And yeah, the double standard is absurd! Bull dozers and trucks for maintenance… really??

IMBA has abandoned the entire area as working with the elected board of directors is a waste of time. This is a land manger who goes to the local stables to get equestrian input when they conduct polls and then let a tiny group of ninnies determine bike access. Unfortunately you cannot legally have much fun in the east bay. (Joaquin Miller and Rockville are exceptions as they’re not managed by EBRPD.) The local bike advocacy group, BTCEB, is tons of fun, but like IMBA gave up trying to work with the District. Easier to talk with a grumpy hiker once a year then wasting 10 years trying to get 1000 feet of double track open to cyclists.

Thanks your factually-grounded analysis, Michael, and for shedding light on some of the areas that I didn’t address! And thank you for all you’re doing for mountain biking in the East Bay!

The BTCEB has been a freestanding counsel for its entire existence. The Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay is not the local arm of IMBA. It is one of the 5 trails councils which founded IMBA as an international organization 25 years ago. It was also one of the founding councils of NorCamba, a statewide effort for advocacy, which morphed into IMBA California.

The following is analytical, historical, and philosophical.

To say that the BTCEB has not produced anything is to fail to appreciate what it takes to create real change. Further, it fails to appreciate the fact of the evolution and development of the mountain biking community to what is currently a major user group which commands substantial attention.

To simply stand at Board meetings and demand access based upon some presumed right for a place in the parks is futile. For the last 25 years this group has worked to build relationships with the staff and administration and develop an awareness for mountain biking in our parks. Critical gains have placed us in Park documents as a user group against much resistance. Despite this, extant ruling documents were worded in such a fashion so as to allow interpretations which generally went against us.

Most recently the Pleasanton Ridge LUP was passed through much BTCEB effort and support. This document contains specific language including us for access in this developing park. Currently the East Bay Regional Park District Master Plan is up for review. Contained in this revised plan is specific language which strengthens and supports our presence in the parks, notably the subject of mtbgreg1′s insightful article. It was only through our relationships built over years with the staff and the administration that either of these features has occurred. The review of the Master Plan, the major ruling document for the EBRPD, will occur through mid-October and we are working hard to create participation in the community to support its passing and enrich our presence.

It was decided several years ago that having a group set up purely for advocacy didn’t work. The precious few hard-working people who ended up doing all the work over so many years simply burned themselves out and ran screaming into the night never to be seen again. We needed to rebuild with our accumulated experience, insight, modern communication and PR methods. It was decided to go with our greatest strength which is riding our bikes; why do anything if it is no fun? As such our riding programs have been developed which brings some 150 riders to our events every month for a really great time. The presence of these new athletes creates greater opportunities for bonding with our issues and developing new volunteers. As a consequence we now have 2 women on the Board and 2 new men from these programs. As a consequence riders look to us for leadership.

Administrative challenges aside, the largest problem is in engaging the mountain biking community, admittedly varied, to come forward in support of advocacy. Riders must step forward and represent but there are only so many hours in the day. We are currently creating advocacy programs which fit better in people’s lives allowing them to participate and support our work in much greater numbers. We are building, forming, and supporting communities of riders. We are crafting a mountain biking identity which cannot be denied; our dignity is meets the dignity of all.

Change is coming. Grab an oar.

Michael Mejia
President
The Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay

It is pretty grim in the east bay, for a mountain biker. I am lucky to live 1/2 mile from Joaquin Miller Park, which as a city of Oakland park, has its own rules for trail access. Most of its singletrack is legal to ride, and most people who use the park know that, and get along. I agree with your comments about the Redwood loop (East Ridge – Canyon – West Ridge). It is boring, the people who use it treat riders with disdain, and the trails that are off-limits to cyclists are very nice. There are contiguous parks nearby that are completely off-limits to cyclists, like Huckleberry; which makes sense, as its trails are way too narrow and twisty to allow sharing, and Sibley, which is an EBRP, and Redwood, which is an EBRP. There is another city park downhill from Joaquin Miller Park called Dimond Canyon, and it does have a very nice little singletrack that is legal to ride. Chabot park is massive, and has more than enough room and empty space (and cows!) to allow for new trails to be built, which could be made available to mountain bikers. Similar, local parks that are old converted ranch land; Las Trampas, Briones. All feature steep, ancient dirt roads and a remarkable lack of singletrack, and low human use. (Chabot gets crowded down by the south end of the lake, where families come to bbq and picnic and do short walks.)

