Opinion

I rarely get into the FB rants regarding our local trail rehab, maintenance, building, or layout.  I do admit to being amused by the reactions.  It's not that I don't care, I love the trail systems your local and our state/ federal governments allow us to have.  As long as nobody closes them or we get less mileage I'm a happy camper.

I must have put in hundreds of miles of moto trails during my career riding gas powered two wheeled toys.  Not only on public lands but on land a group of us leased.  Plus I promoted races where I set up the trail, mostly with the help of The Kid and one other friend.  The profit (there usually wasn't any) all went to either the club or the track owner.  I just loved to lay out trail.  Plus I wanted to "give something back".

After spending hours of my personal time, gas money, and sweat to put in trail, there was always somebody who didn't like something.

"Why'd ya take out the doubles?"
"That creek crossing is too deep."
"It's too tight."
"I'm afraid of a mass start."
"Oooh somebody might see how slow I am."
"You want how much to race?"
"I don't want to race with that class."
"Why'd ya put the doubles in?" (this was usually me)
"It's too wide open."

You get the picture.  The very first enduro trail section I ever laid out in the ANF apparently wasn't good enough, they came along behind me and took the arrows down.  Pissed me off.

We used to have the run of the ANF (Apalachicola National Forest) back in the day.  We had literally hundreds of miles of trail.  Then one day the Feds asked us to GPS it for them.  You know, just so they could get an idea of where it all was.  After we did countless hours of work for them, for free, they thanked us by closing 95% of our trails and basically forcing us out of the forest.  Good thing I'm not bitter, bastards.  They have since instituted an annual permit system which costs money to ride.  Then they spend nothing on trail maintenance.

So we turned to leasing land to ride on.  Which a group of us paid annually for.  Local MX tracks started having practice days.  One even put in a trail system.  Of course you had to pay $10-$20/ day to ride.

Anyhoo, my rambling point is as mountain bikers we are spoiled.  Take a look at how far we'd have to travel to find anything as good as we have here.  Most other recreational activities "pay to play".

So if a group of kind hearted individuals want to spend their personal time doing trail work they have my unending gratitude.  I get it.  I've done it.  If it pleases the entity that controls the access and keeps the trail open, God bless em.

Don't think the same thing that happened to moto can't happen to MTB?  Just wait.