Photo: Mountainbikesf.com
It seems like sacrilege. Beginning this month, law enforcement will begin using radar guns on unspecified Marin County trails north of San Francisco and will issue tickets to mountain bikers exceeding a 15 mph speed limit.
According to authorities, conflicts between horseback riders, walkers and mountain bikers have become too intense—and at times, downright nasty—so law enforcement is stepping in to control the situation.
But if you’ve ever ridden a mountain bike you know that going downhill at 15mph is a challenge, especially with today’s lightweight, dual suspension “enduro” bikes that sport 29-inch wheels and are built for climbing while allowing riders to maintain speed on the downhill comfortably.
According to SFgate.com, park rangers (and sheriffs deputies) will monitor places where conflicts have been on the rise in recent years, putting a serious clamp on one of the places where mountain biking was born. Which means authorities could post up anywhere in the 16,000 acres of open space.
“They’re going to ruin the sport if they make people go 15 miles an hour,” said mountain biker Glenn Fiedler, who recently traveled from Austin, Texas to ride Mount Tamalpais.
The parks department has been working to settle the conflicts that occur when bikers and dog walkers and horse people meet in tight areas of trails. The education programs have fallen short of solving the problem. But Max Korten, who’s with the department, says that the 64 citations and warnings that were given out on the nearby Mill Valley-Sausalito trail worked to deter conflicts and injuries. So they decided to try it throughout the region.
“We noted a decrease in speed,” he said. “The number of problems went down.”
