Mountain biking 'nearly legal'
For 20 years, Silent Sports follows the controversial tracks by Joel Patenaude 
| Chris Burg of Lake Elmo, Minnesota, navigates his way through the woods during the June 6 Afton Avalanche mountain bike
race in Hastings, a part of the Minnesota State Championship Series. Photo by John C. Pedersen |
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As I was beginning to comprehend all that Silent Sports magazine has documented over the past 20 years, I went for my first group mountain bike ride on some local state trails. My college commuter bike, a low-end and decade-old Gary Fisher for which front suspension wasn't an option, as far as I can recall held up surprisingly
well. ... Better than its rider, anyway, who had barely ever left the sidewalk with it.
As if the change in terrain wasn't enough of a challenge, I was persuaded to trade out my toe clips for a pair of clipless pedals and shoes borrowed from a member of the group. Having never tried these despite knowing they are standard equipment for both racers and touring types both on and off road I snapped in and pushed off to join the pack
already on its way. With no chance to test drive the upgrade, I soon experienced the pleasure and pain of clipless pedals.
The new-found effortlessness of turning the crank amazed me. But too quickly, complacency set in. While I managed to stay upright on the steep climbs and thrilling descents at Hartman Creek State Park near Waupaca, it was when I rolled to a stop that gravity won out. Typically, it was in concrete parking areas where we regrouped and where,
forgetting to free my feet, I kept falling to one side or the other. To my embarassment, I tipped over four times in front of an audience of 15 fellow riders.
"You'll notice none of us are laughing," said one guy, gracefully pedalling in place while I lay sprawled and swearing under my bike. "That's because every one of us has been where you are."
That statement seemed even more apropos a week later as I started
shopping for a new mountain bike (one with a fully functioning front derailleur and brakes that didn't stick and squeal against the front wheel rim).
Every member of the club seemed to own a bike loaded with alien technology. Dual suspension, disc brakes and the like. (But curiously, not reflectors; they add unwanted weight, I was told.) Nonetheless, I figured if the diverse membership of the Cronies Outdoor Adventure Tribe the Waupaca-based and coffeehouse-sponsored bicycling club
could educate itself about the latest and most affordable componentry, so could I.
Needless to say, a brave new world awaited me on the crowded showroom floors of a half dozen bike shops in Madison, Wisconsin, over the Memorial Day weekend. It was shockingly clear how far mountain bikes have come since the used 75-pound Pacific I bought in eighth grade and since I last bought a bike that $350 Fisher, 10 years later in 1994.
While I was apparently sleeping, Silent Sports chronicled the evolution of mountain bikes and their rise explosion, actually in popularity. What follows is the first in a series of stories that will appear over the next several months revisiting the evolution of our "silent sports" as defined, in no small part, by the magazine itself. Saving the technical metamorphosis of MTBs for another article in another issue, we'll look here at the rocky
road traveled toward the social acceptance of mountain biking.
'Just what is all this
mountain bike stuff?'
That was the question first asked and answered by Phil Van Valkenberg in the September 1984 issue, only the third issue of Wisconsin Silent Sports to appear. ("Wisconsin" was dropped from the title in 1988 when it became clear the magazine's reach and appeal was more regional.)
Van Valkenberg way back when wrote that if he could only have one
bicycle, he would choose this "new breed" because it provides "a workout, transportation and I can go anywhere my heart desires." Van Valkenberg, as it will become evident, was in the vanguard of the sport of mountain biking in the Midwest.
By January 1985, the proliferation of mountain bikes on state-owned land had caught the attention of the Wisconsin DNR's Strategic Long Range Planning Committee. Merle Lange, a committee member and
Hartman Creek State Park supervisor, said, "What we did was adopt a wait-and-see attitude." Regulation of mountain bike use was left to the discretion of individual park officials.
"The committee's discussion of the matter is an indication the impact of off-road cycling is being recognized," the magazine portentously reported. "The virtual unlimited freedom mountain bike users enjoy today may be in jeopardy if conflicts (with other trail users) arise. ... If
mountain bikers act responsibly, restrictions can be avoided."
