Mountain Bikers' Illegal Riding in New Zealand

Surprize, surprize!

Mike


http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-stan...-track-upgrade

Mountain bikers hamper walking track upgrade
By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard Last updated 12:24 31/03/2009
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Mountain bikers have got the goat of the Department of Conservation
(DOC) which is trying to upgrade the Manawatu Gorge walking track.

"We are trying to make the track more appealing for city people, so it
is easier for them to get a taste of the bush," said DOC ranger Lyall
Goggin. "But a few mountain bikers have done a considerable amount of
damage, so that we have to spend a lot of time repairing parts of the
track we have already upgraded."

In some areas skidding mountain bikes have stripped freshly laid
gravel off the track and exposed the geo-textile layer underneath.

"I could see tyre tracks and patches of bare cloth as I walked up the
track," Mr Goggin said.

Mountain bikes are banned from the track, which is a major attraction
for walkers, attracting about 1200 a month.

Besides causing extensive damage to the track, they posed a
significant risk to other track users, he said.

DOC has yet to lay metal on four-and-a-half of the 10 kilometres of
track, with a June deadline, but the damage has slowed the work.

In total, 460 cubic metres of metal will be carted and spread along
the track before spring in a bid to upgrade it to a more accessible,
user-friendly "walking" standard.

It takes a day to fly in 70 cubic metres, which is then carted along
the track in a power barrow and wheelbarrows, spread and compacted.
The geo-textile mat laid underneath the metal is intended to allow
water to pass, but prevent the metal from sinking into the dirt.

DOC area manager Jason Roxburgh said mountain bikers should use areas
set aside for their sport instead of hitting the gorge track.

"Takapari Road on the western side of the Ruahine Ranges takes you up
to the tussock tops, and Palmerston North City Council maintain
excellent biking tracks up the Kahutarawa Valley."
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

On Mar 30, 10:57*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:
Surprize, surprize!


So why aren't you hopping on the next polluting commercial flight to
fight the problem? Oh, that's right, you are an armchair
environmentalists who only posts about problems, you don't actually
try and solve them.

This story is all backwards. Let the path be natural without any man
made cloth etc. on it. If the people want to see nature why are you
trying to prepare an unnatural carpet. Bicycling is a much better way
to see the country side. Instead of spending so much money on
unnatural paths, use the money to maintain natural trails and create
small wooden bridges and ditches to keep the trails from washing out.
We have lots of well managed walking trials in our area that never see
interference from expensive man made products. Cyclists and
pedestrians use them all the time with no problems.


Mike Vandeman wrote:
Surprize, surprize!

Mike


http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-stan...-track-upgrade

Mountain bikers hamper walking track upgrade
By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard Last updated 12:24 31/03/2009
Share Print Text Size Relevant offers
Mountain bikers have got the goat of the Department of Conservation
(DOC) which is trying to upgrade the Manawatu Gorge walking track.

"We are trying to make the track more appealing for city people, so it
is easier for them to get a taste of the bush," said DOC ranger Lyall
Goggin. "But a few mountain bikers have done a considerable amount of
damage, so that we have to spend a lot of time repairing parts of the
track we have already upgraded."

In some areas skidding mountain bikes have stripped freshly laid
gravel off the track and exposed the geo-textile layer underneath.

"I could see tyre tracks and patches of bare cloth as I walked up the
track," Mr Goggin said.

Mountain bikes are banned from the track, which is a major attraction
for walkers, attracting about 1200 a month.

Besides causing extensive damage to the track, they posed a
significant risk to other track users, he said.

DOC has yet to lay metal on four-and-a-half of the 10 kilometres of
track, with a June deadline, but the damage has slowed the work.

In total, 460 cubic metres of metal will be carted and spread along
the track before spring in a bid to upgrade it to a more accessible,
user-friendly "walking" standard.

It takes a day to fly in 70 cubic metres, which is then carted along
the track in a power barrow and wheelbarrows, spread and compacted.
The geo-textile mat laid underneath the metal is intended to allow
water to pass, but prevent the metal from sinking into the dirt.

DOC area manager Jason Roxburgh said mountain bikers should use areas
set aside for their sport instead of hitting the gorge track.

"Takapari Road on the western side of the Ruahine Ranges takes you up
to the tussock tops, and Palmerston North City Council maintain
excellent biking tracks up the Kahutarawa Valley."

--
A website is a place, where, when you go there, it does everything
possible to distract you, from finding the information you came there
to see.- E.W.

