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Yeah. I apologize if that sounds harsh on Cam, not my intent to dump on him at all. His apology and 'climb down' were all great and the right thing to do.

You make some good points that are food for thought, especially around how I perceive things and frame my comments. The "we" is quite notable, I need to think about my perspective out there. Need to think about that one for a bit.
As for exposing irrational comments, I have posted a fair bit on various sites, trying to bring some sanity to the situation. I have a posting up above that has some of my comments, tough to get them without the context of the discussion though.
Your point about the minority with poor comments is quite relevant, the 'sound bite' nature of these boards allows for some poor and irrational comments.

The MSM is pretty poor, they are looking for the sensational sound bites that make great headlines. I have spent a lot of effort online and with family / friends explaining that there is no 'war in the woods', that there seems to be great relatinships between all trail users out there. In my opinion, 'war in the woods' simply does not exist. I had a beer last night with a Kneeknacker runner buddy of mine, looked for his opinion. He spends a lot of time running on the trails, interacts with mtb'ers all the time. He agrees, there is no 'war in the woods', simply media hype.

Seems to be that the best thing we can do is get past all this and move forward as one big group of north shore trail users.

"How about being part of the solution, instead of being one of the few posters exasperating the problem, by sharing some positive experiences you have had interacting with other trail users?"

I've had about 30 - 40 postings on various media boards commenting on how it really is out there, trying to put a good spin on it, here are of few I have posted defending mtb'ers and our good work out there . . . (apoligies, the context may be a bit tough)

"You obviously have never been on the north shore trails. People are not rude, no fingers given to eachother, it's a pretty awesome place."

"Hey, no risk in stereotying there at all ? Ever actually speak with mountain bikers ? You would be surprised with who participates in the sport."

"That is EXACTLY what has been going on on the North Shore for the past 5 - 10 years. The groups generally have great relationships, behave in a civil manner to eachother."

"Agreed, there is no 'war' in the woods on the North Shore. I ride and hike the trails a few times a week, no issues. Other reality… it is pretty much only mountain bikers that do any trail building. Everyone henefits from their good trail work."

"Another analogy . . . a lady gets upset at the kids zooming down the slide at the park. They just whip down that thing, exit at speed, never know how that will end up. So, best to put a log half way down the slide, show those kids a thing or two.
The consequences of her actions were to hurt people. Come around a blind corner and hit a log, that can do some damage to someone.
The trails she blocked are mountain bike trails, in fact, they are not great trails to hike on. And, they will built and are maintained by the mtb community, with the blessing of the local government."

"You know that the obstacles were placed on officially sanctioned mountain bike trails ? The landowners have endorsed the trails, there is a sign at the top, they are completely legal and accepted by (nearly) all.
Hiking on these trails would be like snowshoeing up a ski run and complaining. There are countless hiking trails, heck, the mountain bikers don't mind if you hike on their trails, just be sure to expect them.
This lady set out to sabotage a trail, a very possible outcome of her actions is to injure someone. Just as we would be outraged if someone placed a log across a child's slide in a park, we should be outraged at her disregard for someone's safety in this manner."

I agree, this whole "War in the Woods" is absolute nonsense. It makes for great headlines but completely misrepresents how it actually is out there.

Sorry if it came across like I was dumping on you, not meant that way. You have suddenly found yourself in the media in a completely unexpected way.

Cam, apologizing was the right thing to do, a full and official retraction of the original article may be warranted.

This is a good time for reflection, by NSMB.COM and users of the site. Are we a major part of the problem by writing and posting articles, allowing a free- for-all discussion board and being too sensitive?

This situation reflects the nearly consequence-free nature of online reporting. Mainstream media would never have reported only one side of the story, especially withholding one key fact (the bite) that made their side look bad.

Unfortunately this whole incident dirties the reputation of NSMB.COM, it makes us look like the evil trail threats that we are.

Maybe it's time for an official outreach by the mountain bikers to the hiking community. Have an open house somewhere, answer questions, hear concerns, legitimately understand their position. The attitude some bikers have towards Espresso is horrible, "we built it, so it's our trail" sort of attitude. We built a public trail on public land, if hikers want to use it, we have to suck it up and accept that it is for the public, not just mountain bikers.

