An Amusement & Diversion for The Genteel Cyclist. Daily.

Monday, October 20, 2008

The president poaches some bitchin' singletrack


We live in fractious times. I sometimes feel myself getting an ulcer when I watch the news. And when I watch video of hardcore red-state Republicans dissing Obama and his supporters and yelling uncivil nonsense ("terrorist," "Muslim," "baby killer," "socialist") I have a couple of responses, but mostly it's just what a bunch of pathetic sore losers. I think, Y'all have monopolized all three branches of government for almost two decades, and now maybe it's time for a little change, and your response is to act like spoiled children whose parents never taught you how to behave in public.

There was a time when I was a "Bush hater." I just couldn't stand the guy. He was a Yale-educated grandson of an oil baron whose only achievement in life was flipping the Texas Rangers for a tidy profit, and he talked like a hick, and it all just seemed like a big put on, while he was really just interested in enriching his old oil buddies and letting Dick Cheney take a big crap on the constitution, start two idiotic and debilitating wars, and -- oh yeah -- subvert the credibility of the entire global economy, with the end result that the US was pretty much thought globally to be the Assholes of the Universe in just seven years' time.¹ That's not just me and Sarah Silverman talking. That's the rest of the Universe talking, and it might be a good time for us to start listening, before the Universe decides that maybe oil should be priced in euros and not dollars. For example. For starters.

So but I'm not here to lecture anybody, and I apologize if I just can't control myself, but my point is that George W. Bush will, before he leaves office, make it easier for mountain bikers to gain access to national parks. Naturally, NORBA and IMBA and maybe even NAMBLA have been pushing for this for years. It's a glacial system right now that takes years, and mountains of paperwork, and canyons of despair to get bikes into some of the nation's most coveted natural environments.

I've got mixed feelings about this, because sure it would be awesome to take the old Stumpjumper out to the Cloud Peak Wilderness in Wyoming, or into Arches National Monument in Utah, or wherever. Who wouldn't dig that?

But you know I'm just not sure the Presidency of the United States should be used, necessarily, to serve the needs and whims and hobbies of the man (or the woman) sitting in that saddle, and I'm not at all sure that allowing mountain bikes on "multiple use" trails out West is an unconditionally good thing either, given the already rancorous relationship between horse enthusiasts, say, and backpackers. Mountain bikes are hell on trails, no question about it, which is why trail maintenance is so important to good relations between "different constituencies," but even better is to give everyone their own designated path, but of course that's doubling or tripling the impact in the national environmental treasury, lands we should be grateful have been set aside into perpetuity to protect from the usual enchroachments of "civilization" and "development."

I worry that opening up national parks to mountain bikes is a little like "drill baby drill" in spirit -- that is, let us have access to the resources for our own selfish purposes, everyone else be damned. Of course, like anything else there is surely a middle ground, and it's not especially useful to make the conversation a polarized all-or-nothing sort of thing.

So in the spirit of moderation and bipartisan fellowship, let me just say I think it's neat that President Bush is an enthusiastic mountain biker, and that he's willing to ease up on rules that have long discriminated against mountain biking (whereas it's amazingly easy to get your 1,000 head of beef or sheep² onto federal lands to graze on the People's Grass and contaminate and reroute the People's Water Sources, etc.), and if it results in some awesome new trails in our national parks, that's great. But! I'd hasten to add that there are plenty -- plenty! -- of awesome existing trails on unregulated lands, dozens more than I'll ever be able to ride in a lifetime.³

So pushing really hard to allow more mountain biking reminds me, a little, of the idiot motorhead contingent here in Minnesota who insist that the BWCA should be opened up to motorboats in the summer and snowmobiles in the winter, when literally 99% of the rest of the state's land area is perfectly legal for those pursuits (and a significant amount of it's public land and perfectly accessible).

It's not a perfect equivalence obviously because cycling is more or less a silent sport that has less aesthetic impact on the environment (unless you're wearing one of those heinous Rock Racing or LiquiGas kits, of course), but I guess what I'm saying is that we need to proceed very carefully and diplomatically. Let's keep it civil and above-board. You know the rules, and I think they apply pretty well to the real world, too: ride within your limits, yield to others, warn of your approach, skidding is amateur.

I'd like to see those rules on campaign lawn signs around the country, actually.


