No horses doesn't mean bikers can blindside hikers, walkers, and joggers

Like most of you reading this, I love to ride trails. Like you, I know how sublime it can be to pedal single-track, whether you're in mountains or high meadow. Perhaps unlike many of you, I also love to run on trails, and to hike them. Throughout the year I spend, I'd guess, as much two-footed time on trails as I do two-wheeled. Thus, knowing both sides — or rather, three of the many, many sides of trail conflicts and the trail-use debate created by so many different trail users — comes naturally to me.

	State Your Case This is a divisive topic. What do you think about trail conflict (hikers versus bikers)? Do you think that bikes hurt our national forests?

Even though this conflict has been widely discussed almost since the inception of mountain biking in the early eighties, it is still the sport's most delicate and explosive issue. So, rather than simply repeat the same old arguments posited by the various trail-using sides, let's begin with the history of this issue of wilderness preservation and mountain bike exclusion, and then move on to a look at the nature of the controversy.