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| Damage from mountain bikes on Sunset Ridge Trail above Altadena Photo Credit: Bob Cates |
Chapter Activists Working to Keep City Parks Hiker-Friendly and Mountain-Bike Free reflects the policy of the Sierra Club to conserve natural resources. Similar to our policies against snowmobiles and all-terrain vehicles, the position on mountain bikes on trails exists not to exclude groups but to protect the natural resource for all groups.
More than twenty years ago the Clubâs Southern California Forest and Wilderness Committee found that the foot trails on the front range of Angeles National Forest (ANF) were being eroded. The engineers and ordinary activists on this committee werenât anti-mountain bike, they were trying to protect the trails. They discovered the culprits were bicycles; they were unsuccessful in persuading ANF to eliminate them from the trails. In use since the early 1900s, trails were composed of treads with a soft surface of sand, decomposed leaves and litter, and were a delight to hike on. The water bars and slight slope of the trail to the side diverted the rainfall away from the center. They werenât muddy or rocky; the soil stayed where it was. The tread of those trails today is almost unrecognizable -- unpleasant and difficult to walk on. Tires broke down the water bars, the central track of the bike changed the profile of the tread to a center V; storm water draining to the center increased in volume and velocity and carried off all the sand, soft duff and litter, leaving marble (or larger) sized pebbles that perform like ballbearings underfoot. From this perspective, independent of any speed or safety considerations when different users share trails, it is incumbent upon agencies to examine their trails to see if mountain bicycles are appropriate.
When the route is flat, or paved, thereâs no problem. The City of Los Angeles has found that the steep, unpaved trails in the parks are unsuitable for mountain bikes. The Angeles Chapter agrees.
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