Flounder said:
Some of you guys are mountain bikers. You probably already heard, there is much talk of closing the Continental Divide Trail to mountain bikes. That would suck.
It would suck, but it's also been overblown on the Internet. Talking to some people last time I was down in Salida w.r.t the Monarch Crest sections of the CDT and responses back from the Gunnison NF (the comment period was extended to 10/12/07, so get those letters in!) and Gunnison and Chaffee Counties it's very much undetermined. Chaffee County in particular is
really against any changes and the local USFS offices aren't pushing this. It sounds like a higher level is seeing the wording in the CDNST legislation and asking why bikes are allowed on. This seems like an inconsistency in management between National Scenic Trails and someone in Washington is trying to push something onto the local management. No one locally really wants to see bikes banned from the Monarch Crest because it is a HUGE economic stimulus for Salida, Poncha Spring, Buena Vista and Gunnison and trail issues are not a real problem. People are pretty mellow out there and it's really the motos that are doing damage (a large part of the Monarch Crest is open to motorized travel). One option that sounds reasonable is to separate bicycles from motorcycles in the travel corridor to keep the classic ride from Monarch Pass, Rainbow Trail and USFS trails and roads still viable.
However, every mountain biker
should be an IMBA member! That is so very true.
The IMBA page (there's an automated comment option, just to help you get it done):
http://imba.com/news/action_alerts/08_07/08_09_divide_ban.html