THE OUTDOORS : ROUGH RIDERS : Mountain Bicyclists Leave a Trail of Controversy by Encroaching on Hikers, Horses

Swift and silent, a mountain bicycle can carry a nature lover into pristine environments otherwise accessible only to hikers and horses.

And, boy, do the hikers and horses hate it.

Lew Roeser, who runs a pack horse station out of Mammoth Lakes, said: “One of our guides met a bike coming down the trail and almost went over the edge. They’re not compatible with horses.”

Another packer, Bob Tanner, said: “They’re dangerous with horses around because they’re so quiet. They just roar up on you. It’s a total conflict. There’s no way it can be compatible.”

Mountain bicycles are distinguished by their wide gear ratios and fat tires--up to 2 inches wide--for negotiating rough terrain. Because they can cover much more back country in a given time than a horse or a hiker, their popularity has soared in the last few years, as resistence to them has stiffened.

Opponents say they frighten horses, imperil hikers and harm the environment.

Advocates agree that they have the potential to do all those things but say they can get along if the activity is practiced responsibly.

“There are some legitimate conflicts,” said Gibson Anderson, vice president and executive director of the International Mountain Bicycling Assn. organized last March. “We’ve put together what we call ‘Rules Of the Trail,’ and one of the things is that everyone yields to a horse. A bicycle yields to both horses and hikers. A hiker would yield to a horse. A horse has the right of way.”

The U.S. Forest Service already has closed to bicycles all trails leading into designated Wilderness areas, citing the 1964 Wilderness Act that prohibits “mechanized vehicles.”

And, said Margaret Gorski, recreation officer for the Mammoth district, “The Forest Service has interpreted the bicycle to be a mechanized piece of equipment.”

Further, Anderson said, “The national board of directors of the Sierra Club voted unanimously on May 7 to recommend that all public land be closed to, among other things, mountain bicycles, pending an extensive environmental review to be done on a trail-by-trail basis.”

That, Anderson says, could take forever, which is probably how the Sierra Club had it figured. “I’m a member myself,” Anderson said. “There are a lot of mountain bicyclists in the Sierra Club. I’m also an environmentalist, but I differ in that they call a mountain bicycle an off-road vehicle.”

IMBA was formed in March to promote mountain bicycling and educate practitioners on rules of the trail and how to protect what access to rural areas they have left.

If the cyclists are soft-pedaling their case, it’s because they’re unwilling to meet the forces of the Forest Service and Sierra Club head-on. Instead, they are working to improve their image to show they can get along with the other users of the trails.

Dave Allen, who runs “Mountain Routes” bike tours out of Bishop, said: “It’s true, they are quiet. I don’t know how many times I’ve come upon people that didn’t hear me.”

But Don Douglass, the IMBA president, from Bishop said: “It’s mostly an emotional issue. There are very few instances of a mountain bike hitting people--much less than skateboards or roller skaters hitting people jogging at the beach. It’s more the threat of speed.”

Douglass said the solution is simple.

“Just call out and warn somebody: ‘Hi, folks.’ ”

And when a biker comes upon a horse, the biker should stop and let the horse go past, or walk the bike carefully past the animal.

Part of the problem, Douglass said, is that many people associate mountain bicycles with the evils they perceive in off-road motorcycles.

“We don’t even like to go where there’s motorcycles around,” Douglass said. “They don’t mix. We’re there for the sights and the sounds and the silence.”

Douglass sighed at the irony, as he sees it.

“We identify with the backpackers, and the backpackers identify us with the motorcycles. We’re in a no-man’s land.”

Douglass and his wife Reanne live in a house built at 7,000 feet at the head of the Owens Valley, on the edge of the John Muir Wilderness. A person insensitive to abuse of the outdoors would not live where he lives.

“I think I can convince people that a 2-inch tire puts less strain on a trail than a lug-sole (hiking boot),” Douglass said. “Horses are the worst things going in the mountains, in my opinion.”

Anderson said: “If I graded what’s hardest on a trail, a horse is much harder. It’s a lot more weight, and while a bicycle is rolling along, a horse’s foot is coming down hard.

