[pct-l] What do you say to mountain bikers on the PCT?

[Eric Martinot]

As the original poster for this thread, I had no idea of the intensity
of responses that awaited, and feel somewhat responsible, and perhaps
never should have made the original post. So I feel compelled to respond
in some way. At the same time, I really hope this thread could just be
closed!  (And this post probably isn't helping.)

My literal question, "what do you say to a mountain biker on the PCT" is
still left essentially unanswered behind all the politics and opinions
about sharing trails with bikes, legalities, law enforcement, etc. 
Perhaps the question is best left unanswered in the spirt of HYOH.   But
I really was looking for specific quotable, civil,
one-human-being-to-another phrases to use, in addition to chatting
politely and respectfully about other things as I would with any other
hiker. I just don't want to be personable with someone and then leave
out the obvious elephant in the room, which is that they are not
supposed to be there.  OK, I understand about risking physical
confrontation or angry expression. From further consideration, and with
some benefit of the posts thus far, here are two or three that I might
try in future encounters:

"While I respect and admire your wish to enjoy the wilderness on your
bike, and am happy to share the wilderness with all others, and always
love to meet people on the trail, please stay off the PCT in the future
and use other trails.  What you're doing is illegal, dangerous and
erodes the trail."

"Have a great ride, and I honestly mean that, but please stay off the
PCT in the future."

"It's a great trail, isn't it? But legally its reserved for hikers, and
with valid reasons related to safety and trail erosion."

[Speaking only to myself, as a crazy person would, and not to the biker]
 "oh boy, another mountain bike on the PCT that I can report to the
Forest Service, won't they be glad to hear about this, heh, heh." 

And further thoughts based on the posts in this discussion.

1. There is the political side, which a lot of posts have addressed --
the ongoing multi-decade "battle" over trail use in general among
hikers, bicyclists, and others -- plus the role of law enforcement, the
Forest Service, etc.  I really wasn't thinking of that in my original
post, but I suppose mostly because I didn't think that anyone could ever
do anything effective about it, and thus there was no point to
reporting.  (If the PCTA had some program to monitor and report, I'd
probably be inclined to feed info into that more than I'd be inclined to
report anything to the Forest Service.)  And reporting was far from my
mind, I'm not going to stop on the trail, take off my pack, take out a
pen, or turn on my phone/camera and unwrap it from all the plastic bags
its wrapped in, etc.  Anyway, I have a new perspective on reporting to
think about, from all the posts. And I see that its also tied into the
political agenda to "keep bikes from becoming legal on the PCT," an
issue I had no idea existed before today.

Two points continue to stand out, safety and erosion. 

2. As for safety, the PCT is unique because any collision resulting in
serious injury might take place literally a day's walk or more from
anywhere, so its not the same as a collision on a typical hiking trail. 
On the other hand, during those two days of my encountering 18
bicyclists along Section L, there were no close calls, no real
"incidents" of any kind, just hiker and bicyclist passing each other,
usually with me stepping aside.  If the passing had happened on a
particularly blind corner on a downhill stretch, yes, it would be
dangerous, but basically, for those two days, seeing there were bikes on
that particular section of trail, I treated the issue the same as any
other trail hazard: take precautions and be careful. So for those two
days, I kept a lookout in places where bikes might be coming downhill at
me, and was prepared to step aside quickly if necessary. (The fact that
I felt this necessary might have angered me, or others, but it doesn't
have to.) I've traveled in many places where people and bikes coexist on
the same pavement, and watch out for other, such as in Germany, where
some sidewalks without dedicated bike paths are shared, but everyone
knows which side is which and keep out of each other's way (except the
tourists), and in Japan, where low-speed bikes and people routinely
share the sidewalks and look out for each other because bikes generally
don't use the streets in heavily urban areas. 

3. As for erosion, I think this is really the crux of the issue for me,
why I pondered the issue so much and posted about it.  I'm very
concerned that the PCT is not being maintained adquately, given so many
parts of the trail that are badly eroded and far from the original trail
standard. I want the trail to still be there in 30 years when I'm hiking
it for the 4th time! And I don't see huge government budgets devoted to
this in the future, so more and more the trail may rely on volunteer
maintenance.  If bicycles accelerate the errosion, undermine the
volunteer work, and generally make the trail more difficult to hike,
that is of great concern to me. But are there really enough bikes on the
trail to do that?  From some of the posts, it seems for certain sections
of PCT the answer is yes. But overall, is this really not a big deal
because the quantity of bikes is so small?  Is keeping bikes off the PCT
fundamentally an erosion and maintenance issue?  This is a practical,
dollars-and-cents question. I still don't know, but I see this issue
being lost among all the other agendas and opinions.