The Pedal Wars : In Marin County, Where Mountain Biking Began, There are Speed Traps, Booby-Traps, Guerrilla Trails and a Decade’s Worth of Bad Blood Between Hikers and Bikers.

We are bouncing along on our mountain bikes, Joe Breeze and I, living the good life atop Mt. Tamalpais in the sylvan county of Marin. Our route is an old stagecoach track, a rocky dirt road that snakes along the uppermost wedge of the 2,600-foot peak locals call Mt. Tam. Far to the south, the San Francisco skyline pokes up through a ribbon of fog, an intoxicating sight. On our right, inches from our knobby tires, the mountain’s slopes fall steeply away, dense with a verdant mix of ferns, manzanita and scrub oak. Powered by bananas and a warm sun, Breeze and I are cruising.

We round a bend in sweaty silence, doing a mere 5, maybe 6 m.p.h., when we spot two hikers heading toward us on the road ahead--an older couple with canteens and walking sticks in hand. Breeze, the consummate bicycling gentleman, pilots his machine to the edge of the road, giving the walkers a wide berth. Then, as we draw near, he chirps a sunny hello.

The hikers flinch as if stung, and their expressions slump into scowls. As we roll slowly past, they set their jaws and stare straight ahead, marching forward with no word of reply.

Breeze is dejected, but, unlike me, not surprised. “Oh well,” he murmurs. With a glance over his shoulder, he pedals onward up the grade, his good time torpedoed, at least for now.

Joe Breeze is 40 years old, and the hair that sneaks out from beneath his bicycling helmet is more gray than brown. Almost 17 years ago, he built the world’s first successful mountain bike in his Marin County garage. He is shy, charming and as amiable as his name suggests--both on and off his bike. His friends in the all-terrain cycling world agree: There could be no better ambassador for their sport.

But to the hikers who just rebuffed his cheery greeting, Breeze is someone quite different, a person defined exclusively by the two-wheeled machine he chooses to ride. To them, Breeze is simply one more member of a loathsome breed--those reckless, Lycra-clad, adrenaline-addicted mountain bikers whose mass invasion of Mt. Tam has forever spoiled the serenity they once knew.

Martin Friedman, a Mill Valley potter, remembers how good it was before it got bad. Friedman, a sturdy 80, has been hiking the mountain that shadows his home for 50 years. “In the old days, one could walk along in a reverie, enjoying nature and the peace around you,” he says. “It was beautiful, completely tranquil. But now, with the bikes and the aggressive lot who ride them, one must be constantly on alert. You never know when one of these people will whiz past your ear and make you jump out of your skin.”

Conflicts over mountain biking are smoldering in almost every region where the explosively popular sport has taken root, from the red rock deserts of Utah to the Adirondacks in New York. Disagreement over where--and even whether--use of the bikes is appropriate in the nation’s parks and wildlands has carved a deep chasm among outdoorsy types. Deriding cyclists as thrill-seekers who disrupt the peace and leave environmental scars, the anti-bike forces would like bicycles banned, or at least tightly controlled. The bikers, calling hikers exclusionary elitists, claim their sport can be socially and ecologically responsible and want equal access to the backcountry.

Here in Marin--cradle of the mountain bike phenomenon and a county legendary for its “mellow” attitude--the quarreling is unparalleled, ripening over the years into an all-out turf war. The wins and losses in the battle for Mt. Tam’s trails echo in the debate wherever the two sides clash.

Bikers in Marin are on the defensive on many fronts. On the mountain, there are ugly confrontations, occasional acts of sabotage and rangers who use radar guns to ticket speeding cyclists. Down on the flatlands, the struggle is political. Permitted on fire roads but banned from narrower, more scenic trails, bikers have begun dueling for power on the assorted boards that set access rules for Marin’s exquisite--and increasingly crowded--open spaces.

On the fringe, meanwhile, lurks a group of ride-free-or-die bikers who have gone guerrilla. Vexed by their exclusion from the mountain’s footpaths, they simply built their own--snipping trees and molding earth to carve a clandestine 2.1-mile trail through a remote glen on public land.

They called it the New Paradigm Trail and posted a sign that summed up the frustration and hope of mountain bikers in Marin: “This trail was built by bicyclists knowing that someday it would be discovered. . . . If you can use it safely without damage, that fact will be much stronger than the theories and predictions used to justify the present rules. On the other hand, if we fail here, can you see what this means?

