From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Don't support REI!!!
Date: 14 May 2001 21:25:04 GMT

Matt O'Toole writes:

>>> REI financially supports the green peace groups that try to close
>>> trails to bicycles, dirt bikes and waterways for personal
>>> watercraft.

>> You say "green peace groups" with a tone of xenophobia.  I hadn't
>> heard of such a designation but I think with the W. Bush
>> administration, we'll hear more of this.  Not only am I in favor of
>> protecting wilderness but I wish most of the MTB guys would pack up
>> and leave my Santa Cruz Mountains, where bicycles are no longer
>> welcome in many of my favorite back roads.  Keep out signs,
>> specifically with "No Bicycles" have closed many places that I rode
>> before the gonzo pseudo motorcycle types took over the hills.

> The "keep out" signs exist because the hills have been taken over by
> wealthy, well-connected, white-flight suburbanites and pot-addled,
> granola munching hermits who believe they're entitled to control the
> *public* land surrounding their estates, as if it were their own
> private ranch or country club.  Keeping the public out makes their
> property more exclusive, and boosts their property values.  This is
> at the heart of any access situation I've come across.  Trail
> conflicts, etc., are a load of crap.

I think if you look at any MTB magazines, you'll see the macho image
portrayed there and how a land owner would have nothing to do with
such behavior.  I speak from experience having refereed collisions of
MTB motorcycle rudeness with riders on trails and having been subject
to insults from the downhill bombers who ride from pickup truck to
pickup truck.  The same ranches where we used to talk to owners are
today posted with no-bicycling signs.  You can also listen to the
bravado stories some of these folks tell about their bold maneuvers.

> In the real world, trail users get along, respect residents, and
> generally behave.

Generally is not good enough.  Besides, the guiding image from the
press does not support that picture.  The basics are that enough MTB
riders have no interest in nature, the out doors, birds, wildlife or
flowers.  It's an obstacle course, nothing more.

> It bugs the hell out of me when the press picks this up to milk a
> witless "controversy" angle, which just spins the whole thing
> further into the hands of the exlusivist yuppie dude ranchers.

I see you have enough contempt for landowners to express exactly what
has moved land owners to dislike MTB riders who believe they have a
right to trespass in a gonzo manner.  Your attitude is not concealed.

> Get a clue, and don't feed the selfish, nasty natives.  It's our
> land, not theirs.  They paid for and got their lovely acre, but not
> the whole damned National Forest.

Your position is so extreme that I must suspect you are being
facetious.  This cannot be your true position on such an obvious
matter.

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Don't support REI!!!
Date: 15 May 2001 17:16:19 GMT

Terry Morse writes:

> Care to share some of your routes that are still open to bikes? I
> rode to Half Moon Bay for the first time last weekend, via the
> Purisima Creek (dirt) Road. The descent was easy, even though I was
> on slick tires. I'm looking for more back roads to try.

I don't think I should be posting routes that constitute trespassing
and I see no advantage to describing them to others.  In contrast,
roads that have been illegally usurped by "git offa my land" type
recluses, should be tested in court.  Sunday I rode from Palo Alto, up
Alpine Rd to HWY35 (Skyline Blvd) and south past HWY17 to the Summit
Store.  From here I took Highland Way to Mt Bache Rd and rode up Mt
Loma Prieta 3786ft and then south along Summit Rd to Mt Madonna Rd, a
beautifully sceninc route, where about a six mile section has rude
"Private Road", "Keep Out" signs at steel gates at either end that
seem always to be open, judging from the dust and dirt.

I drove these roads by car long before there were any houses there.
These folks didn't build the road nor do they own it, but they pretend
to.  They hate bicyclists as the big signs with a red circle with a
bicycle crossed out indicate.  I have had confrontations.