In article ,
says...
This story is all backwards. Let the path be natural without any man
made cloth etc. on it. If the people want to see nature why are you
trying to prepare an unnatural carpet. Bicycling is a much better way
to see the country side. Instead of spending so much money on
unnatural paths, use the money to maintain natural trails and create
small wooden bridges and ditches to keep the trails from washing out.
We have lots of well managed walking trials in our area that never see
interference from expensive man made products. Cyclists and
pedestrians use them all the time with no problems.

Let me assure you that I do not support "Mad Mike" in any way, shape, or
form - and that I am a keen mountain-biker. However, your comments don't
add anything to the issue.

New Zealand is a steep and mountainous country with high rainfall, often
volcanic soils, and a propensity for erosion. Low and moderate use
tracks typically are 'natural' but in high-use areas significant erosion
control is a necessity. Without fabric/polymer/metal carpet underlay, in
many areas heavy foot or cycle usage would induce rapid erosion - this
leads either to the track turning into a deep and wide ditch or quagmire
when the land is flat or gently rolling, or into an artificial slip and
scree slope when it is steep. The resulting damage impacts on wildlife,
access and scenery.

The particular track in question is in a steep-sided gorge, was designed
for high-density foot-traffic and, as the article stated, is being
damaged by careless mountain-bike use. Here in NZ we have hundreds of km
of purpose-built MTB tracks of all grades, and many thousands of km of
single track, hiking tracks, 4-wheel drive tracks, farm tracks, shingle
roads etc, spread throughout the country, almost all open to MTB use.
There is little need for anybody, anywhere in the country, to stray onto
pedestrian routes - it is about as sensible as driving a car along a
foot-path.

Cheers
-- Mike F (not the mad one)

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 12:53:12 -0400, Erness Wild
wrote:

This story is all backwards. Let the path be natural without any man
made cloth etc. on it. If the people want to see nature why are you
trying to prepare an unnatural carpet. Bicycling is a much better way
to see the country side. Instead of spending so much money on
unnatural paths, use the money to maintain natural trails and create
small wooden bridges and ditches to keep the trails from washing out.

Don't miss the point. I'm not advocating unnatural human artifacts in
the wilderness. YOU are. What do you think bicycles are?

We have lots of well managed walking trials in our area that never see
interference from expensive man made products.

Except mountain bikes. You conveniently forgot about that.

Cyclists and
pedestrians use them all the time with no problems.

Other than dead or damaged animals and plants? Other than hikers
driven off the trails because it's too unpleasant and dangerous to
hike around bicycles? Mountain bikers sure have a hard time telling
the truth....

Mike Vandeman wrote:
Surprize, surprize!

Mike


http://www.stuff.co.nz/manawatu-stan...-track-upgrade

Mountain bikers hamper walking track upgrade
By MERVYN DYKES - Manawatu Standard Last updated 12:24 31/03/2009
Share Print Text Size Relevant offers
Mountain bikers have got the goat of the Department of Conservation
(DOC) which is trying to upgrade the Manawatu Gorge walking track.

"We are trying to make the track more appealing for city people, so it
is easier for them to get a taste of the bush," said DOC ranger Lyall
Goggin. "But a few mountain bikers have done a considerable amount of
damage, so that we have to spend a lot of time repairing parts of the
track we have already upgraded."

In some areas skidding mountain bikes have stripped freshly laid
gravel off the track and exposed the geo-textile layer underneath.

"I could see tyre tracks and patches of bare cloth as I walked up the
track," Mr Goggin said.

Mountain bikes are banned from the track, which is a major attraction
for walkers, attracting about 1200 a month.

Besides causing extensive damage to the track, they posed a
significant risk to other track users, he said.

DOC has yet to lay metal on four-and-a-half of the 10 kilometres of
track, with a June deadline, but the damage has slowed the work.

In total, 460 cubic metres of metal will be carted and spread along
the track before spring in a bid to upgrade it to a more accessible,
user-friendly "walking" standard.

It takes a day to fly in 70 cubic metres, which is then carted along
the track in a power barrow and wheelbarrows, spread and compacted.
The geo-textile mat laid underneath the metal is intended to allow
water to pass, but prevent the metal from sinking into the dirt.

DOC area manager Jason Roxburgh said mountain bikers should use areas
set aside for their sport instead of hitting the gorge track.

"Takapari Road on the western side of the Ruahine Ranges takes you up
to the tussock tops, and Palmerston North City Council maintain
excellent biking tracks up the Kahutarawa Valley."
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

On Tue, 7 Apr 2009 10:04:57 +1200, mike
wrote:

In article ,
says...
This story is all backwards. Let the path be natural without any man
made cloth etc. on it. If the people want to see nature why are you
trying to prepare an unnatural carpet. Bicycling is a much better way
to see the country side. Instead of spending so much money on
unnatural paths, use the money to maintain natural trails and create
small wooden bridges and ditches to keep the trails from washing out.
We have lots of well managed walking trials in our area that never see
interference from expensive man made products. Cyclists and
pedestrians use them all the time with no problems.

