Battle of the Bikes : Nature: Hikers and environmentalists gather in Marin County’s isolated mountains--a protected watershed--to attempt to repair damage they say bicyclists have caused.

FAIRFAX, Calif.--In the isolated mountains of Marin County, blond bluffs are spottedwith patches of vibrant foliage. Pacific coast fog crawls over the peaks while hawks sketch languid circles above the valleys.

It is perhaps the closest you can come to wilderness in the San Francisco Bay area, and it provides an unlikely battleground for two groups not commonly thought of as foes: hikers and bicyclists.

A group of hiking enthusiasts and environmentalists gathered one recent weekend in a protected watershed in the Marin Municipal Water District.

They weren’t assembled to savor nature.

They gathered to repair damage they say mountain bikers have caused.

An illegal two-mile, single-lane bike track was discovered earlier this year. Mountain bikers are allowed to use more than 90 miles of fire roads, but venturing off established paths, or creating new ones, is forbidden.

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“They’ve destroyed the seriousness, quiet, beauty and solitude of this place,” said 80-year-old Martin Friedman, who has hiked in this area for 40 years.

It was a treacherous path, but well built and groomed.

The bikers who cleared it were careful, felling trees and molding the earth into narrow ledges. A sign says it took almost 3,000 hours and more than three years to create.

Cyclists dubbed it New Paradigm Trail.

New Paradigm wasn’t the first illegal mountain bike trail in the area, but it may have been the longest.

It also became a symbol for mountain bicyclists, who want more access to areas where they can practice their sport, and hikers who say bicyclists are disturbing them and nature.

The battle is turning ugly.

Bikers accuse hikers of being old and rigid. Hikers say bikers are renegade punks.

It also is getting dangerous.

District rangers said the New Paradigm was booby-trapped with logs rigged to tumble down the narrow path.

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The Bicycle Trails Council of Marin, which fights for access to public land while providing services like trail maintenance and tours, is involved in a lawsuit seeking more access to the nearby Golden Gate National Recreational Area.

Park Service rules imposed earlier this year restricted bikers from using about one-third of the area’s 74 miles of trails.

Terry Houlihan, an attorney for groups protesting the new restrictions, said trails apparently were closed without any determination of the recreational needs of visitors to the area, including bicyclists.

Jim Jacobson of the 800-member BTC says Marin County seems to be the focus of such battles, probably because of the area’s long history of environmental activism.

“It seems like there’s some environmentalists trying to maintain what Marin once was. They’re immune to change,” he said.

“Most people on all sides of this issue accept everyone. The vast majority get along. But then there are some hikers who snarl as you pass by,” Jacobson added. “On the opposite side there are some bicyclists who are rude and inconsiderate.”

The battles over public trails and access aren’t limited to Marin.

For example, the Canadian Parks Service fines bicyclists who use hiking paths in Banff, and parts of Adirondack Park in New York are off-limits to mountain bikers.

Jeff Golden, who refers to mountain bikes as “machines,” surveyed the environmental damage done while creating the New Paradigm.

More than 200 trees--some up to 50 feet tall--were cut, he said.

He pointed out that whoever created the trail committed a felony by destroying public property.

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“They did this all so they could have a private playground on public property,” said Golden, who works with the Bay Area Trails Preservation Council.

It was created, in part, to limit single-track trails to hikers and horses.

Environmentalists and hikers maintain that bicyclists damage ecosystems by creating new single-track trails and using existing ones.

They cite the tree cutting and earth movement.

They also say it’s dangerous. A hiker on a single-track trail is vulnerable to injury by a speeding bicyclist.

Golden insists he’s not against mountain bikes.

“I like to do it myself, it’s fun,” he said as he and about 45 others hauled tree branches over the New Paradigm and planted seed in an effort to raze the trail.

Joe Nation, on the water district’s board of directors, aided in the effort to conceal the trail.

He’s not against mountain biking either, but says: “The nature must come first.”

It is unclear what environmental impact the New Paradigm trail had on the water district’s land, which affects the county’s water supply.

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The battle between hikers and bikers surrounding the New Paradigm could continue. The trail council and other groups raised money to have the New Paradigm professionally covered.

A crew worked on the project and the water district erected signs forbidding bicycles.

But bikers returned, upending signs and clearing the path.

Jacobson theorized that more environmental damage was caused by efforts to get rid of the New Paradigm.

BTC does not condone lawlessness, and denies helping create the trail.

Golden said he wants it all to end.

“I feel mad that they’ve done this,” he said as he made his way along the New Paradigm on a warm fall morning. “They’ve destroyed public property. My property.”