Wilderness Areas Limiting biking

[rltitus]

Hi To All,
I have joined this forum to seek information regarding
the effect a wilderness designation has on riding
mt bikes.  I live in rural Nevada and have enjoyed many miles on unmarked roads and trails.
'Recently, the Wilderness Coalition has proposed
890,000 acres as new wilderness.  It is in areas that
have been multi use for over 150 years.
Has anyone been impacted by trails being closed?
Welcome any comments.  Robin

[JayH]

Over here in NY, they have two forest designations, "wilderness areas", and "wild forests", wild forests is less restrictive in terms of human usage, i.e. may allow Mtbs, horses, and other non-motorized uses whereas wilderness areas are generally foot travel only.  The catskills are going through a MTB "reorganization" as we speak...  

What I've seen personally in a much much more dense area like northern NJ vrs rural Nevada is that the powers that be that close off areas for say mtbing cause more problems in user conflicts than solving them, cause it either a) forces more law abiding mtb'rs into a smaller legal area or b)forces folks to ignore rules and regulations.  By closing more areas to MTB funnels all of them into smaller areas thereby making more conflicts and more problems.  

Speak your concerns about the new area, I'm sure your local mtb clubs and hiking clubs will hopefully have a sitdown and chat about the new area, be friendly, don't be antagonistic and work with each other on a solution.

Jay

[erniegrillo]

Wilderness designation restricts all mechanized travel which includes bicycles. Roads which remain  open to vehicles will be open to bicycles but bicycles will generally be banned from all trails in wilderness areas. We have a number of wilderness areas in my home state of Washington so although I can't ride trails there, we have vast quantities of National Forests which are open to cycling. It is a trade off. The population of WA has more that doubled since a moved here and it will more than double again in the next 20 years. I welcome areas being protectd for future recreational use even if that means I access them by hiking instead of bike. We have also lost biking access to areas here to logging and mining activities which are allowed in national forest areas. Contact the Wilderness Coalition, weigh the impacts and and stay involved in the process. Good luck and keep us informed. The country's newest wilderness, The Wild Sky, which is located just 40 miles from Seattle has just been approved by congress and should be signed into law by the President in the next week.