[pct-l] the bike thing

[Matthew Edwards]

I was much more militant (minded) about the "bikes on trail" thing until..
i hiked the CDT.
Out there i shared the trail with quads, 2 stroke motorcycle riders (with
pistols strapped to their hips), and even a loose pack horse once.
The worst event was near brekenridge when a group of down hill mountain
bikers came bombing down the trail at high speed.
Yea, it sucks.. but those times were but a fraction of a second compared to
all the solitude and endless miles of peace along that great trail.
Heck, the AT has no bikes at all as i recall.
Oh yea, kinda hard to pedal  the seemingly 90 degree slopes and rocks of
that trail..
And what the heck is up with Connecticut and other places like the White
mountains? Seriously.. that blaze at the
bottom of this water fall is the AT?!
It was actually pretty awesome .. :)

Anyhow, The PCT is pure at this point, the CDT sees everything but only
rarely, and the AT is so inhospitible to travel you crawl on your hands and
knees at times.
Ain't no bikes out there.

Why not make a seperate PCT.. the Bike PCT similar to the Bicycle version
of the CDT?
I met some bicyclists on the CDT as we shared the same hostels.. rarely did
i see bicycles on the CDT since their main route is very different from the
hiker routes.
If the worst happens (bicycles are allowed on the PCT) hopefully we can
have a compromise and seperate routes for most of the way.. but perhaps
share some bits.

Defintely don't want anything to change on the PCT. It was a wonderful
exeprience as it was (bike free).
Something was lost from the experience each time I had to duck off trail
for motorcycles and bikes..

The ends of things are always painful.

We should consider a (non-violent) fall back postition in case the worst
happens.
That scary word again.. compromise.

-iceaxe