“Keep it secret. The fewer people that know about it, the longer we can enjoy it.”

I FIRST RODE A MOUNTAIN BIKE about three years ago, borrowing a friend’s old Specialized Stumpjumper for a quick spin up a fire road on Mt. Tam’s southern flank. Before long, I realized why this sport has revolutionized cycling. Unlike my skittish, skinny-tired Italian 14-speed, the mountain bike--with its upright handlebars, chubby tires, low gears and wider saddle--was actually comfortable. Better yet, as I pedaled effortlessly over rocks, tree roots and assorted other obstacles, an odd thing happened--I began to feel like a kid again, fearless, free and light of heart.

Apparently, many other people had made this discovery considerably earlier than I. In 1983, there were only 200,000 all-terrain bikes in use in the United States. Within a few years, however, the fever was raging, and today there are more than 30 million rolling around. In 1993, 90% of the 7.5 million bicycles sold to adults in the United States were mountain bikes or “hybrids,” which have skinnier tires but are still capable of going off-road. And, in a remarkable tribute to a sport that is less than 20 years old, mountain bike racing has just been approved as a medal sport in the 1996 Olympic Games.

Tim Blumenthal, executive director of the L.A.-based International Mountain Bicycling Assn., has given a lot of thought to what has made the mountain bike such a staggering success. Comfort, thrills and the “childlike joy” of riding are all part of the appeal, he believes. “But there is also the question of range, the fact that in this era, when we’re all so pressed for time, you can hop on your bike at a trail head and within 10 minutes not hear a horn or a siren or anything. You just can’t do that on foot.”

No single person can claim credit for the creation of the mountain bike. Instead, it evolved from a synthesis of ideas and experiences shared by a fraternity of shaggy Marin cyclists who never dreamed their exploits would fuel one of the most dramatic developments in bicycling history. As one pioneer, the still shaggy Charles Kelly, remembers: “We had no idea what we were on to. We were just fooling around.”

In the beginning, Kelly, Breeze and their cohorts--most of them members of a road-racing team called Velo Club Tamalpais--did their fooling around on the old balloon-tired, paperboy-style bicycles first introduced to the United States in 1933 by Ignaz Schwinn. In the early ‘60s, the ballooners, cursed by a single gear and a weight in excess of 55 pounds, were abandoned by most cyclists. A decade later, however, the Marin racers found the stability and rugged frames of the discarded relics ideal for bombing down the dirt slopes of Mt. Tam. Reborn for a new calling, the beefy bikes came to be known as “clunkers.”

Joe Breeze bought his first clunker, a 1941 Schwinn Excelsior, in the spring of 1974. The son of a Mill Valley man who was ridiculed for commuting to work by bike in the 1950s, Breeze was a top road racer, bicycle-frame builder and all-around cycling fanatic. Despite Marin’s formidable hills, he pedaled wherever he needed to go, waiting until age 26 to get his driver’s license. But his racing bikes, fancy and expensive as they were, couldn’t take Breeze into his own back yard--the wilds of Mt. Tam.

Then one day, while snooping around a cycling shop in Santa Cruz, he discovered the ancient Schwinn. “It was a rusting hulk, painted a thousand colors,” recalls Breeze, now a successful designer of high-end mountain bikes manufactured in Taiwan. “It looked like heck. The tires were shot. My friend said I should offer the guy five bucks for it, so I did.”

Breeze, who prized performance and efficiency in a bike, was doubtful that his new purchase would amount to much. But that night he tuned it up as best he could and stripped off the heavy fenders, rack, chain-guard and kickstand. The next day, he hitchhiked up Mt. Tam and took a ride that changed his life.

“I had an absolute blast,” says Breeze. “Almost instantly, I got this big smile on my face. The bike was real stable, and the tires absorbed a lot of shock.” As he rolled through the woods far from the concrete and clatter of civilization down below, “there was just this dawning that, ‘Hey, this bike can go places.’ ”

Some say that clunking might have remained an unrefined fringe sport if not for the Repack Downhill. The race, an underground affair held off and on from 1976 to 1984, was a time-trial staged over a twisting 2.1-mile course down one of the steepest dirt roads on Mt. Tam. It was dubbed Repack because the racers, whose protective garb included jeans, leather gloves and heavy boots but rarely helmets, had to repack the hubs of their smoking coaster brakes with grease after each banzai dash.

