mtbfreerider182
12-11-2005, 08:12 PM
Hello fellow riders,
At the suggestion of Cam I'm putting this on here. I go to college at UC Santa Cruz, but my Mom lives in good old Vancouver. For my Environment and Society course, we were assigned to write a paper, do interviews, et cetera on an environmental issue in our hometown. I immediately jumped on the excuse to write about the Shore and the sport we all know and love. If any of you care for the bibliography, I can post it as well. So now that the background is done, I'll post the paper (note: I have to post it below because it's too long to fit in one post).
PS: If any of you want to use this for something, that's fine, but please let me know first. I spent a lot of time on this and there's no pride in plagiarism.
mtbfreerider182
12-11-2005, 08:12 PM
Kyle J. Buyers
College 8 Core Course
Linda Ivey, Discussion Leader
Hometown Research Project
Final draft due 11/30/05
The Infamous North Shore Just Got a Little More Precarious
Several hundred miles north of Santa Cruz lies a town by the name of North Vancouver. It’s a suburb like most others, with one notable difference: the scenery. All around Vancouver’s North Shore lies gorgeous wilderness. Within this town three sizeable mountains lie only minutes away: Cypress Mountain, Mount Seymour, and Grouse Mountain. These mountains are covered with first and second growth forest, and to explore their slopes one would find themselves in an extremely dense forest with the canopy almost entirely blocking the sky even on the sunniest day, the space between most trees only a few feet in distance. This, combined with the outdoorsy nature of most Vancouverites, leads to a plethora of outdoor enthusiasts, with most plebeians far more wilderness-oriented than the average American. Each summer hundreds of people can be seen embarking up Grouse Mountain’s grueling Grind hiking trail, kayaking in Deep Cove, playing sports in one of the dozen or so public recreational centers, or participating in any of a multitude of other outdoor activities.
Moreover, within the last fifteen years, a new sport has arisen that is now becoming what some deem the fastest growing extreme sport today: mountain biking. Vancouver was one of the first places of its inception, and after several years it began to pick up steam. Vancouver is a haven for it: there are multiple mountains to choose from, and each one has a service road leading to the top, which multitudes of trails can branch off from. There were several people who were extremely innovative in building trails all over the North Shore in the early days of mountain biking. The trails were brutally difficult to begin with: all the trees that make up Vancouver’s forests leave their twisted roots cascading over the forest floor, and the rainfall in Vancouver is considerable, leaving conditions muddy and dangerously slick for the majority of the year. It didn’t take long for the riding to become more than simply making one’s way down a trail, but to give it an even more extreme approach. Two riders in particular, now infamous for their innovation, thought that riding on the ground wasn’t enough, and began to ride along downed trees. From there they began to build structures out of fallen wood to ride along in the forest, calling them “ladderbridges” and “log rides,” and this in turn gave way into teeter totters, drops, and many other machinations. By the turn of the millennium, the North Shore was famous for its gnarly trails and frightening stunts, and showed no sign of letting up.
Traffic on the trails began to pick up. It was no longer just locals who rode the trails, but many began to come from all over the world to experience the infamous North Shore for themselves. Bike magazines were filled with photos from Vancouver, many skilled riders began emerging from British Columbia, and prominent bicycle companies began to do a large part of their research and development in the area, knowing that if their product could withstand the Shore, it could withstand anything. This increased popularity was beginning to exhibit problems, though. Many of the more popular trails began to experience significant environmental damage and erosion from the traffic and started to need heavy maintenance.
