eBike E-bikes now coming to a National Park by you...

[Jersey Skier]

No mention of this here yet.

https://www.apnews.com/d22c8bb8a83c48c0b421dc0da81efd0b

 

[Jersey Skier]

The actual policy.

 

[Tom K.]

Boy, e-bikers must have some lobbying juice. Traditional mtb riders can't even seem to keep from being given the boot in uncrowded areas where we've ridden for decades.

See Montana Gallatin River/Big Sky area and Idaho White Clouds, for example.

It will be interesting to see what effect this has. IIRC, most National Parks don't allow bicycles on actual trails, anyway. I must be missing something.

 

[scott43]

Boy, e-bikers must have some lobbying juice. Traditional mtb riders can't even seem to keep from being given the boot in uncrowded areas where we've ridden for decades.

See Montana Gallatin River/Big Sky area and Idaho White Clouds, for example.

It will be interesting to see what effect this has. IIRC, most National Parks don't allow bicycles on actual trails, anyway. I must be missing something.

Qft

 

[EricG]

It will be interesting to see what effect this has. IIRC, most National Parks don't allow bicycles on actual trails, anyway. I must be missing something.

I guess this is where I am confused too? So if I go buy a e-bike I can now ride in the national parks?

 

[scott43]

750 watts. Think about that.

 

[Erik Timmerman]

750 watts. Think about that.

I did a 30 mile ride last week, set a KOM and got a bunch of PRs. My average wattage was supposedly 130. 750 is just ludicrous to me. It might be just the right amount of power though if someone from "My 600 lb Life" wants to start e-biking.

 

[Josh Matta]

It will be interesting to see what effect this has. IIRC, most National Parks don't allow bicycles on actual trails, anyway. I must be missing something.

this also applies to National Monuments as well and National Forest both of which have some pretty extensive trails networks in them.

There are also a couple national parks with Singletrack riding in them 2 I have been to are Redwoods National Park and Cuyahoga Valley Nationa Park, in fact East Rim trail in Cuyahoga Valley is really well built.

Let be real though E bike are not really the enemy. The limiting factor for mtb riding will be technical skills even on a E-bike. If more e bike access means more national park/national forest trails being built is that really a bad thing?

 

[Josh Matta]

I did a 30 mile ride last week, set a KOM and got a bunch of PRs. My average wattage was supposedly 130. 750 is just ludicrous to me. It might be just the right amount of power though if someone from "My 600 lb Life" wants to start e-biking.

with an extra 750 watts I could have a peak wattage of 2300 and sustain wattage of a 1000!! I wonder how many times you could ride CFN top to bottom in an hour with one?!

 

[Primoz]

Boy, e-bikers must have some lobbying juice. Traditional mtb riders can't even seem to keep from being given the boot in uncrowded areas where we've ridden for decades.

That's in my opinion only good thing of these mopeds. I admit I have no idea how things are in US, but over here, especially in my home country, I'm basically doing something illegal every single time I sit on bike. In all these years mtb exists, we didn't achieve a single thing. Not riders, not tourist organizations (bike tourism is actually pretty big thing here in central Europe), not cycling organization. We are still more or less not allowed to ride anything but roads. Good thing is, noone gives a shit and we all ride, and police doesn't check. And for all to be even more absurd, in Slovenia penalty for riding off road in natural environment is 150eur for mountain biker, and 40eur for mx or car driver... go figure
With all this ebike crap, we are seeing way more people on bikes in nature, not like 10% more but like more then 20 times or even more. And that means money for everyone even remotely involved in this sort of business, which is slowly bringing change to what's allowed and not. So afterall, sooner or later, we will finally get legislation, where riding trails won't be crime anymore. So even if it feels really stupid to have motors being considered as bikes, there's at least something good out of all this

 

[Beartown]

this also applies to National Monuments as well and National Forest both of which have some pretty extensive trails networks in them.

There are also a couple national parks with Singletrack riding in them 2 I have been to are Redwoods National Park and Cuyahoga Valley Nationa Park, in fact East Rim trail in Cuyahoga Valley is really well built.

Let be real though E bike are not really the enemy. The limiting factor for mtb riding will be technical skills even on a E-bike. If more e bike access means more national park/national forest trails being built is that really a bad thing?

Not sure exactly, but both of those NPs have irregular borders and are intermixed with state park land. The single track I saw at Cuyahoga Valley was definitely outside the NP boundary.

 

[Tom K.]

this also applies to National Monuments as well and National Forest both of which have some pretty extensive trails networks in them.

I thought it specifically did NOT apply to National Forests, only actual National Parks?

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/policy/upload/PM_19-01.pdf

I'm going to check in with our local USFS trail guy Tuesday, at the weekly coffee klatch. I suspect this will be the only topic discussed this week by our local brain trust!

 

[LouD-Truckee]

well..... that didn't take long.... https://www.sfchronicle.com/nation/...-could-soon-be-purring-along-the-14403258.php

https://www.sfchronicle.com/travel/article/What-eBikes-mean-for-Yosemite-Point-Reyes-14406163.php

"Of bigger concern is the Estero Trail, a personal favorite, where present rules would permit them out to the ridge that overlooks Drakes Estero. Rangers could solve this by banning mountain bikes here, a worthy sacrifice that would take care of the eBike issue in a single maneuver."

 

[LouD-Truckee]

are those who don't know the history dooming us to repeat it ?

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1994-04-10-tm-44146-story.html

I've seen the enemy.... and it ain't us....

 

[Erik Timmerman]

"Of bigger concern is the Estero Trail, a personal favorite, where present rules would permit them out to the ridge that overlooks Drakes Estero. Rangers could solve this by banning mountain bikes here, a worthy sacrifice that would take care of the eBike issue in a single maneuver."

Yup, here we go.