¹Edward Abbey said, memorably: "America. Love it or leave it alone."
²John Muir, seeing the damage grazing sheep had done in the High Sierra, called them "hooved locusts."
³There is one troubling exception to all this, and that's the ongoing hassle with the Mah-Da-Hey trail in North Dakota, where a significant section of existing world-class singletrack is interrupted by Theodore Roosevelt National Grassland, and there's been a battle brewing about this for years and years, and it seems to make the most sense to any normal person evaluating the sitch to just go ahead and open up that disputed section of remote trail and stop the silly game of bureaucratic charades.

11 comments:

California Girl said...

I don't know much about mtn biking but I live in a big mtn bike area, the White Mtns of NH. I do, however, applaud your amusing take on the current administration, the national parks and your ambivalence about being allowed in or out w/ your mtn bike. I doubt mtn bikes are the equivalent of snowmobiles & atvs but I guess I'd like to see more bikes, less cars, no snowmobiles or atv's or motorcycles allowed in our national parks. I am passing your blog onto my mtn biking friends.

Tambles said...

And if you would like a further and more abstract from your daily woes, please visit my random meanderings and leave your mark, 'Tis indeed a slightly obscure start to a sentance, in fact I'm sure I was always told never to start a sentance with and, let alone introduce myself with one but I thought it was a nice way to seemlessly and subtley make you feel at home, clearly we have spoken before else why would I use the word and....no? Oh well, the truth is I love your writing style and as I have joined blogspot with the soul intention of improving my writing and getting input from people who might have somthing constructive to say, if you have a moment please read my post: the truth is out there...
many thanks and keep up with your work

myfeetdontfitmyshoes.blogspot.com

I Opine for Fun said...

I saw your blog listed on Blogs of Note and thought it sounded interesting, and I was not disappointed. I really like your down-to-earth style of writing. Although it's a bit more "real" than I would be comfortable doing - LOL - but at least it's interesting. And no glaring typos that I could see. It truly is one of the better blogs out there and worthy of note. I agree with your sentiments about GW. Not much into biking, though - partly because of those irritating corncob seats most of them have, so I was interested to read about the flat seats you mentioned. Maybe there's hope for me. Anyway, good luck with your blog!

the driver said...

Sorry. I believe that opening up the National Parks to MTB's would be a mistake. Enough damage has already been done in the Parks by everything and everyone else. With all the places that are available to ride I don't think it would be necessary to open up something that has been set aside for the enjoyment of future generations. Considering the fact that wagon wheel tracks are still visible in the grounds heading west I can only imaging the impact that opening up these pristine places to anyone with a bike from K-Mart or some high-dollar shop would make.

k.p.p said...

I love mountain biking and BMX. I thought that this post was hilarious. You should check out my site, its full of biking pictures and nonsense. www.kppphoto.blogspot.com

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Anonymous said...

i'm not a mountain biker. i can't afford a bike for it, and the idea of hauling a bike around in a car to ride around for fun just seems ...distasteful.

i have, however, hiked and backpacked for thousands of miles and as a result, i gotta say, keep the bikers out. they're the cars of the wilderness world, or that's what it seems like to me. tear-assing around recklessly at high speed, whoopin' it up, scaring the shit out of some hapless hikers humping big packs at one mph really seems to be the rule rather than the exception.

most trails are indeed already miserably maintained and adding mechanized wear-and-tear isn't going to do anyone any good.


BUT! the real villains of the backcountry are the outfitting companies -- muletrains laden with the gear of lazy wasteabouts, coating trails with a thick layer of lung-clogging shit. their campsites strewn with cigarette butts and candy wrappers. those douchebag cowboy dudes hang around mountain passes smoking their cigarettes watching a bunch of wheezing, gasping backpackers trying to enjoy the view. yeesh. so bitter!

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Pinchie said...

I have to agree with anonymous backpacker.

Some of my most beloved backpacking trails -- the trails of my youth, alas, the knees only tolerate cycling these days -- have piles of empty beer cans and open fire pits and little human dungpiles here and there (you regognize themn from the little white flag of toilet paper perched on top).

Yech. Just yech.

And it's certainly true that cycling in the backcountry is a far different, far more selfish interaction with the environment. It's about the rush of riding fast and well on a technically challenging trail.... not so much about being in the moment and in the place, enjoying the silence and majesty of pure wilderness.

I like it both ways, of course, but there is a certain sense that they are mutually exclusive, and can't really co-exist in the same time and place.

muyres said...

Bush is very good at 'easing' regulations. Being a die-hard eco-terrorist republican, he is hellbent on looting the earth before his days in office end.