Hi, All

I've read this article in dirt rag's access action, I think it's very well
written my Phillip Keyes.
I'd also like to give a Big thanks to Dirt Rag magazine for having this forum
in their magazine, way to go!

I have worked for years on trail advocacy but I'm kind of burnt out on it,
with my son needing my time. I have continued to lead volunteer trail work
parties in the Seattle area. Nothing helps our trail access like mt bikers
helping out the local trails with time and money.
This may be old news for some of you and I am kind of I'm a little out of the
loop.
For me, This article, kind of put together this issue in a nut shell.

How do you (The Mountain biker) see this issue? I see it as IMBA and many of
us razing the white flag and hoping for the best or the "If you can't beat
them join em". Way of thinking.



>
By: Philip Keyes


The Wilderness Paradox
Wilderness is tearing at the soul of mountain biking.

The Wilderness Act forces us to choose between protecting open space and
riding our bikes. In the name of environmental protection, it forces us to
lump mountain biking with the evils of mining, oil drilling and logging.
Wilderness forces us to see justice in allowing 1500 pound horses to chew
through Wilderness trails while our waffle prints are regarded as a scourge
of the Wilderness world.

Wilderness is not only renewing our age-old hostilities with the hiking
groups, but is pitting biker against biker in a high stakes inter-nacine
argument about the future of our passion. In the meantime, the Wilderness
juggernaut rolls on across the country.

Did they really mean bikes?
There's still debate about whether the 1964 Congress really intended bicycles
to be prohibited in Wilderness when they banned "other modes of mechanized
transport" from Wilderness areas.

IMBA's Gary Sprung and Jim Hasenauer argue that it wasn't Congress's
intention to prohibit bicycles in the original 1964 Wilderness Act. Sprung
and Hasenauer believe that the Act was intended to prevent future non-human
powered modes of transport that might come after combustible and electric
engines. Bicycles, they argue, weren't included until two decades later.

This is difficult to confirm because of the absence of a documented
legislative history about the Act, but it wasn't until 1984 under the Reagan
administration that the U.S. Forest Service explicitly listed bicycles in the
prohibition. Some bicycle advocates believe that this decision was made
behind closed doors under pressure from traditional hiking organizations like
the Sierra Club.

In a simple world, bikes could be exempted from the interpretation of
"mechanized transport" and cyclists would have little to worry about with any
existing or future Wilderness area. However, it's unlikely that the
politicians are going to be willing to revisit this, especially with the
increasing political clout of the Wilderness Coalitions. Hang gliders and
climbers who use anchor hooks are also out of luck.

The only game in town
Wilderness is a powerful legislative tool to protect open space forever. It's
congressionally sanctioned, widely understood by politicians and can be
simply plug-and-played. All that's needed is 5,000 acres of federal land and
some local political support. Sure, there are other ways to protect large
tracts of open space, but the time and energy needed to craft a new policy
that would cater to a few mountain bikers, hangliders and climbers makes it
unlikely.

Even though other models of open space protection have been bandied about
that are more recreationally friendly, no one has made much effort to get
congressional recognition of an alternative to Wilderness. Most Senators have
probably never heard of "National Conservation Areas," or of a "tiered
approach" to Wilderness that could allow for mechanized recreation on some
Wilderness lands.

For now, you either play the Wilderness game or fight it tooth and nail, and
given how fundamentally flawed Wilderness is, it's tempting to just cry foul.

But politics is as much about pragmatism as it is about idealism-and usually
pragmatism has the upper hand. The importance of being at the table-even if
you don't like the meal-is key. The fight over Wilderness in California is
raging, and even after IMBA held numerous meetings with the bill's sponsor,
Senator Barbara Boxer, over half the 2.5 million acres of proposed Wilderness
still includes popular mountain bike trails.

Did Senator Boxer stiff IMBA? Would the bill be even worse without IMBA's
negotiation? Tough to say.

But some California mountain bike advocates, such as the Warrior's Society,
are displeased with what they see as IMBA's strategy of appeasement with the
Wilderness folk. Draped in a mix of Native American political rhetoric, the
Warrior's Society doesn't want any sort of "treaty" and urges a mass mountain
bike rebellion against Boxer's bill. The Wilderness folk speak with forked
tongues, and the Warrior's Society urges mountain bikers to take a Last
Stand.

But while high on the idealism scale, last stands didn't produce many
positive results for Native Americans, and it's not hard to imagine a B-rate
movie sequel, Last of the Mountain Bikers, resulting from this zero-sum
gambit.

Not surprisingly, IMBA's recent announcement that they have signed on to a
new age of cooperation with Wilderness organizations has received a mixed
reaction from mountain bikers. The pragmatists see it as an opening to
positively affect Wilderness boundaries, engage in dialogue and salvage
important mountain bike trails. Others think IMBA is being duped by
environmental extremists who would just as soon see mountain bikes banished
from the planet.

Arizona advocate, Mark Flint, is one such critic who's opposed to
negotiation. According to Flint, "mountain bicyclists continually have access
threatened by Wilderness and people who call themselves environmentalists. To
join forces with them seems to me an exercise in futility; we have nothing to
gain and a lot of trails to lose. While IMBA sits at the table making nice
with Wilderness organizations, mountain bicyclists in Arizona, California,
Idaho, Oregon and Nevada are watching proposals that would kill their access
to trails."

Out of the fog of Wilderness, one thing is clear. The Wilderness paradox is
driving a wedge through the mountain bike community, pitting advocate against
advocate, and making it more difficult than ever to stand up to Wilderness
with any unified resolve. Conspiracy theorists might see this as part of a
Wilderness strategy to divide and conquer. However, it's more likely that we
are simply doing this to ourselves because of the difficulties we have in
getting our heads around Wilderness itself. It's time for someone-IMBA?-to
get all the different mountain bike viewpoints around a table, work out our
differences and find ways to develop a single plan and a single
front...before it's too late.
Phillip Keyes/ Dirt Rag
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-----------------------------------------

My views,
Frankly, I'm alarmed when people like well respected Mark Flint move away
from IMBA. I am not sure who's right, but who does?. I've always chosen to
fight and slow or stop wilderness any way I can, Philip may be right
alternatives to wilderness have and may NOT be accepted. What's in it for
them?
I know they have beaten us every time on these issues for well over a
decade, have they ever (Shared) an inch of trail?
They are powerful and well funded, they have federal judges that they bring
their wilderness proposals to, who are kind of green party types. "Look out"
when issues are brought to the San Francisco and Seattle Federal court.
Wilderness will win. I believe that in my state of Washington's the last
wilderness proposal was shot down in part by Idaho Republican senator.
I belive that all wilderness issues are relate nationwide, just when they
finish one new wilderness area, they can focus all there power/money on
another one. Just when you go along with them on one wilderness they move to
the next and this time it's on your favorite trail!

This statement is going to seem equally radical as my last. I think we
should make the wilderness proponents pay for All the cost of new wilderness
proposals. Why should the we have to pay for their private playground? We are
now paying fees to use national forest and now in Washington state park
trails.
Why hasn't IMBA used it's new legal defense fund to slow or stop the bleeding?
I guess they have raized the white flag and they are crossing their fingers.
See you on the trail!

Craig Mckinnon
Kirkland, Washington



[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]