Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Stay off the D*$% trails!

This was really upsetting to me - the Valmont bike park has to be closed to the public because of damage to the trails caused by people riding/running/etc on them in the wet/snow/mud.

Here's the thing (and I see this all the time at lots of other parks and trails as well) - in Colorado, if the soil is wet, being on the trails is going to trash them. Going around the muddy bits (always popular as well) will also trash them. And usually, your drivetrain and brakes will get mangled pretty well in the process.

So it baffles me when I see cars with bikes turning into the Marshall Mesa parking lot on a sunny 55 degree day after a big snowstorm, when everyone with half a brain is out for a road ride. Why does anyone think that riding in slush and mud is a good idea?

Feh. At this point, I'm all for closing any trail that's muddy, and handing out $500 tickets (or maybe impounding bikes?) for violations. At the rate things are going, there won't be anything but rutted-out triple-track to ride around here after the winter mud morons get done with it.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Make them ride with slicks-completely bald tires!

Anonymous said...

Before I knew what it really did to the trail, I was clothes lined as a kid by someone wanting people to stay off of wet areas. I was about 8-10 years old. Came down a big hill and was ripped off my bike by my neck from a piece of nylon twine. Needless to say, it was quite effective at keeping me off wet trails from that point on! :) -Brad

18Bikes said...

I'm amazed that you manage to stay off wet trails, if we did that we'd never ride! I'm starting to understand why mud clearance isn't such an issue in the USofA.

Matt

muddytrail said...

Well said Matt - sounds like normal uk riding for 6 months of the year :-)

NickS said...

Yeh, I'm Welsh and know a thing or two about riding in mud and rain, but now live in boulder and ride on the WW dream team. The conditions in the uk are nothing like the front range in Colorado. Totally different soil. If we had this type of soil in the uk we would never ride off road. Way way too much damage to the environment and ecosystem. It would never recover.

Walt said...

Yeah, if you leave tire tracks in mud here, they stay for the entire season, and channel water down that erodes them even more - until you've got a giant trench. Clay sucks!

Anonymous said...

Good call.

I did the Gold Hill Loop yesterday, and was quite pleased to see more bikes on it than cars! A great winter ride. (Or run :-)