Let me assure you that I do not support "Mad Mike" in any way, shape, or
form - and that I am a keen mountain-biker. However, your comments don't
add anything to the issue.

New Zealand is a steep and mountainous country with high rainfall, often
volcanic soils, and a propensity for erosion. Low and moderate use
tracks typically are 'natural' but in high-use areas significant erosion
control is a necessity. Without fabric/polymer/metal carpet underlay, in
many areas heavy foot or cycle usage would induce rapid erosion

That won't stop erosion. And it has no place in a natural area.

- this
leads either to the track turning into a deep and wide ditch or quagmire
when the land is flat or gently rolling, or into an artificial slip and
scree slope when it is steep.

That should effectively reduce the number of visitors, and therefore
the impacts on the willdife!

The resulting damage impacts on wildlife,
access and scenery.

Then STAY OFF!

The particular track in question is in a steep-sided gorge, was designed
for high-density foot-traffic and, as the article stated, is being
damaged by careless mountain-bike use. Here in NZ we have hundreds of km
of purpose-built MTB tracks of all grades, and many thousands of km of
single track, hiking tracks, 4-wheel drive tracks, farm tracks, shingle
roads etc, spread throughout the country, almost all open to MTB use.
There is little need for anybody, anywhere in the country, to stray onto
pedestrian routes - it is about as sensible as driving a car along a
foot-path.

Cheers
-- Mike F (not the mad one)
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

Ha. You'd have to put "shoes" in there with "bicycles" then. Animals
create paths all the time. The idea is not to keep using the same path
forever. Use a path for a while then start a new one and let the old
one grow back in. Why do you have to control nature? See enough of
that in the city.

Mike Vandeman wrote:
Don't miss the point. I'm not advocating unnatural human artifacts in
the wilderness. YOU are. What do you think bicycles are?

--
A website is a place, where, when you go there, it does everything
possible to distract you, from finding the information you came there
to see.- E.W.

On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:05:30 -0400, Erness Wild
wrote:

Ha. You'd have to put "shoes" in there with "bicycles" then. Animals
create paths all the time. The idea is not to keep using the same path
forever. Use a path for a while then start a new one and let the old
one grow back in. Why do you have to control nature? See enough of
that in the city.

What Is Homo Sapiens' Place in Nature,
From an Objective (Biocentric) Point of View?
Michael J. Vandeman, Ph.D.
July 4, 2002

"For hundreds of millenia, evolving humanity was a native species … in
Africa and Asia. … The modern Races of Homo sapiens were a true alien
species when they colonized the rest of the world, from Australia to
the New World and finally the distant oceanic islands." E.O. Wilson,
p.98.

"The behaviours animals use to avoid predators are both genetically
based and learned. The genetic component is acquired through natural
selection and so can only slowly be developed. This may account in
part for the fact that most of the world's surviving large mammals
live in Africa, for it was there that humanity evolved, and it was
only there that animals had the time to acquire the genetically based
behaviours that allowed them to cope with the new predator." Tim
Flannery, p.198.

"... his dominance and his faculties for upsetting so much of the rest
of life serve to rule him out of what we think of as 'natural'
relationships of living things". Paul Errington, p.41.

"To really come up with something new that's going to allow a species
to live in a completely new environment takes a million years."
Camille Parmesan

Many answers have been given to this question, but none, to my
knowledge, based on science. Even scientists, apparently, often avoid
applying their knowledge when it may be inconvenient (e.g., interfere
with our preferred lifestyle). For example, open any biology textbook
and find where it defines "exotic species". Do you see any mention of
the fact that humans are, throughout most of our range, an exotic
species -- or even a discussion of whether we are an exotic species?
If biology is so valuable (which I think it is), why do we shy away
from using it?

Another example: it is often claimed that humans are a natural
part of our environment -- we are just an animal like any other
animal. If that is true, then why aren't humans mentioned in the vast
majority of natural histories? The fact is, we consider ourselves a
part of our ecosystems when it's convenient (e.g. when we want to
justify recreation in wildlife habitat), and not, when it's not
convenient (e.g. when choosing where to live: in a house!). When you
die, will you re-enter the ecosystem just like any other dead
organism? No! We are either cremated, or buried in a box, specifically
to avoid the natural process of decay.

It is obvious that we are a part of nature, or we couldn't
touch and interact with it. The real question is Which part of nature
are we?

