Hartwood Access Alert

[Mauriceman]

Hartwood Mountain Bike Access Action Alert!
Can you imagine that there are people who don’t want mountain bikes in county parks? Well, it’s true. Letters have been sent to the office of Jim Roddey, our county’s Chief Executive, asking him to kick us out. Why?
All it takes is one altercation with one irate pedestrian to start a wave of negative publicity towards all trail cyclists. As you read this, remember, perception is reality.

Perception: People are cutting trails and building stunts through the woods wherever they deem appropriate. This is destroying the woods.
Solution: We must maintain the aesthetic of the woods for every living thing. Stop building more trails. Stop cutting switchbacks. Stop making spurs. Stop building stunts. Stay on the open trails, and off the closed ones. Keep single track single. Stop riding when it’s wet. Trail maintenance days to be scheduled.

Perception: We ride too fast and come up on pople with no warning, scaring the citizens and their dogs and children. It only takes one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch.
Solution: Slow down, say hello, be friendly, use a dingle bell, be a neighbor, not a menace to society.

Perception: We’re litterbugs. One pedestrian sees one mountain biker drop one piece of trash, now we’re all litterbugs.
Solution: One slob makes us all look bad. Cleanup days will be scheduled through PORC and/or PTAG. We mountain bikers, as good citizens, pick up other people’s trash whenever possible, thus leaving the woods better than we found them. Every day.

Perception: Mountain bikes are overrunning the park.
Solution: There are tons of trails in the area to ride. Let’s use them. Trail map of surrounding areas to be developed.

Brought to you by your friends at: Dirt Rag Magazine, Pittsburgh Off Road Cyclists (PORC), and the Pittsburgh Trail Advocacy Group (PTAG),

For questions, comments and cocerns, please contact western PA IMBA Rep Karl Rosengarth at starchild@stargate.net

[Scott G.]

Jees Maurice, that sounds like about the same exact thing that is going on out here at Fort Ord, with a handfull of people ruining it for everyone else. This has even escalated to vandalism of trail signs and interference with the trail markers for an authorized equestrian event approved by BLM.

Can you imagine no Sea Otter Classic? If the idiots who are doing all of this keep it up, the Sea Otter may be looking for new home.:mad:

[jhl99]

I would think the same thing could precipitate at Boyce Park.

One thing that would help would to limit the number of people of people riding together. I would think that 3 or 4 in a group should be a maximum.

Log piles and the such should be discouraged. In a multi-use envirnoment, log piles are only good for mountain bikers.

[quazar76]

I guess I'll be pointing fingers here, but a large amount of the stunts and new trails that are constantly popping up at heartwood are being built by young kids. I don't think that these guys know who porc is or go on forums or even read the mags, just emulate the stunts.

My point is; what is a good and polite way to deter people form doing this? Especially if they are not conscious of the idea of access. Trail maintenance and sustainable single track procedures need to made known, and they need to be COOL. Otherwise I think a lot of people will not listen. When I was younger I had no idea about any of the issues at hand, and did not wear a helmet and thought I was a baddass. But, I was never rude and I do not litter-anywhere.

I f Heartwwod is turned in to a Freeride park then it will be lost to Mt. bikers. It is already well on its way. I think that a good start would be to post water resistant signs( as I have seen done before there) That state the facts and the solutions. Put them in front of useless spurs and stunts. Probably use the DR logo. This way maybe kids will see that it is cool and they will get hip.

I know it is not kids, or all one group of people for that matter, but it seems to me that the folks who have been around longer already take these things into consideration and not for granted.

I am more than willing to vollunteer my time &/ or resources to the cause. Spreading the word by mouth is also a hip thing to do.

No nails on the trails please.

[denali1]

Just wanted to let Pgh riders know about a irate equestrian I met in the
parking lot at Hartwood Sunday afternoon, the lady was unloading her
horse and spied us loading our bikes in the trucks and approached and
wanted to know why "we" continue to ramp logs on the trail!!
Her point was that horses can't jump or go over them and it was bumming her out to have to trail blaze around the ramps. I listened
politely and told I would try to spread the word and that not all of us
use or want to build ramps and that in this humble riders opinion that
this is a phase that I believe will subside, after riders learn how to get over a 2 foot log rather than ramp it!! I myself suck so I walk them!!
But the point is that we need to dialogue with these people because they
have more political clout than us at this moment!!!

[Mauriceman]

exactly!
here's the latest:

Hartwood mountain bike access meeting #1
Who: All interested parties.
What: Meet to discuss the future of Hartwood mountain bike trails. Brainstorm. Express opinions. Come up with a plan.
When: Thursday July 31st at 6:30 pm.
Where: Dirt Rag. 3483 Saxonburg Blvd.
Why: Because thinking of the future, we need sustainable trails and sustainable relationships with others.

Thanks,
Maurice Tierney, Dirt Rag Magazine
Karl Rosengarth, IMBA Representative, Western PA
Pittsburgh Off Road Cyclists
Pittsburgh Trail Advocacy Group

[DirtRagArt]

I'll be there!

[dbsantacruz]

Maurice and other Dirt Rag/Hartwood riders,

I was unable to attend the meeting last night due to prior commitments but I am interested in helping out with trail work or whatever when the time comes. Please keep myself (and others) informed of the next meeting/steps via the board if possible.

Thanks

db

[denali1]

Mo, I could not attend due to not having anyone to watch the shop,
but please let us know what was discussed and when we all can get together again!!! We all know that this issue is not going to go away anytime soon so we need to keep it at the forefront of all riders,regardless of where we ride in the county, So thanks to you for
getting the ball rolling on this issue!!!

[bubbaZ]

I hope there will be a more official report, but here's my take on what we talked about.

Maurice and Karl and possibly a few other folks are meeting with the county parks director next week to discuss how to resolve the conflict issue. He seems quite willing to work with us to maintain access to sustainable trails, but we will have to help out with education, maintenance, and enforcement.

To that end, we talked about signage and opportunities for distributing educational materials (IMBA rules of the trail, maps of officially open trails, information about trail development opportunities).

We talked about starting an access-focused email listserv (more like yahoogroups than like this forum), or possibly a mountain biking listserv that had access info, to reach a larger group of people. I'm sure you'll be hearing more about that.

We talked about developing an IMBA mountain bike patrol. Apparently we have a fledgling patrol group, with only a few members and access only to one park (I think Deer Lakes).

The first step probably will be a trail assesment to map what's there and determine if anything should be closed or restricted. We seem to prefer that all trails should be multiuse (horse/hike/bike). Hartwood apparently is designated a "nature preserve" and not a "recreational park," so we maybe don't have as much right to it as to other county parks.

We also need to understand what the issues are from the other side. I know a lot of us just never thought about horses and big ramped log piles; there probably are more things like that that we need to know.

This sounds like a great opportunity for us to step up and become respectable citizens in the eyes of the park administrators. Whatever we do here will influence the type of things we can do in other regional parks in the future. We have great resources in IMBA and PORC, and it sounds like the DR folks already have a very good relationship with the Hartwood staff. We should try to make the most of this.

Stay tuned.

[seether106]

Hey DirtRag,
How about surveying hikers you encounter and ask them what they think of us bikers, not just the ones who wrote letters.
What do they think of their encounters with us?
What do they expect us to do when we meet them on the trail?
What would they have us do differently? Yell something?
Do they know we are the ones who try maintain the trails and not the necessarily the park staff?
How can we make it better?

What better use of a national magazine.

What do you think?

Tom...

[Mauriceman]

I've thought of that, but we'd have to get out some clip boards to make it look official.

We've avtually been thanked by some hikers for creating new trails where there were none before.