One mountain in particular, Mount Fromme, has experienced many issues concerning sustainability and access. Mount Fromme is quite the opposite of its sister, Grouse Mountain. Grouse is a popular ski and snowboard resort in the winter, and an even more popular attraction in the summer, garnering far more tourists than any of the other nearby mountains. Visitors to Grouse get to the top by taking a tram with a capacity of 100 individuals. However, this tram is relatively new, and in Grouse’s early days, only a chairlift went to the top of the mountain. As a business, Grouse needed a way to get important services such as utility vehicles, supplies, and maintenance, to the top of the mountain, so they constructed a service road up Mount Fromme, and had it cross from one mountain to the other near the top as they both touch at several points. This road is closed to the public and was not meant for heavy traffic, its entrance being at the top of a quiet neighborhood in North Vancouver, and its builders only seeing it as being used for Grouse’s needs. It is this road, however, from which the first mountain bike trails were built, and it is this road that now finds scores of mountain bikers pedaling up it virtually every day, which has added many other issues besides the already present environmental ones such as parking.
Mount Seymour and Cypress Mountain have slightly different circumstances, as the service road to their mountaintops is the same as the road created for all winter recreation access, and was therefore created to sustain significant traffic. This has both positive and negative aspects; on one hand, there is not so much an issue of parking and increased traffic in a small neighborhood. On the other, it means easier access to the trails and promotes shuttling, thereby creating considerably heavier usage than the trails on Fromme. North Vancouver’s mayor, Richard Walton, points out that “Seymour is a provincial park and isn’t near any housing,” whereas Fromme is right near many houses and has a narrow road.
The issue of sustainable mountain biking and trail access has many layers to it, as most complicated political and environmental issues do. Mountain biking is inherently an environmental issue: taking a machine consisting of metal and rubber on potentially sensitive soil will obviously create issues as the bike is tougher than the ground it rides on. How much of an impact the bike makes, though, is the controllable factor, and is the most important one. This can be addressed one of two ways: regulate what kinds of bikes are on the trails, or control what type of trails the bikes are on. Bikes for the most part are far more difficult to regulate, however, because in a capitalist society the consumer can buy what they so choose. Thus, it is the trails that must change in order to be sustainable.
There are numerous strategies concerning proper trailbuilding, but the majority of them revolve around two key aspects: “drainage and armoring,” says Sharon Bader, the head of the North Shore Mountain Biking Association, a non profit organization which devotes most of its time and resources to maintaining the trails on the North Shore. Drainage is crucial; the more water is on the trail the more damage is done. Therefore proper water drainage, especially in a place such as Vancouver with an annual rainfall of 43.6 inches, is crucial to ensuring that a trail does not suffer heavy damage from even a light amount of riders. Armoring is crucial as well because soil will obviously wear away far faster than rock; thus, cobbling the trail will ensure a prolonged life and minimal impact. Furthermore, it is quite simple to control drainage once rock is installed. “Because of the thousands of hours put into trails on the North Shore,” says Cam McRae, founder of the most trafficked mountain bike website in the world and North Shore resident, “I think we've got most places beat in terms of sustainability.” Unfortunately, even the fabled North Shore has a long way to go before it becomes sustainable. “90% of the trails are located in an unsustainable manner with respect to the user experience demand and the environment,” says environmental engineer and avid mountain biker Dave Diplock. “Unless a science based solution is implemented we will continue to have conflicts with respect to environmental concern.” Most important, Diplock states, is to “build it right the first time and engage the user in the process so they take ownership.”
Trailbuilding conflicts are of great concern to many involved mountain bikers, including Cam McRae. Cam states that “we need to work hard at keeping the trails in good shape and get that message across to the public.” In the future, he says, “the District has made it clear that some trails will be closed,” and on a more personal note he adds, “I'm really hoping none of my favourites are on that list.”
A case study performed in the southwest of Western Australia, published in the Journal of Sustainable Tourism, and endorsed by the International Mountain Biking Association gathered valuable data. The study succinctly states the nature of mountain biking and its sustainability:
“Mountain bike riding in natural settings will only be sustainable if trails are located, established and managed in a manner that integrates the environmental sensitivity of the area and rider preferences. Environmental studies indicated that impacts such as soil compaction and erosion of the trail surface due to mountain biking on trails varies. Nevertheless, environmental changes are to be expected and they may not be problematic as long as they remain within the limits deemed acceptable for a trail. These conditions include maintaining a firm trail surface, avoiding trail widening and minimising erosion. These conditions appear to be obtainable through good trail placement, design and management. In the case of existing trails, trail hardening where there is extreme environmental damage, rider education and trail closures are some [viable] options.”
