Mountain Biking in the Flatirons

http://www.dailycamera.com/news/ci_16068755

So as this is one of the most opinionated groups I know, I wanted to see how you folks felt about allowing mountain biking at the base of the Flatirons.

In case you haven't been following it, there's a very significant process happening to review the Open Space trails west of Broadway, from Eldorado to Linden. Adding a mountain bike trail from Chautauqua to Eldorado is probably the hottest topic.

A group of well-meaning citizens, SOSBoulder, is dead set against having bikes in this area but to me it seems as if there has to be a silent majority out there who would love to have access to what is sure to be a world-class mountain biking trail right in town.

If you're in support of such a trail please go to gopetition.com/petition/389… and sign the petition of support.

that's a very poorly drafted petition statement.

I like biking, but I think that a trail in the low flatirons would need to be bike specific. WAAAYYY too much pedestrian traffic in that area. It can be a pain to even hike there, let alone let bikes rip through.

That being said, you can bet this will be a non-productive debate in Boulder...shining a lite of the wonders of bureaucracy .

Don't mean to be a stalker, but this is Scott's second spot on post of the morning.

It's thick with peds already.

haha! Thanks Shawn! I've been laid up for a week after a mild foot surgery, so I've got a lot of brain time on my hands!

The best action I have seen is just to select a user segment that is considered visually intrusive, most likely noisy, unsanitary, unsafe, a danger to society in general; then just post some arbitrary signage on public mountains, oh say 180 days in jail and about a grand in fines should deter this type of abhorrent behavior.

btw, anyone know where can I get one of those cool looking billboard shirts? Preferably Smucker's Strawberry Jelly & Aunt Jemima Syrup, or Fresh Step kitty litter.

I thought this was going to be a troll..... darn!

How about: night vision goggles + mountain bike = done

My contribution.

this is an interesting topic. we had a house party a while back, and one of our guests brought a friend who was kind of a pro-bike freak. she was kind of over the top. she talked about the flatirons deal the whole evening, in a complete fervor.

as others have noted, the amount of foot traffic on the flatirons trails is really high. as much as i used to enjoy mountain biking, and can see where they would like to have flatirons access, i would have to say that i am somewhat against it. it just seems like a clusterfvck waiting to happen, in terms of bike collisions with people.

i think a good alternative would be allowing the mbk folks to build a dedicated biking trail though. also, for the record, i have to say that the folks saying that the bikers 'ruining their view' is the most retarded thing i have ever heard of.

FWIW the trail being proposed is not on any of the existing flatirons approach trails or anything. It's not really flatirons access, just a corridor trail. Bike advocates are not asking for all trails to be open, just one in this case that provides corridor access.

Many bikers, myself included, are looking for ways to link existing trails from town without requiring a car and riding on high traffic roads as minimally as possible. Boulder's car free MTB access is pretty pathetic for "casual" mountain bikers. Sure Super Walker gets done in under 2 hours but that's a racer thing, not the average user. The average user is not going to bike up Flagstaff to get to Walker, they're going to drive. Same with Heil Ranch, Betasso and some even Marshall Mesa which has the best car free access.

On a financial/practical note, JeffCo does a far better job providing MTB trails so while I would like to ride and then eat in Boulder more, small group rides often end up in JeffCO where we then eat dinner in Golden or Morrison.

EDIT: I don't have a lot of hope for Boulder Mountain biking. I support what I can and love to ride the "new" Heil trail to Hall Ranch. I ride Marshall Mesa a lot because I can get there with only 5 miles of pavement from my house in Westminster and it stays pretty dry in the winter. But it seems a lot of Boulder is against more MTB access and that's a bummer to me. The number of hiker only trails compared to bike allowed (not bike only) trails is laughable to me. But I'll play by the rules both politically and recreationally and ride where I'm appreciated.

yeah, boulder is definitely not a mbk destination. limited trails, lots of mbkrs. it would be good to see if they could put together a plan for a linkup of some sort.

Chris Plesko wrote: On a financial/practical note, JeffCo does a far better job providing MTB trails so while I would like to ride and then eat in Boulder more, small group rides often end up in JeffCO where we then eat dinner in Golden or Morrison.

Along with this positive note, as far as danger & collision and whatnot; while I have seen accidents in Jeffco, really not a very high occurrence rate at all and have been either endo's or biker v tree; I haven't had one with a biker v hiker in the mountains.

I've yet to see a serious one of negligence; all the mtn park trail areas are used a lot by multiple groups. Granted, there are infractions on some parks that bikers can get hammered on. And, certainly it's possible to hit a pedestrian. But, I just haven't seen this as an actual high frequency concern; more than not, courtesy & common sense seem to actually work.

However, you get some folks with springy and clinky clangy things and one of those ... what are they called? ropes, yes that's it. You see that stuff on certain lands; shoot first then call the cops.

In short, I don't see the unsafe argument as a general rule of trail, but I'd rather not see the potential for a digger where people can't get out of the way.

slim wrote: also, for the record, i have to say that the folks saying that the bikers 'ruining their view' is the most retarded thing i have ever heard of.

At the main public meeting the Open Space people held just as the flatirons bolt ban was coming around, the old hippie who started it all stood up and railed against all us lycra-clad animals dangling from the rocks "spoiling his wilderness experience". To this day thinking about that guy makes my teeth hurt.

Anyway, I have held a long-standing loathing of pedestrians in general, so I hope the mtb's can get something going.

I'd like to see MTB access at the Flatirons at least for a portion of the trails. Based on my experience there seems to be reasonably happy coexistence of hikers, runners & MTBers at Walker Ranch, Hall & Heil Valley.

I would hope they can construct their own trail. I run on the Dowdy Draw Trail which was recently opened to Mtn Bikes as well. The trail is considerably beat up and it sucks to run on now compared to what it used to be like. It has always been open to horses and was always in great shape. I still ride from time to time but if there is any moisture bikes beat the shit out of the trails. The other issue is bikers poaching other trails. It has happend at most areas I used to ride at. Considering the amount of traffic this area sees now I can only imagine what a Cluster this is going to be if they allow bikes.....

On the construct their own trail front:
I wish we were allowed to do that more often. It seems like frequently people push back against letting bikes into the area at all. Bikers certainly have the manpower and skills to do build their own trails. I've been at Colorado Trail work days with over a 100 bikers in attendance and been on some amazing IMBA designed singletrack.

As to horse damage? Come on. Horses might not damage Doudy because only a tiny fraction of them use it. I've been on trails where horses are a majority user and they're trashed and smell like piss everywhere. Hugely more impactful than bikes on a per user basis. They just aren't that numerous, at least on the front range.

I understand that some people don't want to share the trails with bikers. I go out of my way to be courteous and try to teach new bikers to do the same. And I've seen plenty of bikers who are assholes, regardless of if you inform them that their behavior is undesirable. Same with asshole horse riders and asshole hikers/runners. Some people just have a chip on their shoulder or are having a bad day. I brush it off and try not to take it personally as it's not the norm in my experience. Of course one jerk biker can piss off a lot of people in one ride with their speed advantage!

Anyway there are a lot of good bikers out there who are also hikers and climbers and even horse riders. Those of us who I speak for (friends and riding partners) just want trails to ride, especially near our houses that don't require a car trip to access. We have wives and families and time constraints just like everyone else. I'm pretty sure that most of us are capable of sharing trail access and if we got a few of our own "biker only" trails (super rare to non-existent), that would be pretty cool too considering how many miles of trail bikes are banned from.

Chris when are we going to do the 1st or third (both)? I still want to check out the downclimbs? mike