Biology texts usually define an "exotic species" as one
transported by humans to a new location, where it hadn't existed
before. However, this is not a good definition, since the effect of
the exotic species on its new surroundings has nothing to do with how
it got there, but more to do with the fact that it is a newcomer.
However, every species was new at some time in the past. So the
question is, How long does it take to become a native species?

I would like to suggest that a length of time that makes
sense, biologically, is the time that it takes for the other species
in the ecosystem to evolve (i.e., make persistent -- "beneficial" --
genetic changes) to adapt to the newcomer -- say on the order of a
million years. This would make humans (Homo sapiens) native only to
(part of) Africa, and everywhere else, a relative newcomer -- an
exotic species. (This is not a value judgment, but simply a statement
of biological fact.)

Does this mean that we should all move back to Africa? I don't
think so -- it wouldn't help! Even in Africa, our behavior changes so
rapidly, on an evolutionary scale, that the only things that can
evolve fast enough to keep up with us are bacteria and viruses! So
even in Africa, we might as well consider ourselves an exotic species.

But what I do think it means is that we should act with
restraint -- with the manners of a guest! What does this mean in
practice? I think it means, first of all, to "listen" to other
species, and what they are trying to tell us! For example, what is the
first thing that every child learns about wildlife? That they don't
want us around: that they run away whenever we try to approach them!
And then, of course, because we are the curious animals that we are,
we proceed to ignore their wishes.

Jane Goodall, Dian Fossey, and Birute Galdikas all had the
same experience when they began trying to study apes in the wild: the
apes didn't want them around! They "told" the researchers that clearly
and unequivocally. Jane couldn't get close to the chimpanzees until
she started bribing them with bananas. The gorillas charged Dian and
tried to scare her away. And the orangutans pushed over trees toward
Birute, apparently trying to kill or intimidate her. The apes
desperately need us to deliver their message to the rest of humanity.
Although the message is impossible to miss, most humans ignore it.
Rather than arguing over to what degree the apes resemble or differ
from humans, the most important message that we can derive from
studying them is that they want to be left alone!

This is perhaps a bitter pill, but one that humanity urgently
needs to take. With our population increasing rapidly, it is more
important than ever to give wildlife what they want, which is also,
therefore, what they need: freedom from the pressure, irritation,
infection with diseases, and outright danger of the presence of
humans. It is utterly inexcusable that we continue extending our
hegemony into every square inch of the Earth -- and soon, other
defenseless planets as well.

This is a tall order? Very well, then it is a tall order. But
I do not see why we shouldn't aim for what is needed, instead of
pretending that less is adequate.

References:

Ehrlich, Paul R. and Ehrlich, Anne H., Extinction: The Causes and
Consequences of the Disappearances of Species. New York: Random House,
1981.

Errington, Paul L., A Question of Values. Ames, Iowa: Iowa State
University Press, 1987.

Flannery, Tim, The Eternal Frontier -- An Ecological History of North
America and Its Peoples. New York: Grove Press, 2001.

Foreman, Dave, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior. New York: Harmony Books,
1991.

Knight, Richard L. and Kevin J. Gutzwiller, eds. Wildlife and
Recreationists. Covelo, California: Island Press, 1995.

Noss, Reed F. and Allen Y. Cooperrider, Saving Nature's Legacy:
Protecting and Restoring Biodiversity. Island Press, Covelo,
California, 1994.

Stone, Christopher D., Should Trees Have Standing? Toward Legal Rights
for Natural Objects. Los Altos, California: William Kaufmann, Inc.,
1973.

Vandeman, Michael J., http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande, especially
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/ecoc...mjvande/india3,
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/sc8, and
http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande/goodall.

Ward, Peter Douglas, The End of Evolution: On Mass Extinctions and the
Preservation of Biodiversity. New York: Bantam Books, 1994.

"The Wildlands Project", Wild Earth. Richmond, Vermont: The Cenozoic
Society, 1994.

Wilson, Edward O., The Future of Life. New York: Alfred A. Knopf,
2002.
--
I am working on creating wildlife habitat that is off-limits to
humans ("pure habitat"). Want to help? (I spent the previous 8
years fighting auto dependence and road construction.)

Please don't put a cell phone next to any part of your body that you are fond of!

http://home.pacbell.net/mjvande

On Apr 8, 11:25*pm, Mike Vandeman wrote:
On Mon, 06 Apr 2009 22:05:30 -0400, Erness Wild

Michael J. Vandeman, please stop flying overseas, you do more damage
to the environment than a person who owns a car. Stop being so selfish
and think of nature for a change.