The main problem in the east bay, and Marin; too many people. The bay area is home to a cadre of people who Fought the Good Fight for nature and trails in the middle part of the 20th century. The Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth, John Muir, David Brower, etc are all from here. The hippie years carried this tradition, and these champions of open space and nature and hiking are all now graying, voting, meeting-attending, and sometimes, embittered members of the trail-use community. The horse people. The horse people are another artifact of California life. Just as these parks are legacies of old ranches, so is horse culture here. From the patricians in Marin County to the people who built Oakland, horse culture is prevalent. My neighborhood in the Oakland Hills is full of homes with corrals and stables on their property, many still with horses living in them. Population density is high, here, and mountain bikers have to compete. When it gets this crowded, you have conflict. And I have to say, when mountain bikers are not given an outlet, they ride the few, legal trails and sometimes go too fast. There are younger riders who just want to go fast. The few legal trails in the east bay have downhills that are fall-lines, which doesn’t help things; Cinderella, Chaparral, Castle Park, West Ridge, Live Oak. Legal downhill trails which contour would help things, and help spread out the mountain bike users. As you move out of the densely-populated regions, access gets better.

There are more enlightened areas, yes. The peninsula is better, but there’s still a mindset of “catch the mountain bikers speeding with a radar gun.” Santa Cruz is a famously messed-up situation, with some legal trails, many illegal trails that are openly ridden, and lots of struggle for access. Santa Rosa’s Annadel park is a treat to ride. There’s less density there, and less of the embittered hippie hiker vibe as well. Similarly, Fort Ord in Monterey is great to ride, and conflict is not such a big deal. Get to the Sierras, where the density is way down, and many communities really want the money that mountain bikers bring to the community, and mountain bike trail access is a civic necessity.

I ride the legal trails with my friends. Many riders have resorted to becoming night owls. There are no trail conflicts at night. I will continue to attend trail access meetings, but it’s frustrating to hear the same story over and over. The rangers and land managers are not on our side, yet. But there is a generational change coming. Mountain bikers are getting older. We vote. We go to meetings. Equestrians are a much smaller group now, and can’t drive trail access as broadly as they once did. Older people hike and ride now. There will always be reckless riders, but those of us that have been through it all, and are middle-aged, can teach the younger ones, and show the out-of-towners how it’s done. There is an Oakland Composite high school mountain bike team. They are the future, and their very existence as riders might be an effective force for change. The growing popularity of cyclocross bikes has more young people riding from the city centers up into the hills and onto the trails. All of this is good. Population density will only increase. We have to get trail access right, for all users.

I am surprised anyone would travel to the east bay to ride mountain bikes, that actually boggles my mind. Sorry you weren’t able to find a local to show you the fun illegal stuff (mostly single track) because sadly that’s what we all do. Grab those lights!

Joaquin Miller and Redwood Park is my after work ride. Weekends I head to either Tamarancho, China Camp, Auburn, Santa Cruz, Skeggs.

I just got into road riding for cross training. Yep, I said road riding. Sad.

@sanjuro, I’ve never been to Portland, Pittsburgh, OR NYC, but I’ve done research on all these places and have known people that have ridden them all. And, based on my research and some of the data we have here on Singletracks, all of those cities are much better off than the East Bay! Even NYC has in-town singletrack and a full-blown bike park, where as, like you mentioned, in San Francisco you have to travel outside of the city to find riding, and when you get there it’s not that good.

Also, after having ridden the James River Park System in Richmond, VA this spring, I feel like almost ANY metropolitan city with little singletrack…. well it’s just a cop-out. Instead of banning mountain bikes, the James River Park has opened their doors to mountain bikers and the local IMBA advocacy groups, and at present there is over 20 miles of absolutely top-notch singletrack in the HEART of a 4-million+ person metro area. These trails start literally about a mile from the skyscrapers… and if you take the time to drive out of the city a few minutes you just find more trails (and more expansive trails) in every single direction.

It’s not like San Francisco and the East Bay don’t have the park space–I saw how long the Golden Gate park was! The parks just aren’t open to mountain bikes.

