Outside Magazine, March 2010: Spurning Rubber

An interesting mountain bike article in Outsider Magazine, March 2010..."The government's ban on bicycles in wilderness areas is dead wrong." Spurning Rubber Through years of misinformation, mountain bikes have gotten lumped in with ATVs, snowmobiles, and other maligned vehicles by people citing environmental concerns. But on several different metrics—erosion, runoff, soil compaction, loss of vegetation—study after study has found the trail impact of mountain bikers to be equal to or less than that caused by hikers, and far less than equestrians. A 2006 study by the National Park Service concluded that "Horse and ATV trails are significantly more degraded than hiking and biking trails...[T]he proportion of trails with severe erosion...is 24% for ATV trails, 9% for horse trails, 1.4% for hiking trails and 0.6% for bike trails."