North Shore Trail Riding Etiquette and Behavior in a Global Pandemic

Posted by: PaulB

I'd prefer to think they're just being proactive before a weekend which will have the best weather of the year so far, during which lots of people will be looking to get out of their hot homes.  

Let's be real - no one is getting the virus by mountain biking near each other. There's like 30 new cases per day in the entire province. If someone wants to park on Coleman and ride Fromme for 90 mins and ride by 15 other riders over the course of their ride... who is this hurting? Totally bizarre that they are currently putting up additional no parking signs right now.

It's not about preventing people from getting the virus while biking/hiking/running, or to deter anyone from doing those activities. If anything, the number of people on the trails is way above average, especially midweek.

The intent was to prevent groups of people gathering at the usual trailheads and to reduce potential transmission due to close proximity. In the week or two before parking was restricted, there were plenty of examples that people weren't capable of acting responsibly on their own, so they shut them down. A secondary objective was to discourage non-locals from driving across the city to get on the trails, but I'm not sure that has happened.

The ripple effect is the vehicles that would usually be parked at the trailheads are now spread through the surrounding neighbourhoods, and the residents are getting unhappy, thus the expanding signage.

Posted by: PaulB

The ripple effect is the vehicles that would usually be parked at the trailheads are now spread through the surrounding neighbourhoods, and the residents are getting unhappy, thus the expanding signage.

Oh the pain and agony of having a car that belongs to someone else parked in front of your lawn for 2 hours while they ride their mountain bike.... how will the homeowners ever overcome this grief.

The trails aren’t owned by the select few that are fortunate enough to live near them, and neither are the public roads that they live on. 

If you choose to live directly beside world class mountain bike trails don’t get mad when others come to use them. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

Posted by: Bull_Dozer

Posted by: PaulB

The ripple effect is the vehicles that would usually be parked at the trailheads are now spread through the surrounding neighbourhoods, and the residents are getting unhappy, thus the expanding signage.

Oh the pain and agony of having a car that belongs to someone else parked in front of your lawn for 2 hours while they ride their mountain bike.... how will the homeowners ever overcome this grief.

The trails aren’t owned by the select few that are fortunate enough to live near them, and neither are the public roads that they live on. 

If you choose to live directly beside world class mountain bike trails don’t get mad when others come to use them. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

When riders are acting like assholes and exhibiting obnoxious behaviour like changing in the street, leaving gear strewn everywhere, leaving no parking for residents or their visitors, etc etc it's pretty easy to sympathize with residents, some of whom have been living there since before riding became a thing. If this was just one or two cars there wouldn't be much of a fuss, but I can see how it would be frustrating when your neighbourhood gets taken over by a fleet of mtb carrying vehicles. 

The irony in all of this is people needing to park as close to the trailhead as possible for their climb up the mountain because they're too lazy to pedal an extra 10-15 min by parking further away.

The irony in all of this is people needing to park as close to the trailhead as possible for their climb up the mountain because they're too lazy to pedal an extra 10-15 min by parking further away.

Personally, I despise the climb up Mountain Highway...it's too bloody dangerous as there are parked cars on both sides of the road and there is a lot of fast moving traffic including buses. Factor in the bike wobbling around due to the steepness of the grade...yuk. And I certainly wouldn't want to be taking my dog up there with me.

And I say this as a veteran roadie who commutes by bike year around. That stretch of road is just about my least favorite in the whole of the lower mainland. So I can sympathize with riders wanting to use alternatives, especially if they've got kids in tow.

I generally park on Coleman and go in to Fromme via Mountain View Park so I've only got a short, quiet section of road to deal with the dog...

^^^

There’s other options besides Mtn Hwy

Posted by: Bull_Dozer

Oh the pain and agony of having a car that belongs to someone else parked in front of your lawn for 2 hours while they ride their mountain bike.... how will the homeowners ever overcome this grief.

The trails aren’t owned by the select few that are fortunate enough to live near them, and neither are the public roads that they live on. 

If you choose to live directly beside world class mountain bike trails don’t get mad when others come to use them. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

As a resident to nearby trails and an avid rider myself, let me break it down.

