This is not going to be a popular opinion, but then I guess it’s really more a statement of fact than opinion at all: only mountain bikers care about trails.
And, now, before you start yelling, we should make a few ancillary points clear. Obviously, many more people than mountain bikers use trails, use them very often, and cherish that experience. Many more user groups than mountain bikers participate in trail stewardship projects (though not nearly to the same extent). Land managers, obviously, are charged with caring for trails each and every day of their careers.
I don’t dispute any of this. In fact I point to it with one hand as a scratch my head with the other: how is it that with trails helping to drive the new western economy, with trails as the central draw to our state parks and open spaces, that so few people put any thought into them.
An important distinction here is that we are talking about the trails themselves, and not the places they go. Many people care about going to the places that trails go, and are passionate about those experiences. But the trails themselves are apparently binary for most people. Is there a trail or is there not a trail? Is there a lot of trail or not a lot of trail? And that is where the conversation ends in most rooms.
Other users may have opinions about the aesthetics of a trail and where it goes. Is this a pretty place with a view? Are there rock outcroppings that will make me look cool on Instagram? But only mountain bikers ask the question of whether the trail is good.
Does it flow? Is it sustainable? Was it built thoughtfully and carefully? How are the switchbacks? Many users care that trails exist, and some feel strongly about where they go. But it is only mountain bikers that care deeply how they are made. It is only mountain bikers who care for the gentle nuance of how a path lays across the contours of a hillside, and how the tread surface will grow and change and evolve. Only mountain bikers care about the trails themselves.
This is not a slight to other trail users. As mountain bikers we understand that you do not. But we do, humbly, ask that when we speak about trails, you consider listening. Because we’ve spent a lot of time on this. Trails are expensive and time consuming to build, and when done wrong can scar a landscape or create a lifetime of ongoing maintenance.
But when done right they can save a timber town’s economy, and build healthy communities. They can be sustainable and require almost no annual upkeep and they can inspire armies of volunteers to make that work cost nothing. They can be really goddamn fun.
If you get out and enjoy public land, hunting, fishing, using trails, or whatever, you’ve probably had an overwhelmingly positive experience. America’s public land legacy really is one of the best things about this country, and against a backdrop of an emerging police state that keeps stolen children in cages, it stands out even more.
Foreign and domestic policy in this country is quickly fitting the dictionary definition of “blowing it,” but somehow public land protections are emerging as a silver lining of bipartisan progress. Now, don’t get me wrong, I would never say that we’re not blowing it. Our climate “policies” are the least funny jokes outside of an Adam Sandler movie. This Administration’s forestry and energy directives seem to be convinced that the year is 1884. And there is an ongoing, and increasing threat of privatization of America’s west.
But at the same time we just permanently reauthorized the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which is our strongest conservation tool. We’ve passed large scale conservation and public access bills nationally. And public lands have emerged as a unifying issue for the left and the right. Hunters and hippies, united at last.
It turns out people love to go outside, and will actually vote about it when you tell them they can’t. This is great. Outside is where we go to recharge our batteries, and have fun, and be alone for a while. Outside is important, and it’s worth going to the mats for.
Of course if everyone is outside, at some point they’re going to have to see one another, even though sometimes the whole point is not to see anyone at all. When this happens, you would be forgiven for thinking that folks who see other folks doing pretty much the same thing with their disposable time would more or less get along. And oh boy would you be wrong.
It turns out that even though spending time on public land is the great common denominator of the American West, we can still spend our entire lives fighting about it. Complaining about trail use and etiquette is now the most popular use of public land in four states*, if you can believe that.
And there are a lot of schools of thought behind how to deal with this. Some merry bands of misanthropes would modestly propose that if we would all simply recreate the exact same way that they recreate, then everything would be fine. Others prefer a rigid, bureaucratic flow chart for each trail user to keep in their pockets and reference when encountering another user.
I would like to propose a third way, wherein we recognize that we are different, and all just try to be nicer to each other**.
The reality as that most anxiety around public land and recreation management is rooted in narcissism. Consider your own behavior. When you’re out on the trails, do you expect that you won’t see anyone else (looking at you, headphones people)? Do you feel like the way you enjoy outside is more pure, more rooted in heritage, or somehow better than another way of enjoying outside? Do you define the best use of a place in terms of your own experiences? Think about that.
I mean, I don’t like seeing people out there either. That’s a big part of going out there. To be alone. To be small. To be shocked from our daily status quo of bustling, and competing with the Joneses, or whatever. But the whole point of wide open spaces is to remind ourselves that not everything is about us. In the era of Strava, and Instagram, and self-righteous letters to the editor, that is easy to lose.
So get out there. Have fun. Try not to be a dickhead. And let’s build a tradition of trail etiquette from there.
*this is a made up fact.
** this may also work in other places, such as when driving, talking to customer service employees, and on the internet
America hates bikes, which is remarkable, really, because of how much Americans love them. In this, the land of the free, the bicycle represents our first taste of true freedom as children. A bicycle is an archetype for the perfect Christmas gift, and it evokes nostalgia for late summer evenings with friends, beyond the watchful eye of our parents. LeBron put it best: “it was a way of life. If you had a bike it was kind of a way to let go and be free.”
And so it is a shame that cyclists on the road rank somewhere between a squirrel and a dog, and according to a recent Australian study, a bit more like a cockroach. The study found that road rage toward cyclists grew from the instinctual response that people on bikes are something less than human.
“Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of riding a bike.” – President John F. Kennedy, before he was shot
Beyond regular, open aggression from motorists cyclists regularly conform to a transportation infrastructure designed to exclude them. Post-war planning directed interstate highways from the urban job centers to the distant culs-du-sac of the suburbs, so that white folks could hold good jobs but wouldn’t have to live near the scary black people.
This has gutted cities (and laid the foundation for urban displacement 2.0). It has created a reality that a car is necessary to commute to work, buy groceries, and get kids to school in much of the country – even in relatively high-density neighborhoods where things aren’t that far apart.
In spite of overwhelming evidence about the benefits (ecological, social, economic) of bicycle infrastructure and the recent enthusiasm for bicycling by Americans, America won’t have it. Get those bikes off the road!
Ghost bikes at a single intersection in New Orleans.
The reality is that people love bikes because they’re fun to ride. The fact that they’re intuitive solutions for our economic, health, and environmental woes is an added bonus, and one that doesn’t carry obvious downsides. The only hope now, is that America will catch up with Americans.
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