Aside from being good, semi-clean fun, Repack launched what Kelly, its promoter, calls “an arms race,” pushing each competitor to make a bike that would perform well over the grueling course. “Hardly anybody ever got a totally clean, nothing breaks, top-to-bottom run,” says Kelly, 48. “So we all started tinkering with the bikes, and Repack became like the field test for the equipment. It was that experimenting that kicked the technical end of the thing into gear.”

One of the biggest breakthroughs came from the Repack all-time course record-holder, Gary Fisher, who careened down the 1,300-foot drop in a blistering four minutes, 22 seconds. Fisher, one of the leading names in mountain bike design today, was the first Marinite to add multiple gears to his fat-tired Schwinn. Suddenly, the beloved clunker could not only be ridden down the mountain, but also could be easily pedaled back up.

In 1977, Breeze took the tinkering to a new level--building from the ground up what most experts consider the first successful, specially designed mountain bike. The Breezer No. 1, as it came to be called, weighed 38 pounds--far lighter than the original clunkers cobbled together from scavenged parts--and was a huge hit. Breeze quickly built nine more to meet an instant demand.

It didn’t take long for capitalistic instincts to kick in. Kelly and Fisher took the first crack, launching a tiny, seat-of-the-pants company called MountainBikes to sell the cycles of another Bay Area frame-builder, Tom Ritchey. Then the big boys got in on the act. In 1980, Morgan Hill-based Specialized Bicycle Components steered the mountain bike out of the tinkerers’ garages and into mass production, releasing about 750 of its Japanese-made, $800 Stumpjumpers.

To the chagrin of the Marinites, it is the Stumpjumper--and not one of their homespun creations--that sits in the Smithsonian today.

HANGING FROM THE REARVIEW MIRROR OF GORDON HASLER’S PATROL truck are a nice set of deer antlers, which bob up and down as we lumber up a rutted dirt road called Eldridge Grade. Hasler is a ranger for the Marin Municipal Water District, has been for 23 years. The district delivers drinking water to county residents and, as part of that job, manages 20,000 acres that encompass the heart of Mt. Tamalpais and the heart of the bikers versus hikers dispute.

As we bump along through a heavy mist, the sandy-haired Hasler, 43, reminisces about his early days in the olive green uniform. Back then, a ranger’s work was fulfilling and predictable, consisting mostly of fishing license enforcement, trail maintenance and guiding lost hikers. There were, of course, occasional hazards. In 1980, a mass murderer called the Trailside Killer terrorized the mountain, prompting rangers to begin packing side arms, and it was not uncommon to come across a panicky pot grower or some back-to-the woods weirdo. But as a rule, Hasler says, the biggest action a ranger got was busting the hippies who skinny-dipped in Phoenix Lake.

That all changed once the clunkers hit the scene. Today the district’s rangers devote nearly half their time to “mountain bike enforcement”--setting up speed traps, scraping bloody accident victims off the dirt, patrolling areas where cyclists are banned and trying to keep a testy peace.

Occasionally, says Hasler, relations between the two sides can get downright nasty. In one incident, someone scattered a load of roofing nails across two fire roads popular with bikers. More recently, a cyclist crossing a narrow gully flattened his tires and badly gouged his leg when he rode over a concealed plank with protruding nails.

And hikers have no shortage of anecdotes about run-ins with bikers who expect pedestrians to leap out of their way--and who might curse them if they don’t. “I haven’t been beaten up yet,” says Friedman, the potter, who lectures bikers he catches breaking the rules, “but it’s probably only a matter of time.”

I ask Hasler whether he enjoys playing referee, and he shakes his head, turning as gloomy as the weather. Bikers, he says, have “an attitude, acting like we’re persecuting them or something. Some of them get hostile when we give them tickets, and they give us a lot of verbal abuse.” As for the hikers, “they don’t like us either. They always complain that we’re not doing enough.”

Robert Badaracco, the water district’s manager of environmental resources, notes that the “recreational values” of bikers and hikers inevitably conflict. Just as “sailboaters cannot tolerate motorboaters, bait fishermen cannot abide fly fishermen,” he explains, “it’s the same thing here. One group goes up the mountain to commune with nature, and the other goes up to test their talents, endurance and machinery.”

The water district is officially neutral in the battle, but Badaracco believes hikers are being pushed off the mountain because bikers are making it impossible for them to enjoy their meanderings.

