[pct-l] bikes on the PCT

[Craig Giffen]

um, I have been mountain biking since the late 1980's.  I've ridden all over Washington and Oregon, but never once have I ridden on a trail that was closed to mountain bikes.  I have no anti mountain bike bias...I own a few 2.35in tires myself.  Riding downhill on singletrack through the woods is incredibly fun.  I just think the mountain bike lobby needs to focus their energy on getting their own trails built rather than leeching off the decades of hard work that hikers and equestrians have done.

Rather than complaining on message boards about the lack of mountain bike only trails, there are actually people out there in the mountain bike community who "do the work" to make them happen:
http://www.oregonlive.com/north-of-26/index.ssf/2012/06/stub_stewart_state_park_opens.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903999904576469960615061074.html

The last comment here sums it all up for me that I wish a lot of other fellow mountain bikers shared:
http://forums.mtbr.com/pennsylvania/appalachian-trail-can-i-ride-291174.html

Craig




> Commuting by bike is great, but that does not really address the anti mountain bike bias I see on this board. ?It seems to me, and I'm sure all will disagree here, that the issue has to do with sharing more than anything else. ?Hikers, and the few horse riders left over (from what I read earlier on another post) are used now to have the PCT to themselves and are not interesting in sharing.
> 
> I'd like to remind everyone that the PCT is funded by the taxpayer and should be therefore not meant to be the exclusive use of any given group. ?I don't see the USFS creating new trails exclusively for mountain bikers, so I really don't see why the PCT should be the exclusive use of hikers.