[pct-l] What do you say to mountain bikers on the PCT

[Barry Teschlog]

Tim said:
"Say what you will. They don't care. They're prepared to be challanged. The ones that do care aren't on the trail in the first place."

Response:
This hits the nail on the head.  MTBers that poach simply don't care - they show that they don't care by their actions.  They care not about rules, nor of the environment, nor of other users - they care about nothing other than themselves in their selfish pursuits of taking over others hard work for their own purposes (and ruining it for the current users in the process).  

So, the real question is how to deal with people that only care about their own enjoyment.  Simple, take the joy away from them.  They poach the PCT because it's fun to poach.  If the PCT wasn't fun to poach, they wouldn't.

What makes a trail fun to ride?  Flow, in a word.  

So, to halt MTBers from poaching the PCT, there needs to be a way to break up the flow, the fun of riding it, without affecting the experience for hikers and equestrians (to any large extent).

Flowly trail is winding and twisting, with smooth tread that is totally rideable and constant radius climbing turns (in lieu of hard, sharp switchbacks). A trail that one can ride, and ride, and ride....without having to stop because it's too steep, or too rough, or there are unrideable features.   That also sounds mostly like prime hiking and equestrian trail, which it is.  

HOWEVER, feet can step over some obstacles with barely a notice that give wheels all kinds of problems and will force a poacher to stop, dismount, hike their bike over the obstacle, then remount to continue the ride, or crash and be physically halted while (foolishly) trying to ride over said obstacle (much as a truck would crash & be physically halted if trying to drive through the bollards that surround Federal buildings these days - see how this works MTB clowns - a passive barrier, to be effective, must physically make it difficult to impossible for the proscribed party to pass, yet allow others to - pedestrians can walk between the bollards without difficulty, for example).  This (force a stop, dismount, hike-a-bike, mount, continue) defines breaking up the flow.  No flow, no fun.    

If poachers are having to stop at unrideable obstacles often enough, it's simply not fun and they'll go elsewhere.  Perhaps poachers would even begin engaging in positive behavior, such as building trails that are open to MTB's in full compliance with NEPA, the land managers wishes, etc.....But I put the probability of that at vanishingly small, since IMBA and the poacher clowns seemingly aren't interested in the hard work it would take to actually build and maintain trails by the book, rather they seemingly always take the lazy way and attempt to do a hostile takeover of the trails of other user groups.  The sad thing here is had IMBA, et al taken the positive step of planning, advocating for and taking a lead in building a parallel MTB route to the PCT, I suspect the hiking groups would have been supportive.  Instead, IMBA and the MTB clowns chose to start a war.

I await the day when there are design guidelines from the USFS for anti-bike barriers on the PCT.  You can bet the trail crews in the poacher affected areas will be installing them with a passion.