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Fwd: [RC] multi-use trails - Karen SullivanOn 10/23/08, D'Arcy Demianoff-Thompson <cest.mon.virage@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: I do a considerable amount of riding atSly Park in Placerville, CA. Those trails are dirt bike and horse back trails. Some of them are separate from each other. The horse trails are wider with less ruts.D'Arcy, Very interesting as one of the unsafest multi-use singletrack trails I have been on was at Sly Park!! It was also one of the few places I have been dumped. I was there with a friend, who did not mention it was a trail shared with bikes, and I saw no signs entering the trail.. The trail was both very narrow, and very overgrown..so I rode down it having no idea there might be bikes coming at us....although I don't ride down trails in fear of what I might come across, and generally my horse is pretty accepting of hikers and bikes, this was NOT a resaonable trail to have a FASTER user on!!! We came around a corner to a guy on a bike with a dog at his side...and my horse did an exit right, hurling me off to the side. In this case, the biker was not at fault, just bad timing. However, not 10 minutes later a biker came screaming down a hill toward me...and I did have time to request he slow down (screaching of brakes and skidding, which damages the trail).and my horse did keep her cool....anyway, THAT incident was a very clear indication that this trail was NOT approppriate for bikes and horses!! The area i rode in was very treed, with a lot of bushes and bad visibility....again, not safe, and if not me on the horse, it could be the young mother iwth a baby on her back who gets run into.....clearly a trail that needs to have a SPEED LIMIT, or not allow bikes!, or REALLY clear bushes back to at least 50 feet visibility!! Other parts of the park seemed to have wider dirt roads, which WOULD have been more appropriate for mixed use. Will I ride those trails again? Probably not...just not safe and certainly not enjoyable to always be worrying about a bike coming around the corner too fast.... Then again, if you ride the trails regularly, you probaby know which days are less busy and safer to ride. We have a State Demonstration Forest that has seen increased mountain bike use. The Forest manager has stated all trails must meet safe multi-use criteria, and the bike advocates insist they meet IMBA criteria..which is just absurd, as many trails have 0 visibility, are very narrow with no place to move off the trail. I have been going up periodically and whapping back the branches and bushes, which has helped some. There are also no speed limits on bikes, which is extremely unsafe.....the time I almost got hit I was jogging!!! Tight, narrow trails, lack of visibility and the speed the bikes go (they have "downhill" unofficial races) make it a pretty risky place to ride, and a lot of horseback riders just don't go there on weekends anymore... It has become a situation where one user group is basically running off another....and unless the horseback community stands up, fights for safe trails and trail condition, and PITCHES in with helping to maintain those trails and insist on safe multi-use trail rules, we WILL lose access.... May not be a popular opinion, but certainly backed up with my riding experiences, accident reports, trail user conflict reports and some basic common sense... Karen Karen =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
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