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Trails threatened by new bikes

To the Journal editor:

The North Country National Scenic Trail is a spectacular hiking trail extending for 4,600 miles through seven northern states. Michigan is the middle state, hosting the most miles of the trail (1,150), as well as the National Park Service’s headquarters for the NCT.

A threat to public safety on our hiking trails has recently emerged. Use of motorized mountain bikes (“e-bikes”) is growing rapidly. Aided by hidden electric motors, e-bikes can reach unsafe speeds with relatively little effort.

Alarmed, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management have ruled that e-bikes are motorized vehicles like motorcycles, ATVs, and snowmobiles, and that they therefore cannot be used on non-motorized trails: http://www.pawild.org/pdfs/EBikesBriefingPaper.pdf

Forest Service law enforcement points out that it is impossible to distinguish motorized mountain bikes from regular mountain bikes without closely inspecting each machine. Since it is known that the use of e-bikes is rapidly growing, it follows that these dangerous machines will be regularly, surreptitiously, used even on trails that are intended to be non-motorized.

Because any one of them could be an e-bike at any given time, I believe as a 17-year member of the North Country Trail Association that the National Park Service should ban all mountain bikes from all non-motorized portions of the NCT across all seven states.

Even from those segments on which mountain biking was established prior to their designation as part of the NCT. It is the only way to prevent hazardous e-bike trespass on the national treasure NCT.

Kirk Johnson, past board member

North Country Trail Association

Warren, Penn.

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