Mountain Bikes and Trails...

[Sithly]

[QUOTE=Beverley;4246101]
We do have trails where bikers coming down at excessive speed ARE going to injure a hiker, or a horse/rider, or themselves coming around a blind corner. My experiences have all been okay- though a couple of times a biker has had to throw himself into a crash off the trail to avoid hitting my horse- but I have friends that won’t ride the shared trails, they just stress about it too much.[/QUOTE]

Happened to some friends of mine. Bikes came around a blind corner on a narrow, tricky part of the trail. Two major concussions, one collapsed lung, one mountaintop rescue mission, and three days in the hospital later…

[Auventera_Two]

I guess I’m surprised that so many people have so many multi-use trails. There are 3 here that I can think of. The rest of them? No WAY could a bike make it down those trails. Deep/soft sand, or very hilly with large rocks, river crossings, areas of deep sand, etc. Even the best mountain biker couldn’t pedal through that stuff. Most of the trails we ride are single track, winding through the woods. If you met a bike, there would be no room to even move over.

You might see hikers, but we wear dog tags on the horse’s breastcollar chest ring so the hikers can hear you coming and they move over, since we can’t hear them.

But even so, most of the trails we ride have separate hiking trails, biking trails, then horse trails and each are labeled accordingly. Many of the horse trails intersect bike trails, so you’re likely to see bikers at intersections but that’s it. The trails where bikes are allowed too are flat, resurfaced rail road beds where you can see for 1/2 a mile. When we ride on those, we look behind us every few minutes to see if a bike is coming. If so, we move over to the right to a walk, and our horses can hear the bike coming when its 50 feet behind us because you can hear the crunch of their their wheels on the gravel screenings.

I’m fortunate to live in a state that has an AMAZING trail system! I imagine some states just have “trails” in the woods and it’s a free for all. Things are pretty darned organized here and in the years I’ve been riding trails, I’ve never had any accidents or near accidents.

There is one flat railroad bed trail that is used by the Amish to get between two cities. Wowwwweeeeeee, you want to see horses freak out??? Put them on a trail where they can see other horses “running away from the big black box that’s chasing them.” :eek: :eek: :eek: Once they see that, they’re HAPPY to see a bike. :lol:

I’ve never seen any bikes traveling at an excessive speed, but around here, the competition endurance bikers stick to the roads, and the competition mountain bikers have their own separate trail system.

As for horse poop on the trails, you should be able to feel your horse’s spine humping up when they lift their tail. Make them go off on the side to poop, then reward them. After enough repetitions of that, they just automoatically move over so their butt is in the bushes when they have to go.

[AlmostDun]

California bikers are a special breed. My sister once found a fox lying in a trail with a broken back due to a hit and run collision with a mountain bike. Some of the parks have gone so far as to set up speed traps with radar guns because some of the bikers were moving at such insane speeds. It’s not unexpected that there would be a movement to ban bikes from the trails when some of the bike riders are behaving so badly. However, that situation isn’t the norm elsewhere.