ATV access to CT forests!!!

[Jisch]

Two articles in the Hartford Courant today about ATVs attempting to gain access to state forests:

Good quote:
"The bigger question is why did they buy them if they had no place to ride?" Widlitz said. "Why would you buy something you can't legally use?"

http://www.ctnow.com/hc-atvs0706.artjul06,0,2956842.story

And and an article on how NH and MA have had "failed" attempts at allowing them in:

http://www.ctnow.com/hc-atvside0706.artjul06,0,7579006.story

[biffster]

We were doing hill repeats on Meriden mountain the other day and three ATV's came whipping out in front of us on the descent. We almost hit them.

These guys just do care about other trail users. They ruin singletrack. They rut trails.

Hope this doesn't ever happen.

[Jisch]

Yeah, I was out at Salmon River forest this past week. Riding along on some truly great, tight singletrack, very low usage. I come up to a cutoff trail which leads down to Dickinson Creek below and the trail is completely blown out by quads. A muddy, rutted double wide mess. I thought a lot about that on the ride back and while I hate what they do, there are plenty of hikers who hate what we do. I would argue we do far less damage, but still, we have to admit we do some damage. That's why trail maintenance is so important. As those articles point out, no one in the quad community is doing trail work.

John

[nhiker]

Yeah, I was out at Salmon River forest this past week. Riding along on some truly great, tight singletrack, very low usage. I come up to a cutoff trail which leads down to Dickinson Creek below and the trail is completely blown out by quads. A muddy, rutted double wide mess. I thought a lot about that on the ride back and while I hate what they do, there are plenty of hikers who hate what we do. I would argue we do far less damage, but still, we have to admit we do some damage. That's why trail maintenance is so important. As those articles point out, no one in the quad community is doing trail work.

John


Exactly right John....Same complaint I have up here in the NH trails. They ATVers ride with complete disregard foor what they do and do nothing afterwards to put things right. They had a "charity ride" in Bearbrook recently and ripped the **** outta several trails. Damage was visable weeks latter and a NEMBA member from seacoast e-mailed the club president who organised the ride asking if they inttended on cleaning up thier damage.....No freaking responce. Down in RI at Acadia recently I read about some trail damage they did under similiar circumstances and Nemba members ended up cleaning up that mess. I mean Hello !

Also I do a lot of hiking on trails were nothing else is done in the whites and anybody who really bitchs about the amount of damage caused by mountain bikes is not paying attention to the trails....we do approximately the same amount of damage as hikers.

[sizlinseagulsoup]

I hate to say it, but the ATVers have far more trail days than any cyclists in the Berkshires. It also does not help the almost all the trails built in the pittsfield area state forests are illegal, so when quads come and destroy them, we cannot take before and after pictures to get them banned.

[talisman]

I prefer to ride tight single track and have seen what ATV's can do to widen and rut out trails. The trail damage issue to me is erosion, no matter who causes it: hikers, horses, bikers, ATV's or motorcycles. Motorized transport causes a lot of erosion damage, but mtn bikers contribute to the problem too skidding and riding muddy trails before they can dry out.

I support multiple users in the New England forests provided any damage is mitigated. In my opinion once there are bans on one group of users banning other users becomes easier. There seem to be some state forsets where there are multiple users who coexist pretty well on shared and segregated trails. The key seems to be large forests with few users. Unfortunately there is a fixed numbers of scres of forests and more and more users.