thevpfreerider

@jasperwesselman: Jesus dude. This thread has opened my eyes to the sorry attitude that apparently exists among certain people like you in the local riding scene, that I wasn't aware of before yesterday. This defeatist, closed-minded perspective on trail access I’m seeing is unnecessary and counterproductive. Worse still, I can’t get past how pathetically arrogant you’ve made yourselves sound in these comments. You sleuth on people's profiles to see if you can throw shit at them for having to drive 30 minutes to the trails rather than 10, because your weak arguments can't stand on their own merits. You clap back with siiiiiick burns like “you’re still speaking?” and then jerk each other off with your own comments. Hating on people for being from San Jose or Menlo Park takes a special kind of contrived bigotry, but you’re somehow pulling it off. I've built trail in Colorado and Socal, and had zero problem with others riding my work because….why the f*ck would I? This sport is strengthened by its community—ride my trails, and I ride yours, but ride with respect. Keep illegal trails as hush-hush as possible, minimize your impact, help out on trail maintenance days, and we can thrive together. Do it right, and a riding community can grow, like you see in BC, for example. Get lax about it, and you end up with another Marin County. Every single rider I’ve ever met in the area has been fucking rad, polite, and cool to chat with before dropping in for a lap. I’m starting to think they must all be my fellow 30-minute drivers, because you guys sure as fuck ain’t any of those things.

@jasperwesselman: It can be improved. We can all do our part to keep things moving in the right direction.

@JP199: This argument is insane. You could rephrase it as "Hey we're the locals here, and things aren't perfect, so let us fuck things up without criticizing it if that's what we choose to do". None of this is productive. You didn't start the scene in the area. You didn't build all of the trails, nor do you do all of the pro-mtb lobbying that keeps the scene over there as healthy as it is. You're risking *other peoples* work and trails when you're not careful about these things. 90% of this video was shot legally...cool. So you admit 10% wasn't. So even you locals would seem to get some enjoyment out of these illegal trails. How about we try to work together to not shoot ourselves in the foot, access-wise then, eh?

@jasperwesselman: "The hundreds of cars, kooks, and instagram stories must go completely un-noticed by the constantly patrolling authorities" I feel like this comment misses the point though--I recognize that the trails in this area aren't some sort of perfectly kept secret. If someone is determined to find these trails and knows the general area in which to look, they'll be able to. BUT--what I am arguing is that it is counterproductive to spread awareness of them, and to further broadcast the riding and building going on in those woods. Without that shot of the local business, this is a video of a dude getting rad in Anywhereville, USA. With that shot included, this is a video of a dude illegally building and riding in an area with very delicate rider access politics. And hey, trail access issues aside, I thought the riding was dope! Loamy Norcal goodness is always fun to watch any day. But we can't set aside the realities of trail access politics here--and I can't see how that shot of the local business isn't problematic on that front..

@jasperwesselman: Your reading comprehension is second-to-none, sir.

@JP199: Care to actually refute anything I said?

@nexus-collective: I would have agreed with you 100% had you not included that random shot of a business, which, as others have said, takes about ten seconds to find the location of. That puts you in the region of these trails. Once you know the region, it's easy to find the trails themselves (or some other "secret" trails in the area). You've effectively given people--including anti-mountain biking groups--a "start your search here" location for illegal trails, for absolutely no good reason, when there a thousand reasons to limit the location information to "Norcal" at most.