@bottom_brakkit, that’s a great breakdown– thanks for sharing!! Yeah there were definitely a lot of people in the park(s), and I wasn’t aware that the Regional Park System was doing so well financially. I guess that’s good to hear, but I can see why there is no desire to change the status quo.

Ride on my friends!

I ride Redwood/Joaquin regularly – you could call it my back yard ride, and you’re definitely selling it a bit short. Joaquin is a city park so the draconian rules don’t apply; but it’s tiny so you have to combine these parks into a mix of fire road and singletrack for a decent spin. (You can actually combine these two parks with Chabot, which you seem to have liked a bit more, for about 40 miles of fun and varied riding, probably about 40% singletrack. But a cycling destination we certainly are not, and we never will be.

There are a lot of reasons for the crappy situation. Here are a few.

1) The local IMBA arm has never accomplished anything worthwhile. (Actually thats not true, they do put on group rides and do some occasional trail work here and there… but they have never had a significant win on any new trail or any new access to restricted trails.)

2) The park agency doesn’t give a shit. And it’s not as simple as them “hating bikes” so much as the fact that there’s absolutely nothing in it for them to change things. There is no financial incentive to court new user groups because the district is one of the few public agencies that has plenty of money. There is no need to court new trail users because the parks are already well-used, if not overcrowded. Fire roads are easy for rangers and maintenance folks who never want to get out of their trucks. And if the parks played nice with cyclists, that would just be picking a fight with the surprisingly virulent sierra club hiking ladies gestapo, and it’s just not a fight that’s worth it to them.

3) There are layers and layers of federal and state environmental regulations that make building trails and/or expanding access in these parks an enormous pain in the ass; combined with a bureaucratic philosophy that delights in finding any excuse for why things CAN’T be done rather than ideas about how they COULD be done.

Ok, lest I get seriously depressed I’m going to go strap on my lights and poach some sweet singletrack…. It’s like that old saying… If a mountain biker rides through the forest and there are no hikers awake to see him, was he really there…?

You have forgotten to mention that almost all the parks you rode in are in cities with over 100,000 people. The entire Bay Area is approx 10 million people.

Compared to parks in places like Portland, Pittsburgh, and NYC, the EB Parks are amazing.

I actually live in San Francisco, which has no single track at all, and I often take BART over the Bay and ride several of the parks you have ridden. I feel very lucky that I do not have to step into a car to ride great places.

It is really an unfair comparison to mention Packer Saddle or the Tahoe Rim Trail. Those are world class trails in remote parts of California, not a few miles from thousands of people.

We are working through the EBRPD to expand rider trail access. The East Bay is nowhere near as un-bike-friendly as Marin.

Most of what I wanted to say has been said already but as one of the (possible) trail poachers, I wanted to show my point of view.

In Pleasanton(far east bay next to Livermore), there is a dirtjumping/pump track area that is completely legal. When talking to the builder/maintenance person I learned that it took over 10 years to get the area legitimized. Now, I am all for legitimacy, but waiting 10 years doesn’t seem reasonable to me. I don’t know if I’ll still be alive in 10 years let alone be able to ride. So, I’d much rather risk an occasional ticket than know that I am paying taxes for someone to deny me something I love(that doesn’t physically hurt anyone else). Do I act like a douchebag towards hikers? No. Do I give a bad image to bike advocacies? Yep, but at least I show that we, mountain bikers, exist to other people, not just politicians. Especially by kindly interacting with hikers on those off-limits trails since most hikers don’t bother reading the rules.

When I read this, I went out on my road bike to burn off a little frustration. Tomorrow I will go hit up Blanket’s and tear up a little single track and be thankful I live in Georgia.

You are just lucky they didn’t catch you in a drive through at McDonalds trying to order a happy meal…

Scott
Marietta

There are a quite a few singletrack around if you you know where to look. Mt Diablo, Briones, Lime Ridge are a few. Anyway, I belong to a Mt. Bike group called BTCEB= Bicycle Trails Council of the East Bay. http://www.btceb.org

Happy Riding,
Ken

@jbdbsb1, There’s actually a trail here in Georgia has a rotating day system (odd/even), and it seems to work out pretty well.

try san diego. it may be a close 2nd.

It’s a shame and that’s why all the illegal trails come into existence.