a climb and you hear another rider coming up behind you who calls track and waits to pass till you acknowledge them or give them room. Do you feel any different if it's a pedal bike or a pedelec? What if the person behind you doesn't call track and barges by? Same thing, do you feel any different if they are on a pedal bike or a pedelec. If things go awry I don't see mtb access around here being threatened, but I do think it will take a long time to bring back a sense of etiquette to the trails. How the community on the trails funcitons is the responsibility of every person out there, whether they're on foot or bike or satan's spawn ;)