If everyone is respectful, park responsibly (i.e. not in front of driveways, into intersections or literally on someones lawn) and not litter...its all good. The problem is that parking restrictions and increased usage have resulted in the frequency of the above issues to increase massively. Those frustrated residents have every right to be annoyed.

I applaud everyone that can be responsible in their trail usage and associated parking. But to those being ass-hats - you are quickly ruining it for everyone else.

Posted by: Taz123

Posted by: Bull_Dozer

Oh the pain and agony of having a car that belongs to someone else parked in front of your lawn for 2 hours while they ride their mountain bike.... how will the homeowners ever overcome this grief.

The trails aren’t owned by the select few that are fortunate enough to live near them, and neither are the public roads that they live on. 

If you choose to live directly beside world class mountain bike trails don’t get mad when others come to use them. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

As a resident to nearby trails and an avid rider myself, let me break it down.

If everyone is respectful, park responsibly (i.e. not in front of driveways, into intersections or literally on someones lawn) and not litter...its all good. The problem is that parking restrictions and increased usage have resulted in the frequency of the above issues to increase massively. Those frustrated residents have every right to be annoyed.

I applaud everyone that can be responsible in their trail usage and associated parking. But to those being ass-hats - you are quickly ruining it for everyone else.

Seems simple

Posted by: Taz123

As a resident to nearby trails and an avid rider myself, let me break it down.

If everyone is respectful, park responsibly (i.e. not in front of driveways, into intersections or literally on someones lawn) and not litter...its all good. The problem is that parking restrictions and increased usage have resulted in the frequency of the above issues to increase massively. Those frustrated residents have every right to be annoyed.

I applaud everyone that can be responsible in their trail usage and associated parking. But to those being ass-hats - you are quickly ruining it for everyone else.

Do a significant % of mountain bikers fall into the jackass category? That's an honest question as you would see a lot more of them than I would by living right near the trails. And is it mostly younger riders that fall into that category or is it across all age groups? I would have thought the jackass % was pretty low but perhaps I'm wrong. I mountain bike roughly once a week and rarely seen bad behavior from riders... it's mostly just middle aged athletic guys looking to get some exercise.

I do think that the residents who live right near the trails need to accept general rider traffic as part of the deal for getting to live right there. I live downtown near the seawall and it's not like I get to complain about the people on there, or about drunk people yelling at 3am - that's just part of living downtown.

Everyone's been cooped up in their houses for almost 2 months now and are just trying to find some safe ways to get some exercise, and mountain biking and hiking are perfect ways to do that. It seems like (the DNV?) is going out of their way to make riding a huge pain in the ass for mountain bikers just to maintain the nice perfect calm little world for the homeowners. I think we all have to make some concessions to our normal lives during this time.

This all just seems very NIMBY to me.

Fromme sucks big time anytime over the weekend. I just tend to ride there (if I do) out of hours.

For me the whole covid restrictions regarding outside use is simply stupid. It's just forcing people into tighter areas.

Posted by: Bull_Dozer

Posted by: Taz123

As a resident to nearby trails and an avid rider myself, let me break it down.

If everyone is respectful, park responsibly (i.e. not in front of driveways, into intersections or literally on someones lawn) and not litter...its all good. The problem is that parking restrictions and increased usage have resulted in the frequency of the above issues to increase massively. Those frustrated residents have every right to be annoyed.

I applaud everyone that can be responsible in their trail usage and associated parking. But to those being ass-hats - you are quickly ruining it for everyone else.

Do a significant % of mountain bikers fall into the jackass category? That's an honest question as you would see a lot more of them than I would by living right near the trails. And is it mostly younger riders that fall into that category or is it across all age groups? I would have thought the jackass % was pretty low but perhaps I'm wrong. I mountain bike roughly once a week and rarely seen bad behavior from riders... it's mostly just middle aged athletic guys looking to get some exercise.

I do think that the residents who live right near the trails need to accept general rider traffic as part of the deal for getting to live right there. I live downtown near the seawall and it's not like I get to complain about the people on there, or about drunk people yelling at 3am - that's just part of living downtown.

