{"id":17976,"date":"2014-08-16T16:23:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-16T20:23:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/?p=17976"},"modified":"2014-08-17T12:41:36","modified_gmt":"2014-08-17T16:41:36","slug":"keep-electric-motorbikes-off-the-trails-do-your-part","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/2014\/08\/16\/keep-electric-motorbikes-off-the-trails-do-your-part\/","title":{"rendered":"Keep Electric Motorbikes Off The Trails: Do Your Part"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/p>\n

On Friday I had an encounter with an electric motorbike rider at Stony Creek Metropark<\/a>. The result was somewhat good, with him leaving the park without riding (due to my threatening to call the police on him), but it took a lot of\u00a0mental energy on my part to stay topical, impersonal, and yet pointed so the goal (preventing him from riding) was accomplished in a safe and legal manner. It would have been better if he’d understood why riding an electric motorbike on mountain bike trails is a bad thing, but he didn’t seem to. Either I didn’t explain it well enough, or he didn’t care.<\/p>\n

Much of the mountain bike trail access that we currently enjoy is specifically because we are a human powered user group. It was\u00a0a huge battle in the 80s, 90s, and early 00s for mountain bikes to be seen as a legitimate user group, but thankfully in Michigan we have mostly won and are seen as fair, equal users in great part\u00a0because riders are moving\u00a0under their own power.<\/p>\n

Bringing electric motorbikes onto the trails, under the guise of \u201celectric mountain bikes\u201d, puts that at risk. The worst case is a blanket ban because park staff doesn\u2019t have a practical way\u00a0differentiate between electric motorbikes and pedaled mountain bikes\u00a0entering the trails, so it becomes foot traffic only. \u00a0(Hell, many people — cyclists or not —\u00a0would look at this guy’s bike\u00a0and not realize it\u2019s motorized\u2026) \u00a0That\u2019d be awful, and not something that we can risk via inaction. That\u2019s why we, the mountain biking community along with other trail users, need to work to curb\u00a0this kind of behavior.<\/p>\n

Richard Cunningham over\u00a0at\u00a0Pinkbike explains this very eloquently in much greater depth, in a piece\u00a0titled A Secret Trail and an Argument Against E-Bikes<\/a>.<\/p>\n

After giving this a day of thought about what went right in the confrontation and what could have done better, I distilled them into a list. Here’s my DOs and DON’Ts for what to do when you encounter someone at a mountain bike trail riding an electric motorbike:<\/p>\n

DON’T<\/strong><\/strong> presume that the rider already knows they aren’t allowed to ride their motorbike on mountain bike trails. With the explosion in electric motorbike availability there is a fair chance that the rider simply doesn’t know any better.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong>\u00a0consistently use the term “electric motorbike” and not “electric mountain bike”.\u00a0Despite being based on a bicycle design, having a motor makes it a motorbike and maintaining this point\u00a0is crucial.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> inform the rider that they have a motorbike which is\u00a0not permitted on trails designed for human power use only.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> remain polite and calm, but direct.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> inform the rider that you maintain and\/or use the trails and have a vested interest in\u00a0them.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> inform the rider that using a motorbike on trails designed for human powered use threatens trail access.<\/p>\n

DON’T<\/strong>\u00a0simply use “because it is illegal” as your main argument, this frequently falls on deaf ears. Appeal to trail access.<\/p>\n

DON’T<\/strong> engage in discussion about motor assist vs. throttle control, total power output, impact to trail surface, physical ability, etc. Debating nuance will weaken your message and wear you down. A vehicle that is\u00a0powered by\u00a0anything other than a human\u00a0is a motorized vehicle\u00a0and should not be on the trails.<\/p>\n

DON’T<\/strong>\u00a0act in a threatening manner nor physically contact the rider nor his\/her motorbike.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> call the police or the land manager (park office, parks and recreation department, etc)\u00a0if you see the\u00a0user\u00a0riding their motorbike on the trails anyway. Inform them that\u00a0someone is riding a\u00a0motorbike on the trails then wait around for the police.<\/p>\n

DON’T<\/strong> be afraid to call the local police instead of confronting the rider yourself. That’s their job: enforcing laws, such as those which already prohibit the use of\u00a0motorbikes on trails.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> keep your distance. Close enough to be conversational, but far enough away to maintain your safety and appear\u00a0unthreatening to the rider.<\/p>\n

DO<\/strong> remember that you don’t have the legal authority to stop the motorbike rider, but you do have the moral authority to engage, educate, and report.<\/p>\n

I would prefer that an rider realize why riding a motorbike on mountain bike trails is a bad idea and stop of their own volition. Unfortunately, as was illustrated to me yesterday, some people just don’t\u00a0understand or won’t\u00a0care and refuse to change\u00a0until threatened with a penalty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On Friday I had an encounter with an electric motorbike rider at Stony Creek Metropark. The result was somewhat good, with him leaving the park…<\/p>\n

Continue readingKeep Electric Motorbikes Off The Trails: Do Your Part<\/span><\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,29,24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17976","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cycling","category-outdoors","category-politics","entry"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17976","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17976"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17976\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17988,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17976\/revisions\/17988"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17976"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17976"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nuxx.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17976"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}