It's a beautiful route with great vistas to the Santa Clara Valley and
west to Santa Cruz and Monterey as it runs along the ridge.  It runs
mostly down hill from Loma Prieta, the 3786ft peak with a jungle of
antennas.  Mt Bache road from Summit and Highland Way is the direct
route although Loma Prieta Ave gets there too.  For some reson the map
shows roads in faded magenta around the peak, although they are no
less substantial roads.  The black letters "Spr" give the location of
and all year ice cold spring with shady trees below the peak.

http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=12&T=2&X=754&Y=5133&Z=10&W=2

Ormsby Cutoff, the horisontal road at the bottom of the following map,
has an array of rude signs at the junction of Buzzard Lagoon Rd,
Highland Way and Eureka Canyon Rd in the lower right:

http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=12&T=2&X=756&Y=5129&Z=10&W=2

Summit Road, about 3 miles either side of the junction with Ormsby
Cutoff, is also gated and signed.  As is apparent from the contours,
Summit Road is on the top ot the ridge:

http://terraserver.homeadvisor.msn.com/image.asp?S=12&T=2&X=758&Y=5129&Z=10&W=2

Ride bike!

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Don't support REI!!!
Date: 15 May 2001 22:29:24 GMT

Tim McNamara writes:

> Rare, perhaps, but memorable.  I have personally been nearly run
> over by barely-in-control yahoos on engineless motorcycles- a.k.a.
> "freeride" bikes- on four occasions while mountain biking.

The next step is to ride a road bicycle evrywhere, realizing that
unless you are racing in the dirt, the dirt part that a road bicycle
doesn't do at least as well as a fat tired bike is the smallest part
of a ride.  Of course if you have a car to bridge the gaps from one
trails section to the next, that's different.  If you see what roads
and trails work just fine with a road bike, you'll see that riding
from home instead of trucking to the top of the mountain has great
rewards.

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

From: jbrandt@hpl.hp.com (Jobst Brandt)
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.tech
Subject: Re: Don't support REI!!!
Date: 16 May 2001 02:11:34 GMT

Graham Pollock writes:

> I've come across the signs that you mention (on Summit Road, and
> Ormsby Cutoff) and so far I've always turned back and taken
> alternate routes - confrontation is something I generally shy away
> from.  Are the signs legal?  How would I go about confirming their
> legality (or lack thereof)?  I'd love to try those routes...

> The signs on Buzzard Lagoon Road (and several others around the
> Santa Cruz mountains) try to discourage non-locals during the winter
> months.  I'm not aware of any law which would back up such an
> assertion - if it's a publicly maintained road then it is open to
> the public.  Any comments or thoughts?

This goes to court now and then.  The last one I read about was a
truck driver who was trying to deliver something up there but wasn't
sure he was on the right road.  They gave him a heap of noise and he
went to court.  I didn't hear the outcome but in the proceedings it
turns out that the county sheriff patrols these roads and the next
time I rode up Ormsby, I met the sheriff going the other way.  When
yelled at, I have ignored the complainer and because they are not
eager to chase, nothing happens.

Once when accosted by two men working on the road, my friend stopped
to engage them in a discussion and then could not continue when they
blocked his way.  The old saw about "go back the way you came" was
exercised, which meant that he had to trespass a lot more than if he
had exited by the nearest gate straight ahead where we were going.
They have a grader and do work when needed.  That relieves the county
of doing the whole road, leaving only the ends for the road crews.  I
think this is one of the reasons the county does not prosecute.  There
are similar roads off Gazos Creek after the bridge just before the
hill begins.  Although the Casa Loma road between Loma Prieta and the
Almaden Valley (Uvas Rd) is friendlier, they also do some maintenance.
The Loma Alma ridge road has only one contentious resident who doesn't
even claim to maintain the road, only that the road goes through his
yard.  That would be Rick Estrada who lives in a hovel just before the
paved road that connects to Hicks Rd at its summit.

As I said, I traveled these roads with my family in my car in the
1960's at a time when the local bikies joined me on Sunday rides from
Palo Alto into the hills that no one knew.  Fortunately most of the
land is making its way into the MROSD (Mid Peninsula Open Space
District) preserves.

http://www.openspace.org/catalog.html
http://www.openspace.org/AZUL.html

These maps show what is and what isn't in public ownership but the map
isn't as good as the ones I referenced earlier, there bing no roads
shown.

Jobst Brandt      <jbrandt@hpl.hp.com>

From: jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org
Subject: Re: The Dancing Chain, by Frank Berto
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing,rec.bicycles.marketplace,rec.bicycles.tech,
	rec.bicycles.misc,ba.bicycles
Message-ID: <%tysd.9566$_3.111600@typhoon.sonic.net>
Date: Sun, 05 Dec 2004 07:08:43 GMT

Kurgan Gringioni writes:

>> Just received notice that "The Dancing Chain" by Frank Berto

> Dumbass -

> The problem w/ Frank Berto is that his wife is a goddamm horse rider
> who campaigned extensively to get mountain bikes banned from Mount
> Tam.

