I am shocked that you published this letter from someone outside our community. How can they have any knowledge of how our trails are built or maintained? And why single out mountain bike trails, many hiking trails are far worse in both construction and maintenance than trails used for cycling.
The River City Cycle Club are in a partnership with BC Parks and MOF to be the Stewards of the local trail system used primarily for mountain biking, known a The Snowden Demonstration Forest. These trails are built and maintained to the highest internationally recognised standards as set out by IMBA, the International Mountain Bike Association. The standards as set out have been adopted by many areas, and are now used in many parks for hiking trails. The trail standards are designed to build sustainable trails that cause minimal impact to environment.
Is there an impact to environment? Yes, but there is an impact to the environment from all human activities.
Do you drive a car? Ride a bus? Travel in a plane or boat? Do you live in a house? Use electricity? Eat food from outside your local area?
Is your home made of wood or concrete? Live in a city?
All these activities have far greater impact than trails.
I could continue, however the point is mountain bikers for the most part are lovers of nature and the environment and the impact of our sport is minimal when trail are built responsibly.
We have strong partnerships with BC Park and MOF due to the fact we build responsibly and have a strong reliable volunteer work force that gets the job done.
Your papers publishing of this letter shows a lack of community awareness, a failure to understand the economic impact responsible sports have on a community as well as the positive social impact of recreation.
Please be more responsible in what you print.
Dan Clements
Campbell River
Editor’s Note: It would be irresponsible of us to not run a letter from another point of view.
It’s called balance.
The letter was sent to us in response to material we had in our paper.
We are obligated/expected to run it.
The issue is not about what the editor or anybody at the paper believes, it’s about the paper’s obligation to allow all viewpoints access to the space in our paper.
By all means, dispute the letter writer’s claims but never dispute our responsibility to present all sides of the issue.
Even if it’s from somebody outside of our community.