Adam, you have always been a great member of our community and such a great advocate for all things biking. What happened that turned you? A few years ago you would have been screaming from the rooftops if motorcycles were doing this kind of trail damage. We have so very few mountain biking trails to ride in this area, I don’t know why your crew and others, find it necessary to tear the crap out of them. I know you understand the delicate nature of these trails having ridden, built and maintained many trail systems over the years. When I started riding 17 years ago you were one of the guys, along with @brightwhite, who helped me fall in love with the sport and I remember vividly having a conversation with you about trails and the importance of respecting them. Not sure what has happened to turn you against your own trail ethics.
I can’t overstate this enough. You and your moto crew are ruining the very few trails that we mountain bikers have to ride. We respectfully ask you to refrain from riding them with your motorbikes. I know you understand the damage you are inflicting and having known you for a very long time I can’t believe that you just don’t give a fuck.
I would be more than pleased to listen to your side of the story and perhaps there is a very good reason as to why you and your crew continue to destroy the trails. Please feel free to reach out and enlighten us.
Respectfully,
Muddy (Kirk), ECMTB.net and every other rider who LOVES to trail ride
I can’t speak for the people who went in yesterday and rode the trails in the wet. As I’ve posted in the other thread - I do not ride MTB trails in the wet. Also, since it was brought to my attention by another MTBer @nowlan that “my” moto was wrecking the trails, I began doing walks with the dog and tools several times weekly in Flipside, Scotch on the Rocks and Powerlines fixing any damage that I saw on any trails my group rides. I’ve seen other groups in there and they are hacks. Just like MTBs skidding and sliding everywhere, motos can be ridden extremely gracefully and do not require disturbing the earth at all. I’ve run in to trail builders in scotch and talked and they were thankful of what they’d seen at that time. Unfortunately the hacks get in there and compound things by riding in the wet. That’s a huge no no even on MTBs. I’ve got hundreds of pictures showing the exact same level of damage in scotch done by MTBs in the wet. I fixed it all.
I’ve never ridden my dirt bike in spider. Also never even walked the new trail at fight that I’ve been supposedly blamed for ruining.
Guys - the moto community is massive. I’m nowhere near a part of it as I have been in MTBs. I do not wear some kind of dark side cloak when I ride a dirt bike. I ride as an environmentalist, and trail builder. ANY time anything has been brought to my attention that myself or my group has done, I have gone and done remediation work to fix. That doesn’t make the situation perfect but please know I am not ruining your trails. I fix them.
There are lots of places where there are shared trails and it works amazingly. I’m not saying that the dirt trails in Whopper are the ones - but the granite? Fight?
There’s got to be room here for conversation.
It’s awfully quick and judgemental for you to assume all of this, Kirk. For someone whom I’ve shared mutual respect with/for over the years you’ve taken a bunch of peoples’ assumptions and I’ve personally been painted as unethical and what-not. I’m not throwing anything in anyones’ face but I’ve probably spent as much or more time fixing, building etc than anyone or group in the community. I love it.
Please trust that I am not here to wreck anything. I’ve requested within the groups that I know to stay out of the trails until some conversation can happen. I’m not willing to pit 2 sweet-ass communities against each other for two sports I bleed.
I hope this makes sense. I don’t come on here regularly - in fact I think I just got this account verified 2 days ago.
I’m happy to relay messages, but do not hang me out to dry here, guys. I’m not your enemy.
Thanks man, I don’t know you and was never blaming you personally for any damage, just that it’s obvious you know people who are driving their dirt bikes on the mtb trails so you’re the logical person to reach out to.
I’m fairly new here, but hi Adam, pleased to meet you.
You make many good points: MTB & Moto can both do damage to the trails, very true. And there are jerks on both sides, true. I think some of the concern is that Moto can do a lot more damage in a shorter timeframe, and the pictures are clearly showing Moto damage. It’s something we’ve seen a lot of in the area, unfortunately.
I certainly hope that no one here is laying blame without evidence; this isn’t Twitter where social media outage and public shaming rule the land. As pointed out, though: you’re involved with both communities, you’ve a history of building and maintaining trail, and you dislike the damage done as much as the rest of us.
The question I pose to those who are now in the know than I: how do we educate those responsible so they can contribute instead of destroying?
I have no maintenance or building experience, but seeing the work put into the trails and interacting with the ECMTB crew have inspired me to get involved. How can we reach the others to instill a sense of pride and ownership into the trails we all ride?
Ian - thank you for the kind response. I really appreciate this, as I don’t really take to being called out very well. I think there are some serious “teachable moments” here in this conversation.
I am one of the people who tries to educate on my rides. Unfortunately one ride in particular I brought 2 guys I just met in to sensitive trails and realized that was a really bad idea. I spent 6 hours fixing their shitty turning abilities.
Usually just putting sweat in to a trail will instill a sense of pride and protection.
I’ll do my best with the people I know.
Thanks guys.
