Mountain Bikers Patrol Their Own on the Trails

The biker was cranking hard along a shady fire road toward a pair of older riders in Point Mugu State Park’s Sycamore Canyon.

A slight swerve by one of the slow riders forced the young man to sharply maneuver his 18-speed mountain bike off the road and back on. He pedaled away without a word.

But Mark Langton, coordinator of a group of mountain bikers who patrol Santa Monica Mountains park areas, saw the incident and caught up with the speeding biker.

“You’re in Sycamore Canyon, and you have to mellow out,” Langton told the bicyclist. “You can’t ride that way here.”

Operating on fire roads and trails in a number of popular biking areas since late December, the 25 volunteer members of the Van Nuys-based Mountain Bike Unit hope that their presence will serve to moderate the sometimes dangerous behavior of thrill-seeking fellow riders.

The patrol’s members, who underwent extensive National Park Service training, want to be ambassadors for their sport. They want to calm the fears of hikers and equestrians who see mountain bikers as a safety threat.

They hope to demonstrate that mountain bikers also cherish the natural beauty of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Formerly unregulated, many trails have been closed to bikers in recent years amid concerns by hikers about safety, trail damage and destruction of wilderness calm.

By improving the image of mountain bikers, members of the patrol units and the Concerned Off-Road Bicyclists Assn.--the patrols’ parent organization--hope to regain access to back-country trails. Although substantial barriers remain to achieving that goal, CORBA has won some converts during its 18 months of existence.

“We have, if nothing else, put a face on the mountain bike riding community,” said Langton, an editor at a Woodland Hills-based off-road biking magazine and a member of CORBA.

“The attitude and the climate toward mountain bikers has improved. We’re not faceless marauders. We’re a group of individuals . . . concerned about the environment as well as with enjoying the aesthetics of the area.”

Indeed, partly as a result of CORBA’s efforts, the Santa Monica Mountains Trails Council, a longtime opponent of mountain bikers, has endorsed opening three trails to the bicyclists.

In addition, the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy plans to supply equipment for CORBA to expand its patrols into conservancy territory, and CORBA intends to recruit additional volunteers. The expansion would be a prelude to giving bikers access to most of the roads and trails on conservancy property, a conservancy official said.

“Their presence in our parks is good for their image, and our image,” said Carolyn Barr, a project analyst for the conservancy, a state agency that acquires and manages parkland in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The patrol units can “explain to people why they need to be polite,” Barr said. If mountain bikers behave irresponsibly, other groups will question their presence in the back country, she said.

Even though the state Department of Parks and Recreation and the National Park Service--which together control 56,000 acres in the mountains--welcome the bike patrols, each has strict limits on where bikes can go. Essentially, the agencies allow bikes only on fire roads.

A state parks department policy, which became effective in January, allows district park superintendents to grant exceptions to the restrictions.

The problem, said several longtime Santa Monica Mountains hikers, is not the behavior of mountain bikers, but the sheer numbers of them. Practically unknown five years ago, riders of the durable, fat-tired, multispeed bicycles have become the largest and the fastest-growing recreation group in the mountains, parks officials said.

A ranger in Point Mugu State Park, one of the most popular biking areas, recently counted 700 bikers in Sycamore Canyon during a single day. Also popular are Malibu Creek State Park, Topanga Canyon State Park and trails in the Cheeseboro Canyon area.

“We’re the newest, fastest-growing user group out there and that isn’t making the other two groups very happy,” said Peter Heumann, a Woodland Hills bike rider who helped form CORBA. The other major groups are equestrians and hikers. “They don’t see us as legitimate back-country users. They see us invading their privacy.”

The CORBA patrols, modeled after the Mounted Assist Units organized by equestrian groups, have been trained by the National Park Service to give first aid and cardiopulmonary resuscitation and to keep their unofficial standing in mind when dealing with the public. The two-person bike patrols are equipped with emergency radios, first-aid kits, repair kits and maps.

No Official Power

Patrol members stressed that they have no power to enforce laws; they can only remind park users of rules and provide directions, maps, advice or emergency water. On a recent patrol that Langton said was typical, he helped repair a bicyclist’s gears, informed someone clutching a bouquet of wildflowers that picking flowers is against the law, advised another visitor that dogs are not allowed in the park and reprimanded a fellow biker for riding too fast.

“It’s not that you should never go fast, but you should always be in control of yourself,” Langton said. “There are plenty of places you can go flat out, with no regard for people going slow.”

But, he said, Sycamore Canyon, which stretches in a sometimes steep slope from Newbury Park to the Pacific Coast Highway, is not one of them. That message seems to be getting out.

“Most mountain bikers we encounter any more are courteous and they either slow down or stop for horsemen,” said Ralph Bauer of Chatsworth, an equestrian who recently encountered one of the CORBA patrols in Sycamore Canyon.

“There are only so many trails, and we know we have to share them,” added his wife, Elodie Bauer. “If we don’t all work together, we’re going to lose these trails.”

“I’m impressed by their zeal and their sincerity,” Dan Preece, Santa Monica Mountains state park district superintendent, said of CORBA members.

But issues remain, he said. “We are determined to keep an open mind, but basically we have been concerned by the things we’ve seen on the trails with bikes.”

Complaints Continue

Hikers and bikers are often injured in collisions, he said, although he could supply no statistics. And park rangers continue to hear complaints about speeding bikers. “Our concern is that bicycles do move down steep inclines at a high rate of speed in silence, so there is very little warning,” he said.

Preece said he also worries about the difficulty of enforcing any policy change that opens some state park trails while keeping others closed.

Ron Webster, who builds trails in the Santa Monicas for the Sierra Club and the conservancy, once praised CORBA’s efforts. But he had a change of heart when, on a recent hike, a large number of bikers peddled past and he felt besieged.

“I go into the parks, personally, for peace and solitude,” he said. “I felt they were seriously infringing on my ability to enjoy the parks in that way.”

Consequently, he said, he will urge that all state parks, including their fire roads, be off limits to bicycles.

But Linda Palmer, president of the Santa Monica Trails Council, plans to support the reopening of three trails for use by bikers: the Bent Arrow Trail in Topanga State Park; the Yearling Trail at the Reagan Ranch in Malibu Creek State Park and the La Jolla Loop Trail near the western end of the Santa Monicas. Palmer said the trails council’s stand is a departure from past positions. She said the change “is probably a good deal due to CORBA’s educational efforts.

“The mountain bicycles are probably with us to stay, and it is such a large user group that they do need places to ride,” she said. “It is a legitimate recreational pursuit, and there must be a way of working it out.”