{"id":149,"date":"2004-08-31T16:46:18","date_gmt":"2004-08-31T23:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/?p=149"},"modified":"2022-08-12T15:47:02","modified_gmt":"2022-08-12T22:47:02","slug":"protecting-biking-trails-in-potential-wilderness-areas-in-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/2004\/08\/31\/protecting-biking-trails-in-potential-wilderness-areas-in-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Protecting biking trails in potential wilderness areas in California"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Wilderness wheels still spin<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/News\/Sources\/LATimes-VC-Outdoors.jpg\">Source of this article<\/a> &#8211; Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2004.<\/p>\n<p><em>Mary Forgione<!-- Module ends: article-byline--><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Once a month or so, mountain bikers who fear losing access to California backcountry take organized &#8220;wilderness rides&#8221; in places &#8212; from Grouse Ridge near Truckee to Mill Creek Trail in Lassen National Forest, below &#8212; that will become off-limits if the California Wild Heritage Act passes. &#8220;The idea is to show off these trails and maintain access,&#8221; says Jim Haagen-Smit of Newcastle, Calif., an International Mountain Bicycling Assn. volunteer. Under the Wilderness Act, which turns 40 on Friday with celebrations in Washington, D.C., and elsewhere, lawmakers can ban &#8220;mechanized transport&#8221; (i.e., strollers, bikes, off-road vehicles) on public land such as the 2.5 million acres proposed for protection in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Wilderness.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-150\" title=\"Wilderness\" src=\"http:\/\/www.venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Wilderness-300x203.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"203\" srcset=\"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Wilderness-300x203.jpg 300w, https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/08\/Wilderness.jpg 398w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>California bill, which is languishing in the Senate. The Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Forest Service specifically prohibit bikes in wilderness areas within their jurisdictions. &#8220;We&#8217;re not against mountain bicycles themselves, but we&#8217;re certainly against mountain bicycles in wilderness areas,&#8221; says Michael Carroll, communications director for the environmental nonprofit Wilderness Society&#8217;s resource center. Knobby tires, they say, tear up fragile vegetation and trails. But Haagen-Smit says fat-tire enthusiasts just want the same freedom that backpackers enjoy: enough space to get far, far away from the car campers. See <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imba.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.imba.com<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wilderness.org\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">www.wilderness.org<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wilderness wheels still spin Source of this article &#8211; Los Angeles Times, August 31, 2004. Mary Forgione Once a month or so, mountain bikers who fear losing access to California backcountry take organized &#8220;wilderness rides&#8221; in places &#8212; from Grouse Ridge near Truckee to Mill Creek Trail in Lassen National [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":150,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mountain-biking","category-trail-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3979,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149\/revisions\/3979"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/venturacountytrails.org\/WP\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}