Fresh Trails!
This last week some of my family and friends took the week off and went on our annual weeklong bike ride. We go to a popular spot that is loaded full of single-track trials. I've always been cautious to tread lightly and try to preserve our riding areas. I have read a lot of previous letters that brought to our concern to ride with quiet exhausts and to help keep our trails and riding areas open. Yet on my trip I realized something else. In an area that gets rode constantly there were many unridden trails. The trails were heavily over grown and brush beginning to cover the trail. Everyone needs to ride the trails out there that are there available to ride. If we don't we are shutting ourselves down from the inside and just letting trails disappear. Go ahead and break in the trails and challenge yourselves. If you don't that will be one less trail for everyone to enjoy and ride. I know I want to still have trails to ride when I'm ninety or until I can't hold on to a bike anymore.
Dustin Anderson
Tremonton, Utah
Consider yourself lucky to have unused trails and make sure you fight to keep them open. The current trend to close off so many trails has a lot of the country having the problem of the few remaining trails left open have become overused and destroyed from just the opposite of your problem. And I don't think riding a trail qualifies as trail work. Take a day you trim bushes, make water bars, remove logs and get your trails up to snuff. Then you will see them in whole new light. Take ownership and enjoy. -Jimmy Lewis