Letter To Public Land Managers About Singletrack Mountain Biking In Marin County

August 12, 1995

Dear Land Manager,

I started hiking and backpacking in the Sierra Nevada when I was in college. After graduating, I began to work for the Yosemite Institute and the National Park Service in Yosemite as a trail guide and naturalist. After two decades of hiking and backpacking and naturalizing, I moved to Marin County to enter the teaching profession, and also began mountain biking.

Over the last ten years I have mountain biked extensively in California, Utah, and Colorado, and have come to love biking on singletrack trails much more than on dirt roads, just as I would rather hike/backpack on trails than on dirt roads. Singletrack trails offer much more of a feeling of being in nature, tend to be more scenic, and are much more enjoyable and challenging to ride.

Fortunately, most National Forests have opened up their singletrack trails to mountain bikers. Some of my favorite trails are in National Forests near Downieville, CA and Durango, CO. Some State Parks have also opened and -- with the help of local bicycle trails councils -- have built new multipurpose trails. The singletrack trail loop in China Camp State Park built by the Bicycle Trails Council of Marin is a good example.

Land managers are finding that a mountain bike has little impact on a properly built singletrack trail, and certainly has less impact than a horse. Some trails need to be closed seasonally to both mountain bikes and horses to prevent damage during wet conditions (such as the Whittemore Gulch Trail in Purisima Creek Redwoods Open Space Preserve), but can be opened during most of the year.

After riding so many wonderful and beautiful singletrack trails in other counties and other states, I wonder why so few are available to mountain bikes in Marin County, particularly when so many singletrack trails are open to horses. A mountain bike not only has less impact on a trail than a horse, but also heals over scars made by a horse, and is narrower and therefore easier to pass than a horse.

When I see trails open to horses but closed to mountain bikes, I feel discriminated against. If the issue is one of impact, then trails should be closed to both horses and bikes. If the issue is one of discrimination, then either of three things should happen:

(1) The discrimination should end and all singletrack trails which allow horse use should also be opened to allow mountain bike use.

(2) The discrimination can continue, but the singletrack trails will be divided between the users (separate but equal philosophy).

(3) The discrimination can continue, but new singletrack trails will be planned and built for mountain bike or multipurpose use.

I feel that the most equitable and reasonable solution would be to adopt #1 AND #3.

-Present singletrack trails should be studied to see if they should be for hikers only, or if they should become multipurpose trails.

-New singletrack multipurpose trails should be planned and built. (I suspect that the Bicycle Trails Council Of Marin would love to help!) The fact that the Cypress Trail was closed to mountain bikes due to heavy use leads me to suspect that there is a need for more singletrack trails of that kind: accessible, scenically beautiful, and technically fun and challenging. During the Cypress Trail debate someone wrote that "mountain bikers should go elsewhere". But in this county, there is no elsewhere to find a singletrack trail of that quality! And if closing singletrack trails becomes the solution to heavy use by mountain bikes, then other singletrack trails will receive increased impact. If heavy use by mountain bikes is an issue on singletrack trails, then more need to be built.

If the issue is trail conflicts, then ALL users need to be educated as to the need for alertness when their visibility becomes restricted. ALL users need to avoid wearing headphones which restrict their auditory awareness, be aware of their surroundings while they are talking with others, slow down as their visibility becomes restricted, and make their presence known to others who might be just around the corner. Since the human voice does not seem to attract much attention, I advise mountain bikers to use bells to announce their presence, and to lean out as they go around corners to get a better view of the trail ahead and to increase their visibility. If the responsibility for avoiding trail conflicts is felt by ALL users of a multipurpose trail, these conflicts should decrease considerably. When I am riding elsewhere than in Marin County, I feel this sense of shared responsibility and shared respect more strongly than I do here. Educating ALL user groups should help to increase this sense of shared responsibility and respect!

Please consider this appeal to open environmentally appropriate singletrack trails to mountain bikes (to become multipurpose trails); to plan and build additional multipurpose singletrack trails; and to increase education to ALL users in your area.

Thank you for your attention!

Sincerely,

Roger McGehee

Copies sent to:

Marin Municipal Water District
220 Nellen Ave
Corte Madera, CA. 94925

Point Reyes National Seashore
Point Reyes, CA 94956

Mount Tamalpais State Park
1455A Francisco Blvd
San Rafael, CA 94901

Muir Woods National Monument
Mill Valley, CA. 94941

Golden Gate National Recreation Area (Marin Headlands)
Building 1056, Fort Cronkhite
Sausalito, CA. 94965

China Camp State Park
1455A Francisco Blvd
San Rafael, CA 94901

Samual Taylor State Park
1455A Francisco Blvd
San Rafael, CA 94901

Marin County Open Space Preserves
3501 Civic Center Dr. Rm 417
San Rafael, CA. 94903