The Wheelhouse Blog

Some jerk decided to ride a bike on the Walnut Trail on Feb. 24 when the day was nice and warm. The trail is actually under the snow to the right of the tracks, but as you can see, that fact didn't stop Jerk Face from riding off trail and creating a nice rut outside of the trail bed. Nice work, asshole!

It never fails this time of year. Some biking “fanatic” wakes up one morning, glances at him- or herself in the mirror, notices his burgeoning man tits or that her muffin top is spilling over the waistband of her underpants, and decides that they’re getting too fat to put off riding any longer. Nothing good can come from this.

The sun’s out, the trails are just starting to clear of snow and ice, so the biking “fanatic” grabs the old mountain bike and starts slogging along the trails, through the mud, riding off trail because it’s too muddy, and then abandoning ship entirely and pointing the bike overland back toward home because the mud is just so stupid thick that riding is impossible. Nevertheless, the damage to the trails is already done and the rest of us have to put up with the ruts until late July and, even worse, with the consequent trail widening and erosion for the rest of our lives.

Of course, the “fanatics” out there rationalize their behavior with the old “hikers-do just-as-much-damage” line, or with weak arguments that ruts are actually somehow good for the trails and that studies have shown that riding in the mud is no worse than riding when it’s dry.

Bullshit! Riding in the mud is just plain selfish and wrong. Stop doing it!

I know this to be true because I have witnessed the gradual widening and degradation of the really nice trail we have near our home. We walk it twice a day, generally without fail. When we first moved in, the trail was very narrow—six to nine inches wide in the areas of sweetest singletrack. Now some of those areas are 18 to 24 inches wide and there are parts of the trail that have been widened to 3 feet in some areas where people consistently detour around the wet areas. There was a time not too long ago when the old Perimeter trail was pretty narrow. Now huge swaths have been closed off and re-routed because of damage. Deer and Coyote don’t widen trails. Human beings widen trails. That’s because we are a bad animal for the most part. Being selfish and opportunistic is part of our nature. We can’t help it. Being assholes is part of our genetic makeup.

Last summer some new kid with flaming red hair and a face like a parasitic worm was regularly abusing the local trails on the big, fancy downhill bike that his daddy had bought him, taking every corner wide and going off trail whenever he was riding too fast to stay inside the lines. His aggressive riding was carving farther and farther into the grass, so we started taking action by choking down the trail in key sections. The red-headed rat retaliated by tossing all of our repairs back into the woods. We reiterated our position against wider trails by putting everything back. Eventually Fluke-Boy, as he came to be known to us, started riding in control and our little stretch of neighborhood singletrack stayed single despite last year’s horrific drought conditions. I’m dreading the thaw, however, because I know Fluke-Boy will be back with a vengeance, carving huge ruts in the trail with his knobby downhill tires and general disregard for anything other than his own speed. Hopefully he has no friends—or at least friends with bikes….

There was a time several years ago when I believed mountain bikes should be allowed in Wilderness areas. I don’t believe that anymore, not by any stretch of the imagination, mostly because every spring I see the deep ruts and widening trails in non-wilderness areas. Sadly, cyclists are their own worst enemies. For every 10 cyclists who follow the rules, there is one who doesn’t. They leave the ruts in the trails, they run the stop signs, they run down hikers or weave in and out of traffic. They are lousy ambassadors for our sport. I have been them sometimes. I’m as guilty as everyone else.

Unfortunately it’s the bad moments that are the most memorable to those outside the fold of cycling.

After deciding that the trail was just too muddy and snowy, and that riding alongside the trail was no longer an option, the "Fanatic" apparently rode through the woods off trail to get back to a road. Nice.

If bikes are allowed in Wilderness areas, we will no doubt see the gradual wholesale destruction of wilderness areas by poorly behaved cyclists. I no longer believe bikes belong…everywhere. I think they should be allowed in a lot of places, but we need bikes in wilderness like we need more ticks with Lyme Disease. Quite frankly, I hope there are lots of places where bikes will never be allowed to go. This belief has helped erode my previous support for IMBA—mostly because of IMBA’s hardline stance that bikes should be allowed in wilderness areas. While I understand that IMBA’s position makes them appear heroic to mountain bike riders and helps maintain a constant stream of membership funding, I also understand now that IMBA’s position is short-sighted, based on the Pollyanna-ish belief that cyclists can be counted on to do the right thing if we would only wish hard enough that it were so.

It’s a nice sentiment, but it, too, is bullshit. The only thing you can count on is that some cyclist is going to think that he or she deserves to ride no matter the conditions or season, so they will be out messing up the wilderness while asserting “their rights.”

While I’m certain my ramblings here may cost me some business from the handful of I’ll-Ride-Whenever-and-Wherever-I-Want militant assholes out there on bikes, truth be told, I’d rather have sweet, narrow singletrack and unspoiled wilderness areas than business from militant assholes anyway, thank you very much.

For those of you out there worrying about your muffin tops and man tits, this is a great time of year to find some kind of cross-training activity that will keep you fit and complement your riding later on in the spring when it’s warm and dry. It’s also a great time of year to bring your bike in for some deferred or basic maintenance needs. Riding season hasn’t started yet, but it will soon. Don’t be caught with flat tires or a groaning drive train on the first good day of riding. Check out the Service Menu at Little Jimmy’s Wheelhouse and make an appointment today.

Just don’t bring your bike in muddy.

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