As with most avid mountain bikers, I find a near-unparalleled sense of bliss while riding singletrack.  The canopy of trees, the expanse of space stretching to all sides of me, and the organic flow of a trail over the natural contours of the earth’s surface all speak to me on a level that is beyond language.

If you took that intro sentence, and substituted ‘hiker’ or ‘equestrian’ for ‘biker’ – I believe the paragraph would describe the joy that those user groups find and look for in our treasured parks and open spaces.  When it comes down to it, we’re all humans pursuing the same joys.  Escape from our urban confines and routines.  Connectedness to the sacred spaces of nature.  The feeling of the wind in our hair and sun on our faces.

Yet there continues to be such conflict between these groups that share so many common goals and interests.  And it’s not just limited to those who choose to recreate on trails.

The problem is everywhere.  In the ocean, the shortboard surfer disdains the longboarder, the longboarder disdains the boogieboarder.  On the slopes, Snowboarders are disdained by skiers, and vis a vis.  In the skatepark, skateboarders mock the rollerbladers, rollerbladers who glare at the bmx riders who dare encroach on their sweeping canvas of undulating concrete.   So it is with us trail users, hikers, mountain bikers, equestrians all, where one group resents the others, when each one is simply pursuing the same goals by different means.

This is not to say that there is no reason for conflict.  Different modes have different styles.  A pair of skis creates different patterns, different routes and grooves in a slope than a single board.   And lets not ignore the fact that mountain bikers tend to have a penchant for velocity.  Whereas 60 year old hiking and plant observing enthusiasts perhaps do not share the same. I’ll admit that there is a type of riding that is best suited to mountain bike specific trail networks.  Jumping 10 foot gaps and collecting butterflys are not uses that are exactly, well, compatible.

What should be said, however, is that the conflict perpetuates itself on the sense that different uses are wholly incompatible and wholly different.  The conflict insists that one group should have all access rights over another, that because of one form of use, skateboarding over bmxing, shortboarding over boogieboarding, or horseriding over mountain biking, is ‘better’ or ‘more desireable’ than the other.

In any of these situations, groups need to look not at what divides them from one another – those distinctions have already been exposed and bloated until they have become impossible to ignore.  Instead, we should turn our focus to what we share.  The joy of the outdoors experience.  The feeling of exploration and freedom and sacred sense of being surrounded not by man’s creation, but Earth’s and God’s.   Though building downhill racetracks and a place for people to quietly walk and reflect on the shape of things are likely non-compatible uses for a hillside, more moderate voices in both camps will recognize the ability to build earthen trails to provide use, joy, and benefit to both parties.

Without a doubt, changes need to be made.  In all camps.

Mountain Bikers encountering hikers and equestrians should slow down not to a moderate speed, but a speed slow enough to make eye contact with the hikers or horses, and say hello, and greet them.  Not as an other.  As a you, an us – another person enjoying the same world, just in a different way.

And I would hope that hikers and equestrians would be able to return the greeting in the same fashion.  I strongly hope that hikers and equestrians stop demonizing the mountain bike as some sort of earth-destroying monster machine – claims which I hear all to often in use conflict debates, claims which have no scientific validity, and are perpatuated by angry old men.

Most often, in all these types of conflicts, it’s user type A who becomes upset at user type B because B caused A to get off the trail/slow down/wait/go around them/get off their bike/shattered their sense of solitude etc.  I’ve seen some situations get pretty ugly due to those causes.  People getting upset over these things proves that the older we get, the more we remain not child like, but childish.  We need to remember that we’re all incredibly lucky to enjoy the outdoors as we do.  That everyone enjoys it in a different way, and if you didn’t go as fast as you would have liked due to so many people on the trail, or you didn’t get to escape into your Thoreau like mindstate because a mountain biker came up behind you with a creaky chain – that we are all still incredibly lucky.  That your day, so shattered by an ‘other’ on the trail, is still a beautiful day in a beautiful place.

We’re all able to take our lesiure time and explore pathways into the known and unknown of our pristine and beautiful lands.  Give thanks, and smile at the others as you see them.  Know they’re different, but find your similarities.

It’s such a simple concept, to focus on what we share, and not what makes us different.  I think I’ll try.  I hope you will too. But for now, I’ve got to step off this soapbox and go for a ride.