Out of the woods and onto city streets, Van Valkenberg led 22 riders on the 32-mile Fat Tire Tour of Milwaukee on May 18, 1985. This inaugural invitational, including stops at the Miller Brewery and several unnamed taverns, was held again last month.
"My feeling had been for some time that an industrial city the size of Milwakee offered a lot of opportunities for off-road cycling not suited
for narrow, high pressure tires," Van Valkenberg said as he pedaled his "Queen of Sheba" bicycle-with-sidecar that first year.
In late 1985, contributing editor Mitch Mode suggested a middle path for mountain bikers. Abandoned logging roads, he said, provide access to "some of the prettiest country around." Getting one's hands on U.S. Forest Servise and USGS maps would help prevent getting lost on such
roads winding through the Nicolet National Forest, another writer advised. Van Valkenberg also pointed out that a third of Wisconsin's secondary roads, about 35,000 miles worth, were gravel and therefore "fat tire fodder."
Whatever the favored surface, the number of Americans owning all-terrain bicycles ballooned (not unlike the tires themselves) from 200,000 in 1983 to over 10 million in 1990. By late 1988, many bike
dealers were reporting that more than 70 percent of their sales were of mountain bikes.
Some state park officials were noting that most of the mountain bike riders they were seeing seemed content to stick to the flatter and wider hiking trails rather than blaze their own through sensitive natural areas. In fact, many people buying mountain bikes apparently had no intention of going off road with them.
In an April 1988 column, Van Valkenberg explained this by asking
rhetorically, "Why would someone want a wimpy city bike when they could get the same service from a sexy, flashy, tough-looking mountain bike? Even though the rider may never stray from the pavement, he can look like the type who knows the trails at Moab and the Chequamegon as intimately as the way to the local deli."
Silent Sports editor Greg Marr observed, in August 1988, that "fat tire bikes are nothing new, as anyone over 30 can attest. It's just that the
new generation of fat tire bikes has employed the technology of the high-tech touring and racing bikes lightweight frames, multi-speeds and advanced componentry."
He noted that fat tire bikes appealed to the middle age or older cyclist looking for a more comfortable pace and riding position. Similiar style bikes were adopted by the experienced, hardcore rider, too.
A focus of the latter group, the Chequamegon Fat Tire Festival predated
Silent Sports but not by much. The 1983 inaugural 40-mile race organized by Van Valkenberg, Gary Crandell and Tom Kelly attracted 30 riders, but participation reached 1,240 by 1988. The races took place in part on the American Birkebeiner cross-country ski trail, ending at Telemark Resort. (In 1985, the magazine referred to the "Chequamy 40" and 14-mile Short & Fat as "the grandaddy of Wisconsin's off-road
events, at the tender age of three.") Shorter races, a criterium and a bicycle orienteering event were quickly added to a growing weekend long fest. Eventually, ridership had to be capped at 2,500 slots which are still much sought after.
"The organizers, myself included," Van Valkenberg wrote just prior to the fifth anniversary of the event, "had faith that these rugged bikes, spawned in places like Marin and Crested Butte, would take hold in the
land of the cranberry muffin and the cow pie."
The Fat Tire's public profile grew in the early 1990s when multiple Tour de France winner Greg LeMond turned out to also dominate the Chequamegon 40.
Four years before the Wisconsin Off-Road Series, or WORS, arrived on the scene in 1992, Marr noted that it wasn't that long ago "you'd have to go out west, to the mountains or California, for fat tire competition."
Even serious riders from Marin County, California oft-mentioned as the birthplace of mountain biking were quoted as saying the trails through the Southern Kettle Moraine State Forest were terrific, especially in light of government restrictions being placed on their activity back home.
MTB backlash
It also wasn't long before the backlash began in the Midwest, too. A reflection of this was the Madison family that in late 1985 declined to
renew its subscription to the magazine arguing that mountain biking on trails was fostering "a disgustingly selfish attitude toward the environment."
