Philadelphia Mountain Biking Association - Forums

I received a package from the NPS regarding the final proposed General Management Plan for Valley Forge National Park, and the outcome is not good.  Worse than not good.  Basically, the summary is that off-trail use of bicycles is not recognized as a legitimate activity for the park in any way, shape, or form.  There are no plans or allowance for off-trail biking whatsoever.  The vast majority of public comments seemed to be in favor of off-trail bicycle use, but one apparently very vocal and influential group, the National Parks Conservation Association (NPCA), took the position of the local park management that it should not be allowed based on “environmental impact”, although no study was ever undertaken.  The vast majority of their arguments are completely invalid, but that did not seem to matter in the final analysis.

 

The plan itself is terribly flawed with completely impractical proposals (closing Route 23 to through traffic, for example, is a complete impossibility), and demonstrates an ignorance and bias that has pervaded VF park management for nearly two decades.  As Americans grow more and more obese, and even in light of President Bush’s call to action to the NPS to open up more resources for active recreation, VF continues to look backwards instead of forwards.

 

At the same time, we’ve begun a very healthy and productive dialog and collaboration with the NPS locally in other locations, notably the IMBA Trail Care crew visit to Hopewell Furnace/French Creek and our collective involvement in the Hopewell Big Woods project.  Julie Bell from the NPS has been very open minded and supportive of mountain biking.  We need to find a way to get through to the park management at VF.  I’m at a loss as to how to do so.

 

This fight is far from over, but it seems time to take the kid gloves off and start exerting some political pressure.  What we do need is a unifying organization for presenting our case, and the logical one for doing so is IMBA (combining HQ and local activities).

 

There’s a bunch of us working a variety of angles on this, but I wanted to give you all a heads up in case we need to mobilize the troops again.

 

Thanks,

 

Rick

tom, who is this rick guy?

YEa Tom who is this guy? We need to contact him. We will mobilize our troops when necessary. And our troops are ready to go! Ignorance will not persist. Facts and reason are the VF managements' enemy, and we will spead them...

I'm sorry what....I don't actually know him. Just forwarded the message.

Free the trail.

The full name is Rick Bullotta. He is one of the three people who run the MASS series. His email address is  Rick.Bullotta at comcast.net.

Dan

Oh that's Rick. Yea I do know who he is. Real good rider.

I received the same package, and they are looking for comments by Sept 6th.  I think the best we can do is provide comments for now and try and tie off road biking in with hiking, as far as trail impacts go, because there really is no difference.  I am going to write comments to this affect, and to explain the process the Wissahickon went through in reviewing their trail use. 

There are also some articles for download on the IMBA website that reference the difference in trail erosion among different types of uses.  One in particular seemed to be pretty thoroughly researched and said that there wasn't a measurable difference between foot and bike traffic - although there WAS more erosion from horses.  You may want to cite one of these sources, especially since the studies were independent of IMBA.

Paul has spoken! Must have hit a nerve.

That is a very good read on the impact of trail users. Worth checking out and forwarding to whoever is making these poor decisions about mountain bikes being bad for the environment.

Even worse, see http://www.lowerprovidence.org/planning.htm they are planning an American Revolution Center which looks like its gonna toast most of the trails between Betzwood and Pawlings Road.

What a bummer...

that'll suck- those are the trails I use to ride w/my dog!

It's hard to tell exactly where all this construction is going to take place but it looks like the trails between the Schuykill River Trail and the power lines will remain intact but the trails when you get to the high ridge trail could be in jeopardy.

It would suck, we may have to dust off our muskets and head our to the Forge and start another revolution.

 >:(