[pct-l] Bikes? Here we go again.

[Rob Langsdorf]

James,
     One of the reasons that this issue has come up is that in the creation of the Boulder-White Clouds wilderness area mountain bikers were tossed out of an area that was popular with them with a stroke of Obama's pen:
Many are still wincing from last year’s creation of a 431-square-mile wilderness complex in central Idaho called the Boulder-White Clouds. Before it was wilderness, the area was popular with mountain bikers, who had advocated a national monument designation that would have allowed riding to continue. But then a political shift turned momentum toward a wilderness designation, and with the stroke of President Obama’s pen, the trails were closed and the cyclists were out.“It left a bad taste in a lot of peoples’ mouths,” said Eric Brown, the trail director at the Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition.
    This way of doing things tends to encourage people to fight back. Had the area been made a National Monument, this conflict wouldn't have come up and those who are now pushing for bikes every where wouldn't have the footing that they now have.
    This issue points out how we need to take care to have hearings, etc. before we just declare a place a wilderness area.
               Rob


      From: James Vesely <veselyjames at gmail.com>
 To: pct-l at backcountry.net 
 Sent: Friday, August 19, 2016 7:20 AM
 Subject: [pct-l] Bikes? Here we go again.
   
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/us/bill-opening-wilderness-areas-to-bikes-also-opens-debate.html?&moduleDetail=section-news-4&action=click&contentCollection=U.S.&region=Footer&module=MoreInSection&version=WhatsNext&contentID=WhatsNext&pgtype=article
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