Every time I see hikers I say hi, try to be polite. My worry is that the one time I am not it will end up being the mayor's mother, a reporter's grandmother or someone else that could cause us real grief.

This incident really worries me about the blow-back on the mtb'ing community. Quite frankly, this incident and how we have reacted to it embaresses me as a mountain biker.

I simplified for the purpose of this board, but, one cannot extend freedom of speech to slander or where ir causes harm. Yelling "fire" in a crowded theatre is not expression of freedom of speech, nor would it be if I falsely accused you of getting it on with animals. I can't defend those comments under the pretence of 'freedom of speech'.

The problems arise when we try to define 'hurt'. Is that physical, reputational and emotional? Does it include belief systems as well?

Hyperbolic nonsense like "runaway global warming" and "ecologically suicidal tar sands" makes people tune out. They are as credible as the nonsense a few years ago about the himilayan glaciers melting within 20 years.

A message should be believeable, otherwise people tune out.

Thanks for the clarification, in my mind you did. Good point, I do like the civility on this board!

No, it has nothing to do with what I believe in, just a very odd bit that distracts from your piece. It's an interesting commentary that would may benefit from sticking to the point, less rambling. For example, why not inject some tax policy into it? Well, you would not because it is irrelevant, even though we all pay taxes.

I support people saying anything they please, so long as it is not offensive. I just don't see how this commentary benefits from linking her actions to the oil sands. Regardless, an interesting read it is.

Good read until you injected your own personal politics into it
"…decided despite the atrocities occurring in the Athabascan tar sands…"
unfortunately that taints your article as a personal soapbox on various completely unrelated issues.

My preference . .. . keep your personal politics out of my mountain biking.

If there is a change, there should be a constitutional change; something that requires all provinces to be on board.

As for what to change to, nothing has been put forth by the committee looking into it. So what change is the government going to push through?

Also, a referendum will cost half a billion dollars.

Did not think about the issue of requiring all provinces to be on board. I don't actually think that is the case, is it not some formula like .. . . at least 7 provinces in total comprising over 60% of Canada's population ?

Half a billion is a rounding error to Trudeau, spending money like a drunken sailor.

Seriously though, if that is actually true, half a billion is a silly amount of money, but, changing our democracy without broad based support will cost us a lot more when Canada fractures because Quebec, Alberta or Vancouver Island thinks they were screwed.

We had a referendum. It was called the General Election. Four parties (Liberal, NDP, Bloc, Green) all had electoral reform as a leading part of their platform. Every vote for any of those parties implicitly accepts reform.

A referendum is just a way to so ignorance and allow the parties that benefit from the status quo to continue doing so.

By your logic, every single bill that comes before the House needs to be put to a referendum.

Nobody would claim that our general election was a referendum on our electoral system. Every party has a platform, nobody agrees with everything nor does winning an election provide the winning party the right to fundamentally change our electoral system based on a minor election promise. Heck, the Liberals promised $10 B deficits, so much for that one.

A referendum would allow for broad based public support of the new system. In the event that a significant proportion of the electorate disagrees with selected new system, or views it to be bias towards the incumbent party, then many Canadians will not deem the outcome to be 'legitimate'. What happens if Quebec voters deem the new system to work against them ? Watch seperation take on a life of it's own.

No, ever single bill does not need to be put to a referendum, that is a poor logical leep on your side. Something that fundamentally changes the foundation of our democracy, a democracy that relies upon the trust our citizens put in it, has to be widely accepted as legitimate. Only way to do that is with a referendum.

Think it's pretty simple . . . look at immigration patterns.

Why are people trying to move to Canada, the US, the UK, Germany, Australia, etc….

Why are there no hoards of people heading for Cuba, North Korea, China (except from North Korea), Russia, Zimbabwe, etc…

Immigrants know where freedom, opportunity and a good life are, and Cuba is not on the list.

Any Electoral Reform must be put to a referendum. Changing our electoral system without doing so is setting a very dangerous precedent.

Say the Liberals do change how we elect our representatives without a referendum . . .. next time the Conservatives are in power there is nothing stopping them from changing the system again. Then the Liberals changing it again.

