thanks for posting this mtbgreg. i think it brings up a topic that after some years now of strava, needs to be reassessed. below is my viewpoint from personal experience at this one site. i wish it were an isolated incident, but it is not.
these are areas i ride. strava is a big problem. trails just north off of mission trails regional park, spring canyon, had some of the nicest trails in the area. these are the illegal trails in the beginning of the newscast. they were all stravatized for faster times. when nice little techie bits and small jumps get straightened and flattened, rock gardens of decades old trails get raked aside so they begin to look like bowling alleys, and trees and bushes cut aside for a better line of sight, you know you’ve been hit.
these trails are off the park and unsanctioned and have been used for decades by bikers, joggers and horsey peeps with little concern by the rangers or cdf&w. kind of a ‘no harm, no foul’ relationship. that began to change when these idiots used strava to establish koms there, also establishing the usage these trails were getting, and plowing down the brush and altering trails to get faster times. it was at this point the cdf&w stepped in and began the current enforcement. even more mindless is this area borders on military land used for shooting ranges. those borders were passed. the military was not too keen seeing bikers up on the crest line trying to best their times during firing practice. both the rangers and military have had news spots on tv demonizing mtn biking and the ‘utter destruction’ they leave in their wake. mtn bikers are now public enemy #1. nice stuff.
some early pictures here (pg 4 or so):
http://dirttreaders.com/phpBB3/viewtopi … =2&t=13722
the pictures don’t tell the whole tale of what these trails looked like before, and unfortunately that post detailed just the beginning of the stravatization.