> ps. horses are lame

I think you miss the point.  Before MTB's we had dirt motorcyclists
who tore up trails and terrorized all other trail users while being
oblivious to nature and the outdoors.  For them it was merely the
challenge of an obstacle course on single track trails.  They were
banned from wilderness parks around here 40 years ago.  Then came the
MTB and the story started all over again, with gonzo downhillers who
ruined the welcome for bicycling that had gotten along with other
trail users for many years.

Trails are systematically being closed to bicycles in response to what
are essentially unmotorized dirt motorcycle riders, the same ilk as
those of the past but on MTB's.  On my last two rides through The
Forest Of Nisene Marks (redwood park), one of our favorite roads, one
of our riders got crashed into by an out-of-control MTB rider causing
injury and bicycle damage (pretzled wheels).  The dislocated shoulder
of one of the perpetrators made him wait several hours before a ranger
picked him up in his jeep.  In Purissima Creek park I have been sworn
at by three-abreast MTB'ers descending out of control as I dived off
the trail.  Many trails on Mt Tamalpais are similar and I empathize
with Mrs. Berto.  Such incidents are common enough for trail closures.

If you feel there is no reason for banning bicyclists from trails, you
are not sensitive to the damage and injury caused.  This is like
snowmobiles in Yosemite and other national Parks which are much like
someone running a chainsaw in your back yard all day.  We keep reading
of rude motorists harassing bicyclists on the road in much the same
tone as trail users talk of MTB riders, yet readers of wreck.bike see
no parallel.

http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/archive/2004/November/30/local/stories/02local.htm

Jobst Brandt
jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org

From: jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org
Subject: Re: The Dancing Chain, by Frank Berto
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing,rec.bicycles.marketplace,rec.bicycles.tech,
	rec.bicycles.misc,ba.bicycles
Message-ID: <tw0td.9709$_3.114414@typhoon.sonic.net>
Date: Mon, 06 Dec 2004 17:19:21 GMT

John Forrest writes:

>>>> If you are doing damage and/or harassing others, you should be
>>>> banned from that area.

>>> Who is the "you"?

>> That's clear writing.  It's 'you' if "you are doing damage and/or
>> harassing others".

>> If that's not you, then it's not 'you'.

> Andy, do you really believe that all mountain bikes used on trails
> in Marin cause trail damage but no hikers or horse do?  If you
> believe that, then I guess it's clear.  I don't believe that, so the
> statement is unclear.

This is not about trail damage but rather a hazard to other trail
users and rudeness.  I have found few MTB riders who were on trails
to enjoy flora and fauna.  Most, as the discussions support here,
were on the trail to have a gnarly skidding experience, preferably
with mud.

I maintain a local trail/road (Alpine Road) and get no interest from
passing MTB riders to volunteer to do anything unless I drop a large
branch across the road where there is a downed tree making them pitch
in sending it over the bank just so they can continue.  Many of them
put up the veiled excuse to the effect that it must be an illegal
activity to cut drains across the trail and remove obstacles,
therefore absolving them from participating.

I have have been reported to MROSD ...(Mid-Peninsula Regional Open
Space District) by them as damaging the trail.  Fortunately MROSD
rangers recognize the work that I do there and ignore such BS when
they see what is occurring.  Many of these guys think nothing of
putting long skids right through drains, cutting channels through them
for water to pass and erode deep ruts.

Its the attitude that sets the tone of the endeavor.  Just look at the
ads in MTB promotions showing mud caked riders performing gonzo jumps
and splashing through mud holes.  Just hanging around the counter in
the bicycle shop, listening to the macho stories they seem to demand
trail closures.

Jobst Brandt
jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org

From: jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org
Subject: Re: The Dancing Chain, by Frank Berto
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing,rec.bicycles.marketplace,rec.bicycles.tech,
	rec.bicycles.misc,ba.bicycles
Message-ID: <Ki2ud.10510$_3.121401@typhoon.sonic.net>
Date: Thu, 09 Dec 2004 20:10:18 GMT

Andrew Muzi writes:

>>>> Andy, do you really believe that all mountain bikes used on
>>>> trails in Marin cause trail damage but no hikers or horse do?