Partly because of that, the district has imposed speed limits on bikers and limited their range. While cyclists and hikers still mingle on the mountain’s fire roads, bikes have been forbidden on its extensive web of narrower paths, known hereabouts as single-track. The speed limit is 15 miles per hour--or 5 m.p.h. while passing and on blind curves--and those caught exceeding it get tickets. Expensive ones.

To catch scofflaws, rangers use radar units similar to those wielded by traffic cops. If bikers know they might be clocked around the next bend, the theory goes, they might think twice before letting up on the brakes.

On this wintry Saturday, it is Hasler’s turn for speed-trap duty. We meet another ranger, Larry Norall, near the mountain’s peak on a busy route called Railroad Grade. The men quickly assemble the battery-powered radar contraption at a bend in the road, and scan the slope above their post.

Seeing no one, the rangers take a moment to describe for me some of the bike wrecks they have witnessed during their careers on Mt. Tam. “We see some ugly stuff,” Hasler says with a grimace, “noses practically scraped right off, torn up ears and chins. They’ll be flying along and then wham, something goes wrong and they do a face plant.” Norall, 39, was impressed by one particularly gnarly smash-up: “This guy wound up looking like the alien from ‘The Predator.’ He was a real mess.”

Hasler sweeps his gaze back up the mountain and, after a moment or two, lets out a high-pitched yelp: “Here comes one! Oh jeez, this guy’s flying! Lock it in, Larry, lock it in!”

Norall obliges, and the radar makes a loud humming noise, a sign of high velocity. The machine’s digital readout confirms it, displaying 26 miles per hour.

Hasler steps into the road and holds up a hand, much like a school crossing-guard. The bikers--there are three of them, a man and two young women--stop. They look confused.

“Will you dismount from your bikes please,” Hasler says, all business.

“What’s going on? Were we speeding or something?” one asks.

“Yes, you were. May I have your names and addresses please?”

The bikers turn contrite (“I’m sorry, we didn’t realize there was a speed limit”) and then plaintive (“C’mon man, do you think this is really necessary? I always ride safe.”)

Norall and Hasler do not respond, wordlessly filling out the citations. Rangers hand out more than 200 tickets a year on Mt. Tam. They have heard it all before.

Undeterred, the male cyclist, Dan McCoy, tries to sway his captors with logic. “The whole idea of mountain biking,” he explains earnestly, “is to come up here and have fun. Adrenaline is part of that. You just can’t separate that out and have the same experience.”

Hasler does not appear sympathetic. “Look,” he says finally, handing McCoy the citation, “we’re just doing our job.”

Realizing they’re dead meat, the bikers turn bitter. “Well guys,” McCoy says scornfully as he remounts his bike, “you certainly deserve a raise. But remember, what goes around comes around.”

McCoy will be even more irate a week or two later. That’s when a notice will arrive, revealing his punishment--a $200 fine.

WATCHING THE MOUNTAIN BIKE MOVEMENT BLOSSOM THROUGH THE 1980s, the charter members of the clunker gang expected their invention to be greeted with universal appreciation in eco-obsessed Marin. They had, after all, cooked up a user-friendly, non-polluting product suitable not just for recreation, but for errands and commuting as well. Who could oppose such a thing?

Early on, their expectations were fulfilled. “It was all very polite at first,” says Breeze, remembering hiker reactions that ranged from curiosity to admiration. “Usually the comment was, ‘Say, what a novel way to get around.’ ” But as the bikes multiplied, conflicts inevitably arose, and the warm feelings faded.

As early as the late 1970s, the water district realized a feud was brewing on Mt. Tam. By 1984, the district had banned bikes from single-track trails, established speed limits, increased ranger patrols, posted closure signs and printed maps and regulations for distribution at bike shops. Three years later, fines were increased. Radar units were added in 1989 and a push for tougher restrictions is now afoot.

The water district’s rules also are designed to guard against environmental harm. Though studies have shown that the bikes’ aggressive treads do roughly the same amount of damage to trails as hiking boots--and far less than horse hoofs--district officials say bikes can crush vegetation and cause erosion, particularly if cyclists stray onto fragile side slopes.

Members of the clunker crowd say they do not object to regulations, but believe that they have gone too far. In the beginning, they concede, mountain biking was a gonzo pursuit. That tone was set by the Repack Downhill, and perpetuated by the mountain bike industry, whose advertisements often emphasized the most radical, daring aspects of the sport.