Everyone's been cooped up in their houses for almost 2 months now and are just trying to find some safe ways to get some exercise, and mountain biking and hiking are perfect ways to do that. It seems like (the DNV?) is going out of their way to make riding a huge pain in the ass for mountain bikers just to maintain the nice perfect calm little world for the homeowners. I think we all have to make some concessions to our normal lives during this time.

This all just seems very NIMBY to me.

He’s given you plenty of examples of poor behavior already and you’re choosing to ignore them and only see this as NIMBYism  

Don’t be an asshat and you’ll be fine. It’s really that simple. The proportion of asshats or whatever doesn’t matter - if they’re there and they’re causing a problem the residents are likely to do something.

My interpretation of the restrictions is a sort of x+1. We needed to prevent mass gatherings to help prevent the rapid spread. If people are told to do x, some will always push it a bit, x+1. The speed limit is 80, people drive 90 tp 100. Limit group activities to 5, people gather in two groups of ten. Stay two metres away, no one is watching we can chest bump and ride closely. 

Bull Dozer, it is always a small percentage of people that are the problem. And mountain bikers were a problem. Loud music post ride, changing clothes in public, peeing on lawns, garbage, parking badly. It does not take too many assholes to give all mountain bikers a bad name. Or old people hiking and clogging trails, or trail runners that refuse to run on one side of the trail when they meet other trail users, or those guys from Surrey that dump dead bodies in the woods and come to Whistler every May long weekend to get in fights.

I live near the Fromme parking lot area and have no problem with riders/hikers/dog walkers parking on residential streets - it's a public place and I know where I live in regards to the moutnains and trailheads. Pretty much everyone has been very cool. I even had a guy walk up to apologise for his coarse language (his words, haha) when he saw my kids were outside playing.

I used to live in Los Angeles and have seen appalling behaviour as far as attitudes to street use and parking. Surfers and runners were/are massive entitled dicks. Look up the history of Manhattan Beach Sand Dune park issues - total shit show.

For some reason, this last 6 weeks have really brought the assclowns out.

I'm not sure what it is - it's not a side effect of me being inside and not riding -  but there has been an increase in shitty, inconsiderate parking, total disregard for people and residents and a LOT of shuttles in the first 4 weeks until the enormous electronic sign went up. To a degree I've not seen.

There's a lot of residents who are tired of trucks driving completely into their driveways to turn around and of course, they're going to complain to the DNV about this. And it's 98% mountain bikers not hikers or walkers so the demographics are clear unfortunately and it kills me to see this as I know where this is going to head once the dust settles.

Loads of riders clumping when everyone in the area is taking so much care to distance or stay inside. Lynn Valley was an epicenter of the covid-19 BC outbreak here and everyone here has been connected to that to a large degree; so I agree that it's NIMBYism in a form but a NIMBY attitude during covid-19 seems to be a reasonable request considering what the Province has asked everyone to do.

I agree that the signage is completely inconsistent and the messaging is not thought out but I can also tell you that the signs are going up as a result of resident complaints not an overarching policy from the DNV - they are purely reacting. The infuriating thing is that it's going to be impossible to talk to the 'bad eggs' as they either don't use the same media outlets or just don't give a crap and just want to get theirs.

An example is a minivan that blasted through the no-shuttling sign 2 weeks ago, to park up by the Fromme gate and began to unload. I went to talk to them after a resident had come down to shout 'no unloading zone' at them. It was a family who wanted to ride and didn't want their kids to have to climb up part of Mountain Highway and decided that the signs didn't apply to them. It wasn't a lifted truck full of bros thumbing their noses at the man blasting tunes and drinking redbull (to use the worst of stereotypes that is generally thrown around). But all residents saw was a minivan loaded with MTBs who decided that they could do as they wished an that's all I'm seeing in terms of 'optics'. If you see assholes doing asshole stuff, it's down to you to regulate as well and call them out.

Posted by: DanL

I agree that the signage is completely inconsistent and the messaging is not thought out but I can also tell you that the signs are going up as a result of resident complaints not an overarching policy from the DNV - they are purely reacting. 

Thanks for the post Dan. I think this ^ is what I am frustrated with but I do understand the overall situation and the need for the DNV to address it. Sucks to hear that a few bad apples are causing trouble recently as the vast majority of mountain bikers seem be be very decent people.