Originally Posted by
Kapusta
So, if you can’t see a motor, then it does not exist?
If two things look similar they fundamentally the same?
Sorry, gymnastics was too generous a term. Thats just and stumble and face plant.
And I never said eMTBs have no place. They do, just like any other motorcycle.
Ok, that's your opinion and you are entitled to it, even though I find the points you put forward to dance around the issue with gross generalizations and attempts to minimalize by ad hominem attack boring. I linked two bikes above, side by side for comparison. That's a stumble and a face plant? Not buying the clumsy smear. It's called an example. But.. yeah, ones a mountain bike - the others a motorcycle. Sure... If you can't even address that in a reasonable way what's the point of continuing further. It's fruitless to argue against strongly held emotionally based beliefs that ignore facts in favour of feeling.
I'll just leave others to read the thread and decide who's making the reasonable argument or stumbling over their prejudices and resorting to generalizations about entire user groups. FTR, I'm not any more pro e-mtb than I am pro manual mtb. I have no strongly held opinion either way. I currently still seek a cardio/strength component from biking so manual works for me. But I also realize what I want may not be what others are seeking and I don't think I have any more exclusive rights than they do.
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In regards to the topic, what has more impact on a wilderness area, as in the example I suggested: Continuous truck traffic up and down an access road or having e-mtbs ride up the same access road?
Below is a pic at the base of one local area I ride. the start of the DH trails is 2Km's up this logging road. On the weekends in particular, it's very busy. Some people, like me, ride up and down. Many others load their bikes in trucks and ferry them to the top. Then the driver turns around and drives down to the bottom. On the way up I would rather have people ride past me on e-mtbs than have to worry about dodging them as they coal roll me in their noisy diesel 4x4's. My safety on the road, the physical impact to the road, associated noise and air pollution, all would be lessened. Just the reduction in noise pollution would be major in terms of wildlife. Personally speaking, I would be fine with allowing e-mtbs and banning pickups but the manual mtb users, who probably look down on electric assist, would not go for the taking away of their "diesel" assist.
Further.
There are two main user groups that access that area, other than occasional logging. Vehicles (4x4's, atvs and dirt bikes) and mountain bikes. A third group might be hikers, trail runners and horse riders but their impact is minimal at best. If you removed the logging (obviously) and 4x4/mtb from the area, it would quickly revert to natural wilderness. The impact by those two user groups is dramatic. As long as you allow both, the area is impacted along a corridor that extends as far as the user groups build and ride trail systems, and with noise, even wider. No other groups have the same sort of impact. In that way, the OP article is true.
We may think that a bike, on a trail, isn't having a major impact. But you also have to look at the access route to that trails system, how bikes are transported, staging areas, visitor frequency due to popularity (look at Moab), expansion of trail systems once a main line is laid down etc...
20190608_105417[1] by
dc460, on Flickr