I wrote this story because I noticed a problem. I believe there is an issue starting with the misuse and underappreciation of a parcel of roughly 2700 acres of land in the East Bay of California. I want to mountain bike in this area, but despite a great interest from members of the community, mountain biking has many restrictions here. I became aware of this issue, and the more I thought of it, the more sure I became that something needed to change. This issue then led to me to think about it in an even broader sense. It had me rethinking our nation’s public land, and eventually led to the formation of the question: are we using our nation’s public land to the best of our ability?
In June of 1974, the citizens of Walnut Creek purchased 2500…show more content… Some people have a deep hatred towards mountain biking. They believe that mountain bikers are disrespectful and don’t do anything other than scare hikers, tear up existing trails, and form new ones. This has caused a debate as to if and how mountain bikers should be allowed to ride in public places.
An area known as Lime Ridge allows mountain bikes, but with some stipulations. They can only be ridden on trails at least 8 feet wide, and must be ridden under 15 miles per hour. People who don’t mountain bike might not understand how tight those restraints actually are. If bikers obey these rules, they will be slowly riding up cracked, dry, boring trails, as they pass wonderful single track trails on both sides that are illegal for bikers to utilize currently.
Now this wouldn’t be all that bad if Lime Ridge were packed with hikers, and the single track was being used by them, but that is just not the case. There are very few hikers in Lime Ridge, and the number of mountain bikers greatly outweighs the number of hikers. Most of the hikers utilize the 8 foot wide trails, “fire roads”, and don’t use the single track trails. This means that mountain bikers are forced to stay on trails that they prefer not to ride on, while the trails they desire to ride are not being utilized to their full