“It’s just that (bicycles are) a new user. There are hikers and horse people feeling there are already too many people out there.”

The congestion is compounded in that the three users all move at different speeds, and that a horse “might or might not be spooked by a bicycle or a hiker and bolt,” Anderson said.

Roeser, the packer, said some horses are so sensitive to the nuances of familiar trails that “if a rock isn’t in the same place or a tree has fallen down, a horse can spook.

“It’s bad enough with an experienced rider, but out of every 100 we might have 5. Most are novice riders, and if the horse shies, they’re gonna be on the ground or worse.”

Tanner said: “I have never seen one of these (bicyclists) who looked like he was just out enjoying the scenery. They’re out for the exercise, (and) there are a lot of other places where they won’t conflict with horses.”

Allen agreed with the last point.

“The beauty of this area is that bikers don’t need to use trails,” Allen said. “There’s 1,800 miles of forest roads, fire roads, power line roads. The major conflicts are in the outskirts of urban areas.”

Gorski said she’s not sure mountain bicycles can even be considered an issue. Although she said Douglass consulted her for one of the mountain biking guide books he and his wife have assembled, they haven’t pressed her on the matter of access.

“None of them have come in to talk to me (or) the Forest Service and said, ‘We’d like to have a designated trail,’ ” Gorski said. “The only person that’s come to me is Dave McCoy of the Mammoth Mountain Inn to express a desire to look at some designated mountain bicycle trails, because he’s involved in some guided trips out of the inn.

“Three years ago, we had a group that got together before the sport really took off. Because bicycles are prohibited by legislation in the Wilderness area, and because most of our trails end up in the Wilderness area, we closed almost all of our trails.

“We got complaints from the hikers and horse riders because of the safety issue.”

But Gorski added: “We haven’t been able to enforce it. All the signs we put up have been destroyed.”

And she has been unable to document specific incidents of trail confrontations.

“I haven’t got any formal complaints yet . . . well, I do have a letter on my desk from the Valentine Reserve (a botanical reserve in Mammoth Lakes) complaining about bicyclers ‘bombing’ off one of our trails that we permitted them to be on.”

Earl Clayton, public affairs officer for the Los Padres National Forest, said by phone from Santa Barbara, “It has been an issue here for some time and probably will continue to be.

“When it started, many of the hikers were saying it was getting dangerous to hike on the trails, (but) as far as the Forest Service is concerned, they are legitimate users of the forest. We can’t be discriminatory.”

So Clayton’s office asked an environmental studies class at UC Santa Barbara to do a survey. The students contacted 1,400 individuals on the trails--hikers, equestrians and bikers--and published their results a year ago.

“The survey revealed that any safety problem was not of great significance,” Clayton said. “Of the incidents which were reported out of 1,400 contacts, only seven might be construed as constituting a dangerous situation. That being the case, we didn’t feel at the time that we should take any action toward restricting any of the groups.”

But that didn’t stop the city of Ojai, acting on an appeal from hikers, from closing the lower two-thirds of the popular Rattlesnake Trail that was on city-owned land--effectively closing the entire trail to bikers.

Gorski said the Forest Service wants to work with mountain bicyclists within the current restrictions. “The issue is having some trails available that are Alpine in nature (and) provide some challenge,” she said. “But every area is different and has to have the flexibility to solve the problem in its own way.”

Douglass said, “I think John Muir, the first president of the Sierra Club, would be surprised that they’re trying to lock everything up.”

Gorski and Clayton differed.

“I think the opinion around here is that the Forest Service is a bunch of sourpusses that don’t want any fun being had out there,” Gorski said. “It’s just that we have limited resources.

“We’ve scheduled a public workshop on mountain bicycles to give everybody an opportunity to come in and talk to us about what they’d like. There are a couple of great opportunities we’ve identified that we’d like to have designated as mountain bicycle trails to take the heat off another horse trail.”

Clayton: “Anything that is a legitimate use of the forest, we have to try to allow that to happen. Whether there is a solution, I’m not sure. We have not found one that would be equitable.”