This is where illegal trails hurt our situation. We have such a serious lack of legitimate trails to ride. Bikers on a large scale are building illegal trails simply because they have nowhere else to go. There towns sell the bikes, but no one is trying to legitimize any sort of trail system, so naturally illegal trails are built. This is where trails may be poorly built, unsafe, environmentally damaging, etc. Thus, these trails will ultimately be torn down. The alternative to this is, if a bike club chooses to reclaim old trails as there own. In this case the existing trails may be upgraded to meet modern standards. This doesn`t mean downsizing either, if you think legal trails cant be fun, please look at the trail system in Black Rock Oregon. Unless, we as mountain bikers step up. Join your local club. If your town doesn`t have one, start one. Simply start talking to people in the business, make contacts. Get involved. Become an advocate. The very least you can do is to educate yourself. Get on IMBA,donate, they have such a large resource of information for advocates. To sum it up: A legitimate, dedicated trail society, with a legal trail system has huge benefits. -To be able to secure the huge amount of private and government funding for the building and maintaining of trails. -To be able to advertise the trails you built, show off, tell your friends! -To be an environmental steward. And to me, the most rewarding of all: -To be allowed to build and ride bike awesome bike trails, with no fear of them getting cut down. To have everything we put so much time into protected! Please check out our trail society website: The Castlegar Mountain Bike Society Vince www.castlegar-mtb.com

Sustainability is the new power word in the eyes of the Officials. They want to see trails built in environmentally responsible areas, not in watersheds for example, or not disrupting the native species of animals. They want to see trails built to combat erosion, and features that are built to last. The last thing our cause needs is for some kid to get hurt on a poorly built stunt.

Unless, we as mountain bikers step up. Join your local club. If your town doesn`t have one, start one. Simply start talking to people in the business, make contacts. Get involved. Become an advocate. The very least you can do is to educate yourself. Get on IMBA,donate, they have such a large resource of information for advocates. To sum it up: A legitimate, dedicated trail society, with a legal trail system has huge benefits. -To be able to secure the huge amount of private and government funding for the building and maintaining of trails. -To be able to advertise the trails you built, show off, tell your friends! -To be an environmental steward. And to me, the most rewarding of all: -To be allowed to build and ride bike awesome bike trails, with no fear of them getting cut down. To have everything we put so much time into protected! Please check out our trail society website: The Castlegar Mountain Bike Society Vince www.castlegar-mtb.com

Sustainability is the new power word in the eyes of the Officials. They want to see trails built in environmentally responsible areas, not in watersheds for example, or not disrupting the native species of animals. They want to see trails built to combat erosion, and features that are built to last. The last thing our cause needs is for some kid to get hurt on a poorly built stunt. This is where illegal trails hurt our situation. We have such a serious lack of legitimate trails to ride. Bikers on a large scale are building illegal trails simply because they have nowhere else to go. There towns sell the bikes, but no one is trying to legitimize any sort of trail system, so naturally illegal trails are built. This is where trails may be poorly built, unsafe, environmentally damaging, etc. Thus, these trails will ultimately be torn down. The alternative to this is, if a bike club chooses to reclaim old trails as there own. In this case the existing trails may be upgraded to meet modern standards. This doesn`t mean downsizing either, if you think legal trails cant be fun, please look at the trail system in Black Rock Oregon.

Whether or not mountain bikers should be allowed on public land is not a new question. There has been an ongoing conflict between bikers and the public for over 15 years. Just look at the North Shore trails in Vancouver. For years people were building world class illegal trails, but unfortunately they were continually getting torn down, by land owners, rangers, etc. It took many years, and a whole lot of determination and time from many volunteers to establish trail societies, working with land owners and the provincial government to reach a common ground to work on. In many towns/cities there has been great headway made as far as the development of mountain bike trails. I feel this is due to the persistence of the individuals, and more so the creation of organized societies. It is mainly through advocacy that we can hope to gain the respect we are trying so hard to earn. If you talk to just about any biker on the Pinkbike forums, they will all tell you the same: basically all of the trails we ride are illegal. This is unfortunate because these trails we love are at risk of being destroyed. Whether it be by private land owners, the province, or people that simply don`t think we should be there. The fact is, we do deserve to be there. Crown land is public land. Every citizen has a stake in it, we all have the right to use this land, within certain scopes of course. The province has made a lot of headway on this topic. They have created a mountain bike policy, which I urge every mountain biker to read: http://www.sitesandtrailsbc.ca/about/mountain-biking.aspx There have been extensive studies on the environmental impacts of biking on trails. It has been determined that hikers on a trail do as much if not more damage than a mountain biker.