My goodness, you certainly don't handle disagreement very well, do you? I didn't intend to get you into a swivet; I wonder what your reaction would have been if I had tried.

Your response to my post can best be described as uninformed. Unfortunately, it offers nothing more than strongly stated opinion and constitutes an excellent demonstration of the old adage "often in error but never in doubt".

Read your reply and I think you will have to agree. In your reply, you state opinion that is false to fact and that is unsupported by any evidence whatsoever: unless you consider your opinion to be evidence. I don't. For example, you know nothing about me yet you make four incorrect assumptions regarding my views.

First, you presume to know what happened when I was hit by the cyclist. I don't recall your having been there yet you feel free to judge and claim that I failed in my responsibility. When one person is traveling perhaps 2 mph, the other about 15 mph, coming from behind, and out of sight behind a rise in the trail until the last few seconds, your statement

borders on the ridiculous at best and, to me, proves again that ignorance is seldom a barrier to opinion.

Second, you claim that I

Here, again, you have no knowledge. In fact I have. A lot. I was a professional forester and forestry scientist before I retired and am quite familiar with the management and use of pack animals and also with what they do to trails. I am also more aware than the average person of the damage that mountain bikes can do to trails; repairing trails used by mountain bikes, horses and hikers was one of my responsibilities as a forester.

Third, you claim that I think

As already stated, I had extensive experience in maintaining trails when I worked for the U.S. Forest Service. I know that mountain bikes cause erosion because I have seen the result on numerous occasions. I don't think bikes are bad but I do think they should be largely confined to trails not used by hikers.

And, your statement


is just absurd. You have no basis for saying that other than immature pique.

Finally, you claim

I am reasonably familiar with the rules under which the U.S. Forest Service operates and am not aware of any of them that have "turned many wildernesses into the exclusive playgrounds of outfitters". Perhaps you are more familiar with the rules than am I. If that is the case, please help me to understand by naming some of the "many wildernesses" to which you were referring and the specific rules that turned them into "the exclusive playgrounds of outfitters". Since you make this claim, I am sure you have the information and should easily be prepared to share it with me. If you can't, I guess I'll just have to assume this is another area where ignorance is not a barrier to opinion.