>>> This is not about trail damage but rather a hazard to other trail
>>> users and rudeness.  I have found few MTB riders who were on
>>> trails to enjoy flora and fauna.  Most, as the discussions support
>>> here, were on the trail to have a gnarly skidding experience,
>>> preferably with mud.

>> The current crop of MTBers,the Extremes,who must have 6" of travel
>> and disc brakes to brag about are indeed rude and obnoxious

> Not being in any way conversant with mountain biking, I read the
> statement, "If you are doing damage and/or harassing others, you
> should be banned from that area" and couldn't find anything with
> which to disagree.

> If you damage the fixtures and harass the patrons in a bar, you'll
> be asked to leave.  Depending on the bar, you may go out on your
> nose.  I read of a melee at a sports event last week which
> culminated in both epithets and a chair being thrown.  A judge
> banned a participant from the venue.  Players were suspended.  In
> short, our culture has established precedents for things of this
> nature.

> I will grant you there seems to be a semantic undercurrent here
> (definition of 'damage').  I don't think a reasonable man would call
> marking a hazard with a branch across the trail 'damage' or
> 'harassment'.

As I said, the main issue is not damage but rude and dangerous trail
use.  The hazard is there and hikers and equestrians feel it so
strongly that they stay away in some areas.  One of my favorite forest
trails locally, Stevens Canyon Trail, that I rode with my children
through a wondrous woods along Stevens Creek has become a gonzo
downhill course with washboard in the singlet-rack parts.  Hikers who
know the area avoid going there anymore.  That is the issue.

> I did wonder who the heck would be doing the 'banning' (it's out of
> doors, after all, right?).

These are all in parks with trail entrances where prohibitions are
listed.  Park rangers on small motorcycles patrol the trails that are
closed to bicycles.  Fines are substantial.

> But I stand firm in my opinion that, "If you are doing damage and/or
> harassing others, you should be banned from that area" is a
> reasonable statement for many venues including mountain biking.  I
> leave to others the limits and mechanisms.

The MTB crowd doesn't see it that way.  They don't feel harassed and
the most egregious areas are devoid of people to harass, so they feel
absolved.  The problem is that even some of their ilk are dissuaded
from entering those areas.

> I do not have an opinion about 'all mountain bikers', nor
> equestrians as a group.  I can see where 'harassing others' is
> probably more serious and less ambiguous than 'damage'.

That isn't possible because any MTB rider could behave to be
threatening so that bicycle are banned entirely.  I ride my road
bicycle on these trails and go there for the beautiful landscape, not
for the blast down the hill or the challenge of not dismounting on a
steep incline.  You should see the depth of muck churned up by these
folks on some of the trails.  For that reason, trails are often closed
for the wet season for equestrians.

Jobst Brandt
jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org

From: jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org
Subject: Re: The Dancing Chain, by Frank Berto
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.racing,rec.bicycles.marketplace,rec.bicycles.tech,
	rec.bicycles.misc,ba.bicycles
Message-ID: <b37ud.10559$_3.122036@typhoon.sonic.net>
Date: Fri, 10 Dec 2004 01:35:03 GMT

Tom Kunich writes:

>> As I said, the main issue is not damage but rude and dangerous
>> trail use.  The hazard is there and hikers and equestrians feel it
>> so strongly that they stay away in some areas.  One of my favorite
>> forest trails locally, Stevens Canyon Trail, that I rode with my
>> children through a wondrous woods along Stevens Creek has become a
>> gonzo downhill course with washboard in the singlet-rack parts.
>> Hikers who know the area avoid going there anymore.  That is the
>> issue.

> So what you're saying is that YOU'RE perfectly capable of riding
> without sliding or effecting the trail or it's users in any manner
> that might be called negative but other's aren't?

That's your willful misinterpretation of what I wrote.  I don't ride
on those trails when it wet and soft and I don't Race downhill around
blind curves where others might be traveling.  But you knew that if
you followed any of this thread.

> This sort of reminds me of the weird setup on some of the trails in
> Marin County.  There was this long trail that alternated between
> fireroad and singletrack.  Strangely enough, the fireroads were
> 'off-limits' whereas the single track wasn't.  When I asked a Ranger
> about this he said that it was done purposely to discourage off-road
> bicycle use.  This was long before the gonzo riders.