Thanks Adam. Maybe I can join you for some trail repair sometime? I have no experience, but am keen to learn. Maybe we can invite the guys who did all the damage, too. As you say: teachable moments.
@nimzie thanks for your input. And thanks for the countless hours you’ve spent building the MTB community over the years.
That was me you ran into on Scotch that day. I and others have noticed how easy you are on the throttle and brakes in the Whopper area. Unfortunately, like MTB, a few bad apples give your whole group a bad name.
Lets be honest, none of us have the landowner’s permission to ride the Whopper/Daminion/Scotch trails, and they’ll probably be lost to development in a few years anyway, so let’s all enjoy the trails responsibly while we still can.
Hey Adam. Thanks for your thoughtful response. I must say, I was out for a ride on the crusher dust at Shubie last night and thought about this whole thing the entire time I was riding. I sincerely hope that I did not offend you or others in your group. That certainly was not the intention with my original post. I admit there was some frustration there when I posted but after taking a deep breath (or many during my ride) I admit that I was concerned that I offended someone that I have the utmost respect for. I apologize if that is the case. I will gladly do so face to face as well.
To the rest of the group here, we can take Adam at his word. I don’t doubt for one second everything that he says and that he works tirelessly to show the trails as much love as possible. Even if the approach of calling him out on line was not the best I am really glad he got to respond to our concerns and that we get the opportunity to thank him for continuing to be the great advocate that he is, and always has been, for our Community.
Once again Adam, I can understand if you are upset and that certainly was not my intention in any way. Rest assured that our continued frustrations/anger will be directed at those who are the real culprits
Some perspective here, guys. As a trail builder, MTBer etc - this is how I feel. Assholes are assholes and they’ll continue to be so, but please have a read of this article as it should offer some calming insight as to “why”, as well as how to move forward constructively through situations like this. http://bikefat.com/should-mountain-bikes-share-the-trails-with-motorcycles/
This is some of the best content I’ve read on ECMTB. A great conversation and attempt at a dialogue and understanding between two different users of our trails. I must say I have a lot of respect for Adam for facing the issue on a MTB webpage. @Rolls last comment was bang on. We own nothing here and conversations like this are all that will save what we have. As users, every one of us has a responsibility to keep the trails rideable through a little common sense and maybe even some time and muscle. @muddy and @nimzie, thanks for a good conversation.
That’s a great feel good article and I’m fine with talking nicely to reasonable people but what are we to do about the jackoff hack who has found the trail and doesn’t come back to fix their mess and is likely to show their hack friends next time?
Respectfully, I don’t like moto or recreational atv at all, they’re noisy and stink, so I don’t care how good and careful one’s skills are on a moto, they don’t belong on singletrack built by and for mtb regardless of the legality/permission aspect. Drive back on to the old bowater land and cut yourself some tech singletrack to ride if that’s what you’re after. There’s shit tons more trail and logging roads that motos can go on and can access why do they have to be on the few good places to ride mtb in all of HRM?
Fair points. I’m not a fan either, and will add that the sheen of oil left behind by some of the motorized vehicles bugs me too. I’ve had hacks spray rocks at me and a friend while we walked on the Shearwater Flyers trail. Not great ambassadors of off-roading, for sure.
So what do we do about the hacks? How can we educate people (Moto and MTB alike) who screw things up for everyone else?
Adam. I’d like to take you out on a trail ride with me and my crew and see if you still think motos make you fat? Honestly, the workout is a main reason I dirt bike more. It’s more like a combination of DH riding, and skiing, and while MTB is an amazing workout, I think you need to be in better shape to keep up on the moto riding singletrack and highly technical terrain. We’re not bombing fire roads, buddeh!
Some interesting reading about motocross (yes, this is published on a moto site):
That’s not what we do, though. We’re riding single and double trails, dried up river beds, and most of the guys who have come with us on trail rides that motocross get that it’s generally even harder of a workout.
Both sports are amazing - don’t get me wrong … but it’s just the ATVs that make ya fat
That’s a nice opinion piece devoid of any science written by a moto rider.
Start wearing a heart rate monitor for your moto and mtb rides. I think you’ll find that a moto ride is more like strength training with little cardio benefit and mountain biking gives a much greater cardio benefit and less strength training.
If you have the time to do both they will compliment each other.
That said, neither one is going to make you fat, but the post ride beers might.
I hear F1 drivers basically just point and hit the gas, too.
Anyway, Tyler Medaglia is a neo-local MX racer who makes no secret about using cycling to prep for the MX season, and his results in cycling speak for themselves. But yeah, fat.
and thought about this whole thing the entire time I was riding. I sincerely hope that I did not offend you or others in your group. That certainly was not the intention with my original post. I admit there was some frustration there when I posted but after taking a deep breath (or many during my ride) I admit that I was concerned that I offended someone that I have the utmost respect for. I apologize if that is the case. I will gladly do so face to face as well.