Motos Tear Up Round MountainWhile riding Round Mountain a few days ago, I yet again encountered motorcycles illegally riding non-motorized trails. This time it was the Up-and-Over Trail near Trailhead Road. These people roared off before I could confront them. Sigh. Like many others, I am becoming really tired of seeing shredded trailbeds due to illegal moto usage on local trails.
As part of our spring trailwork, I would like to propose to the BLM that BONC erect some kind of moto obstacles and signage on these trails on and near Round Mountain. I realize that such actions are not going to stop the least considerate moto heads, but it might deter others. Right now, it is too easy for these people to assume that it is OK to go off and tear up sensitive trailbeds.
2 comments:
Hate to say it but reading this post about bikers complaining about motos sounds like the same arguments that hikers say about bikers. It's too bad that we have to worry about a dominant species on the trail food chain. ;-)
When I visited Arcata last summer, there was a huge problem with illegal moto riding on the same trails that bikes were riding. Both bikes and motos on the land were illegal and the motos blazed the trails that the bikers would ride.
According to a friend, the land manager didn't have a big problem with the bikers but they wanted to keep the motos off the land so they did some extreme "invasive species" management. They plowed some of the single track into 12 foot wide dirt roads. They felled about 3-4 medium sized trees across a choke point and situated the trees so that they were about 2-3 feet above the ground - too difficult for a moto to go over or under. You could get around these obstacles with bikes but it definitely interrupted the flow.
These tactics used heavy machinery and was done on private land.
Wow, that is a terrible approach to the problem. Save the trails by completely destroying them. I am hoping that we can have some balance on Round Mountain. Some community awareness of the problem and some signage may do the trick.
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