Once you change how we elect MP's without support of a referendum, basically the new government can change the rules any time they wish.

So great to see that it is possible to work for a relatively successful bike parts mfg in Squampton and earn a Living Wage!

People will be flocking all over the opportunity to bust a move in the OneUp warehouse for a really fantastic $30,000 a year!

Well, ask yourself what is better for a someone with no real skillset . . .
- a $30k per year job that exposes you to the workforce and give you experience
- a $0 per year no-job that, well, does nothing for you

Nothing wrong with a $30k per year job that requires no real skill set. Besides OneUp is not exactly Shimano, I suspect that $30k per year is pretty material to their finances.

I'm actually surprised some of you commenting here have not yet hit your head. Even my wife who never crashes cracked a helmet the first season I got her off road. Also know a couple of people personally who have long term issues from concussions.

That's the crazy part…. myself everyone I ride with have at some point written off a helmet, and been thankful that it was not our head. A buddy went down hard in the Chilcotins a couple years back, his helmeted head took a glancing blow on a small tree stump on the way down. Really run his bell, got him checked out in Whistler on the way home, ended up he had a concussion. Without the helmet he would have had a really serious injury in an area a long way from medical help. That scared the heck out of me.

If you don't want to wear a helmet for yourself, fine. Wear it for your friends and family.

Funny thing is . . . .I hear from fewer and fewer people that 'helmets are not necessary'. I guess they aren't around to say so anymore.

Perhaps you weren't paying enough attention, but it was a major part of their platform. There was plenty of back and forth between Harper and Trudeau regarding electoral reform and several questions at the debates as well. It's just plain ignorant if you think that there wasn't debate on electoral reform, in fact, one of the MAJOR talking points for the Liberals was 'this will be Canada's last FPTP election', I heard it repeated so much it made me want to barf.

Saying that this will be the 'last election with FPTP' is not a debate. A debate would discuss why we no longer need FPTP, what the new system should be and ask Canadians to vote for a party based on their beliefs.

In reality the Liberals had this in their platform to prevent the NDP from being the party of 'change'. Electoral reform was not a major issue to Canadians, per the article below only 2% of Canadians said that democratic reform was 'important'. Without dispute it was not a major issue of concern for Canadians in the last election. There was no mandate from Canadians granted for electoral reform.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/vote-compass-canada-election-2015-issues-canadians-1.3222945

The last election was a referendum on Harper, not an endorsement of the Liberals 150+ election promises. If a promise was a bad promise, it should be broken and explained why. The Liberlas had no problem doing that with "10,000 Syrian refugees by Christmas" and "$10 billion deficit", yet they are holding onto their election platform as justification here.

I think a change to some other functionally proven democratic system is worth an attempt… just maybe, it'll be better too. And if it's a train-wreck, it's not unreasonable for us to expect to change back.

Actually, I do not think it can be taken that casually. Saying we can 'change back' assumes that we are able to. What happens if the system is gamed by the Conservatives, they win, then then keep the system they have gamed? Or even worse, they change the system to something that favours them even more.

There are two issues at play here
1 - precedent. If the Liberals change the voting system without a referendum or all party support, they have set a precedent in Canada. Effectively there will be no argument that will prevent a future government from changing the system, we could have a new system every 4 years in fact. Nothing is saying that this is a 'one off', we could be on a slippery slope of future 'tweaks' to the system to benefit the party in power.

2 - Legitimacy. I still think that a new system needs either all party support or a referendum to be considered legitimate. Without mass agreement as to the process that got us the new system, and the new system itself, we risk losing the perception of legitimacy in our system.

We did the Fool's Gold Route once. 9 days, Squamish to Port Coquitlam, no trail. Brutal.

That's hard core. I have always 'wanted' to do that route, then I do some research and decide otherwise.

Not North Shore, but, there is a great trail from Princess Louisa Inlet over Sun Peak and down to the Sims Valley, north west of Squamish.

One way to discover random places is to look for pictures in Google Earth that are random or seem misplaced. You can see someone's route from Seymour Dam to Vicar Lakes that way. There are also a few pictures in the Capilano watershed that show some routes.