As conflicts surfaced, leaders of the mountain bike community sought to rein in offensive behavior, emphasizing safety, manners and courteous cycling. Bikers have conducted volunteer patrols to crack down on speed freaks and spread the word about trail etiquette. And the Bicycle Trails Council of Marin offers free classes to teach rookies technique and the rules of the road.

Despite such work, there remain some bad apples on bikes. Cyclists concede that point, but insist that they are the few, and that their misdeeds--and stereotypes of the past--have led to the persecution of the many. “Every group has its undesirables, and mountain biking is no exception,” says Jim Jacobsen, president of the Bicycle Trails Council. “But we don’t ban cigarettes because of arsonists. What has happened here is a total overreaction. Instead of treating us like the enemy, why don’t the hikers realize we have much in common and appreciate the gains that we’ve made?”

Scott Waterman, 30, is flesh-and-bones proof of the maturation of mountain biking in Marin. I meet him at the West Point Inn, a rustic lodge on the old railroad line that now serves as the unofficial crossroads of Mt. Tam. There are perhaps three dozen bikers--plus a handful of hikers--gathered there on this day, but Waterman stands out. Swathed in a Day-Glo yellow windbreaker, he wears a bandanna bearing Goofy, of Disney fame, on his head, which is bobbing in time to melodies from his Walkman.

Waterman is a plumbing contractor, and he has agreed to share with me his personal evolution from down-and-dirty mountain bike daredevil to (mostly) responsible rider. First, however, he must show off his new bike, a purple, carbon fiber Giant Cadex. He’s invested $1,400 in the svelte beauty and a handful of expensive options, including extra-strong Ringle Super Bubba hubs. “This bike,” he says with the elation of a proud new father, “is bitchin’.”

That settled, Waterman begins his tale, admitting that in his youth he was the archetypal Hiker’s Nemesis. Sure of his skill and fearful of nothing, he blazed down Mt. Tam’s trails and fire roads without a thought to what might lie ahead.

“In the early days, we’d just fly down, and I probably ran over five or six people, plus a few of my best friends. I didn’t mean to, but I’d get in a power slide and, you know, just scoop ‘em up, like a cowcatcher.”

Waterman’s metamorphosis began with accidents--stitches in a knee, a broken shoulder, that kind of thing. Then came marriage, fears of getting sued and “old age.”

He was also moved, moreover, by the chorus of safety messages echoing around Marin, and by the realization that Mt. Tam had simply become too crowded for wild riding. And so, while he usually does not obey the speed limits--”nobody does”--Waterman does descend with caution, slowing at curves and when approaching those on foot. The hikers, he says, “have a right to enjoy themselves too.”

And how about the thrills and spills of bygone days? Does he miss them?

“No way,” he replies with a grin. “Now I’m into paragliding.”

I HAVE COME TO THE WOODSY TOWN OF FAIRFAX TO TALK WITH JACQUIE Phelan, the three-time national champion mountain bike racer, and her husband, custom bike designer Charlie Cunningham. We meet at their funky home, a place they call Offhand Manor, nestled near the base of Mt. Tam.

Phelan, 38, is serving tea and cookies in a cluttered parlor, which is at once a headquarters for their greatest passion--the fight for mountain biker rights--and a home for their three pet rats. As one of them, the well-fed Auguste Rodent, scurries about on the sofa, Phelan fills my teacup and talks at a pace just shy of supersonic:

“The power elite just doesn’t get it, and that’s the real irony of this whole thing. The mountain bike could be such a profound answer for so many of our social problems--transportation, physical health, emotional well-being, ennui. But they act as if bikes are the harbingers of some kind of mechanical doom. The intense hate they feel for us has obscured the benefits of this creation.”

Phelan and Cunningham, who get nearly everywhere on pedal power, supply much of the steam behind the mountain bikers’ crusade. In past years, this dynamic duo has staged rallies against trail closures and Cunningham has served on boards advising decision-makers on the use of open space. Those approaches, Cunningham says, “got us absolutely nowhere,” so now he is pushing a petition asking the water district and other Marin land managers to make mountain bikers’ opportunities equal to those of hikers and equestrians. Phelan’s methods are less conventional. In 1986, she founded a group called the Women’s Mountain Bike & Tea Society, or WOMBATS, whose members now number more than 900. WOMBATS is part movable party, part girl-biker cult, part cycling seminar and part political action committee. One of its many aims is to make bikers so careful, courteous and lovable that they will simply melt the hikers’ hearts.