"It is not a silent sport," the letter continued. "Rude, obnoxious ATB (all-terrain biking) people have no place in the quiet, natural areas of this or any state." Another writer said that as vehicles, bicyles belong on roads and not on trails.
In the following issue, Van Valkenberg responded. "The showdown between self-propelled trail users is simply not happening," he asserted. Nevertheless, he repeated an earlier call for off-road bike enthusiasts to ride where conflict was unlikely to occur, such as on cross-country trail systems.
Then he turned the tables: "I think it is important to remind hikers that they should have some consideration for the rights of the off-road cyclist
to enjoy the trails. Mountain biking is a 'silent sport.' I have hiked, snowshoed, skied and mountain biked the same trails and the aesthetics of the experience were similiar in each mode and, importantly, nothing like motoring."
Three years later, Van Valkenberg relayed the concerns of some park and forest supervisors with whom the authority to allow or disallow mountain bikes still resided.
"We treat mountain biking kind of like rock climbing," Devil's Lake Park
Supervisor Tim Miller told him. "We don't prohibit it but we don't promote it either. Hopefully in the next few years we will be doing some trail development on some newly acquired land which will give us an area to recommend for mountain biking."
(Today, Devil's Lake has 29.9 miles of trails, all of which are open for hiking in spring, summer and fall. In winter, there are 22.4 miles of cross-country ski trails. The park also has eight miles of off-road bike trails.)
Park officials were not yet closing areas to mountain biking but the increasingly popular activity was said to be causing erosion an par with that caused by hiking but far less than that resulting from horseback riding or motorized vehicles.
MTB riders specifically were said to be causing "etiquette problems" by barrelling down hills on narrow trails only to buzz by surprised and frightened hikers.
Writer Eric Wuennenberg, tongue firmly in cheek, described these
offenders as "silent mud-caked marauders appearing out of nowhere to terrorize birdwatchers, Sierra Clubbers and other lovers of the tranquil wilderness. They are the outlaws of the silent sports and they are riding mountain bikes."
Wuennenberg urged conscientious mountan bikers to reclaim their sport or risk losing trails on which to ride: "The answer is organize, educate and, if necessary, agitate."
Marr thought both sides of this "raging controversy" sounded like "whining babies." He said MTB riders ought to use common sense and avoid trails where sudden encounters with hikers was likely. He also said hikers should be more understanding and willing to share the trails with bikers. Despite all the childish talk, Marr doubted problems couldn't be overcome far short of banning bike riding on trails. "I can't
imagine more than 1 or 2 percent of all trails in the state (of Wisconsin) falling into a serious conflict category," Marr wrote in August 1990.
Still, the magazine reported that increasing MTB traffic on state trails was causing enough social and environmental concern to bring about trail closings. In fact, as the popularity of mountain biking increased, efforts proliferated to restrict where the activity could be enjoyed.
In June 1984, mountain bikes were banned from nearly 90 million acres of federal wilderness. Government restrictions became commonplace at every level on down to improve safety for other trail users, preserve the aesthetics of an area and limit environmental damage.
There were reports of Kettle Moraine State Forest employees spending less time mowing than removing rocks and logs placed on trails by hikers to discourage mountain bikers. In 1992, the Wisconsin DNR
reversed an earlier decision to keep mountain bikes off 15 miles of trail in the Kettle Moraine and instead opened up more than 43 trail miles in the southwest corner of the state.
In 1990, the Michigan DNR banned the bikes from 63 of the states 90 state parks, included all 21 in the Upper Peninsula. Despite that development, the U.P. would remain an off-road biker's paradise.
Northwoods tourism interests eventually caught on with the popularity of
the activity and began promoting mountain bike riding as a destination sport like cross-country skiing. In vast wildernesses like Minnesota's Arrowhead Region, on hundreds of miles of logging and ski trails in the U.P. as well as on the Cable-Hayward Birkie Trail, within the Chequamegon-Nicolet National Forest and the Black River State Forest in Wisconsin a variety of recreationalists discovered they could and can coexist.
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