What does this have to do with rude MTB riders crashing into others on
trails?  Besides, what this man said and meant doesn't have any
bearing on todaya trail closures.  In the days before MTB's we had
great bicycle rides in Pt. Reyes National Park and took pictures of us
on top of Mt. Wittenberg after riding in from Bolinas through Coast
Ranch.  That all came to an abrupt halt when unmotorized motorcycle
guys took their MTB's in there to made the scene inhospitable.

> While riding a section of single-track some woman hiker (the only
> hiker we'd seen the entire day as opposed to the 8 riders of our
> group) saw us and JUMPED off the trail even though we were hardly
> riding at a walk pace.  As we passed she called in a nasty manner -
> it's ILLEGAL for you to be here! Not 100 yards from where she was
> standing was a 3 feet by 3 feet sign that she had JUST walked by
> saying that bicycles WERE allowed on that section.

You'll see even fewer hikers on the main trail in the Nisene Marks
park.  People no longer expose themselves to that sort of activity.

> The fact is that there are impolite hikers, impolite and damaging
> equestrians and idiot mountain bikers.  You don't eliminate an
> entire class of user because some of them are undesireable.

Unless you can define what an unwanted bicyclist is, I think the
blanket exclusion is the only way.

>> These are all in parks with trail entrances where prohibitions are
>> listed.  Park rangers on small motorcycles patrol the trails that
>> are closed to bicycles.  Fines are substantial.

> I kept finding four wheel drive and motorcycle tracks tearing up the
> quite sensitive semi-marsh land along the bay in the San Leandro
> Shoreline Park.  I was getting quite angry about people that were
> somehow finding their way around the gates and onto this land (which
> BTW, 15 years later still have the scars).  While riding my MTB
> around here one rainey afternoon when no one else was using the area
> I came upon the miscreants screaming around on their four wheel
> drives and skidding sideways into the previously undamaged areas.
> Whooping and screaming they paid not the slightest attention to me
> riding past and looking at them.  They were the park Rangers!

I guess that makes all the MTB problems OK if you can find more
egregious perpetrators.  I'll tell you where they rangers are. they're
in Terminal Arnolt's austerity program for Kahlifornia.

> Would you think that we should ban Rangers from the parks?

He did... financially!

Jobst Brandt
jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org

From: jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org
Subject: Re: Nisene Mrks Bicycle Ban
Newsgroups: rec.bicycles.misc
Message-ID: <tRXJd.3853$m31.53802@typhoon.sonic.net>
Date: Thu, 27 Jan 2005 01:54:33 GMT

Steven M. Scharf writes:

> Forest of Nisene Marks is so lightly used, that I'm amazed that they
> wouldn't want more people there. It was popular for a short time
> after the 1989 quake, since the epicenter was in the park.

> It's horses that cause the erosion, not bicycles. When I go hiking
> in Fremont Older, the trail is a mess from the horses, but the
> bicycle tracks don't make much of an impression.

It's not about trail damage, the road from Buzzard Lagoon over Santa
Rosalia Mntn. (2629ft) to Aptos has such a reasonable gradient and
soil that road damage is not one of the concerns, although some
armchair gripers bring that up, having never been there.

http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=10&n=4102447&e=600039&s=100&size=l&u=0&layer=DRG25

The red cursor is on the road.

The real problem is MTB riders who express their machismo in blasting
down this scenic road as if in a world championship race on a closed
course.  My last two rides through there, one up and one down, both
involved head-on collisions with a descender who was out of control.
I was fortunate not to get hit.  Both incidents collapsed wheels and
caused significant injury.

I and friends were not amused.  Since I can do without that, I don't
see a need to ride there anymore although it would be nice once in
awhile.  Other roads, such as Gazos Creek road between Big Basin
Redwood Park and the Pacific is far enough that the gonzo guys don't
rider there, it being too far from the car or even a reasonable return
by car to the starting point.  To make up for that, its a beautiful
road in the redwoods that I formerly drove with the family before the
county decided not to maintain it and the park probably saw the SUV on
the horizon and were glad to close it.  It's better as a road closed
to motor traffic.

Jobst Brandt
jobst.brandt@stanfordalumni.org