Like their soul-mates in other corners of the country, the Marin bikers’ biggest beef is the cycling ban on single-track trails. These narrow pathways require balance and technical skills much different from those needed to roar down a fire road. “The wonderful thing about single-track,” says Cunningham, 45, “is you have a very intimate relationship with the land, because you’re close to the trees and the earth. It also demands qualities like timing, coordination and balance, and it’s very relaxing and meditative after a hard day’s work.”

The water district contends that mixing hikers and bikers on narrow paths would be dangerous, but cyclists, citing the experience of states such as Colorado, Arizona and Connecticut, insist that the two can blend with success. Short of that, they wonder why some other compromise on single-track access could not be struck: “If they would just throw us a bone, just give us one trail or one day, say, Tuesday, then we’d shut up and go on our way,” Phelan says. “We throw out these ideas, searching for some middle ground, but we get nothing in response, nothing. So we’ll just have to outlive them.”

There are those, however, who are not content to wait. Marin’s “repressive policies,” says Cunningham, have turned some bikers into outlaws: Many see little reason to obey rules they consider unjust. Some risk fines and hikers’ scorn by speeding and riding on single-track trails. Others use high-powered lights to indulge in the latest burr under the water district’s saddle--night riding. But the most notable example of mountain biker backlash to date has to be the construction of the New Paradigm Trail.

The trail’s creators wish to remain anonymous; after all, the water district would love to solve what may be Marin’s most mysterious environmental crime. The only publicly available clues come from the sign found at the trail head beneath a canopy of bay trees outside Fairfax. Building the New Paradigm, it claimed, required 2,850 hours of labor over three years.

A shaded serpentine path slicing through huckleberry bushes, the trail was discovered last year by a naturalist in the water district’s most remote reaches. Outraged district officials have portrayed it as a miniature freeway, reporting that more than 200 small trees were cut to build it. Cyclists call that number ludicrous, and say the trail was designed with sensitivity for surrounding foliage and contoured to prevent erosion.

The pathway was intended, its builders said, as a sort of demonstration project, offering bikers a chance to show critics that they could create a quality single-track trail and use it without environmental damage. But because the trail was secret, bikers who rode it never met their enemy. Its use, therefore, shed no new light on the most divisive issue--hiker/biker relations. But in at least one area--environmental impact--a neutral observer, a map maker who has hiked extensively in Marin, thinks the cyclists proved their point: The trail, he says, was thoughtfully designed and as well built as most on Mt. Tam.

No matter; the New Paradigm Trail backfired. Its illegality and encroachment on territory frequented by mountain lions and the northern spotted owl, fueled anti-biking forces. “It was an act of vandalism, a scarring of the land,” says Jeff Golden, 41, a Mill Valley attorney and Sierra Club hike leader. “They wanted their own private playground, so they went in there, to this pristine place and just took it over. These people seem to think they have special rights.”

Immediately after the trail’s discovery, the water district attempted to trap its builders, hiding surveillance cameras in the woods. Nine riders were caught on film, but identifying them proved impossible. As chief ranger Casey May says, “When they’re dressed up in Spandex, they all look alike.”

So one Saturday last fall, the infamous trail was obliterated, allowing the hikers a measure of revenge. Teaming up with the Marin Conservation Corps, 50 volunteers, including major biking foes, ripped up the pathway’s rocky drainage crossings. They scattered leaves and logs along the terraced trail bed and reseeded the area with perennial grasses. Badaracco, the water district’s environmental chief, rewarded the crew with high praise: “It was a yeoman’s effort,” he says. “The New Paradigm Trail no longer exists.”

The war on Mt. Tam is legendary in the mountain biking world, and lessons learned from it shape biker behavior wherever conflicts arise: Volunteer crews work with rangers to maintain trails, and cyclists lobby early and hard at the first hint of restrictions. Most important, though, the message that politeness is essential is sinking in. In Southern California, at least, the work is paying off: tensions are easing, compromises are being struck.

But in Marin, bitterness still fills the air, and the New Paradigm Trail, it seems, has become a sort of Alamo for its bikers. In February, some of the original clunker guys joined with new biker allies to produce T-shirts saluting the “New Paradigm Construction Crew” for its commitment to “trail-sharing based on tolerance and mutual respect.” On the back is a picture of Mt. Tam. On the front is this message: “We have a dream.”

Every new batch has sold out within days.