The study then goes on to make suggestions on the proper ways to build and plan a trail:
“The main environmental consideration is to place the trail where there are appropriate soils that can withstand the impacts created by mountain bikes and the avoidance of steep downhill sections, especially if the trail is shared with walkers. Where steep downhills cannot be avoided or are desired, erosion prevention measures (e. g. water bars) should be included at the planning stage. Consideration should be given to the inclusion of curves, which could reduce the steepness of a slope and effectively reduce its length. Care should be taken to ensure that the curves are designed in such a way that they do not add to the erosion potential through increased skidding.”
Some of the most difficult issues the NSMBA has faced, however, have not been sustainability. When Sharon Bader was asked what some of the more challenging things she faced were, she replied “convincing people who don’t mountain bike that we aren’t out there destroying the wilderness.” Dave Diplock is the former director of the organization, and when asked about the most difficult challenges he faced, sustainability didn’t make the top three. What he found most challenging, he said, was complacency, prejudice, and funding. “Complacency,” he said, because “90% of users don't know of the issues or don't care. Prejudice [because] landowners viewed the NSMBA as a special interest group and projected the negative mountain bike images they had on the group rather than see it for the few responsible users that they are and the solutions they represent. This has begun to change through a positive track record and political pressure.” And finally, “funding [because] NSMBA has enough cash to operate under the status quo but considerable funds require to take things to the next level and provide long term solutions and management.”
Newly elected mayor Richard Walton has some plans about the future of mountain biking in Vancouver. In his interview, he said he wants to “connect the trail network with the mountain bike access points,” so they don’t differentiate “between the mountain riding and the urban riding,” which would attract people with a bike lifestyle, not necessarily mountain bike lifestyle. Most prominent though is his plan for a bicycle-based community. In his words, he would like “to initiate a North Shore Outdoor Tourism Centre” near one of the two main bridges on the North shore and between Mount Seymour and Mount Fromme. He states that it “would become a central area for our local tourism businesses, and a welcoming centre for visitors. It would provide both local and visiting bikers and outdoor tourists with parking and transportation to trailheads, thereby removing traffic from residential areas.” Moreover, he “would like to see Maplewood become the first sustainable community built for those who choose not to use cars, and an economic cluster for the cycling industry. It would draw manufacturers, retailers, tourists and lifestyle enthusiasts.” This innovative idea would encourage mountain biking while at the same time reduce the impact of vehicles and traffic to popular mountain biking areas. “I love the idea,” lauds Cam McRae, chief editor of vastly popular NSMB.com (short for North Shore Mountain Biking). “One of the downsides to living on the North Shore is that it's more difficult to do everything by bicycle because of the hilly terrain. Down in the flats it would be much easier.”
Currently there are thousands, perhaps millions of mountain bikers in the world. Many are important individuals such as Cam McRae and Sharon Bader, but unfortunately not many are scientists. The difficulty in researching trail access and sustainability in mountain biking is that there are very few studies or scholarly analyses on the subject. This is mostly because the sport is very new (the most widely accepted story is it was started by Gary Fisher in 1987 in Marin County, California), and issues concerning the sport have only become widsespread within the last five years. Therefore, there hasn’t been much chance to perform a well thought out and executed study on the impact of mountain biking, and those who have are few and far between. Thus it is experts in the field who provide the most beneficial information, as what they have learned through experience is as valuable if not more so than a case study.
One such expert, who was in fact recommended by the three other individuals I interviewed, is Dave Diplock. He is, among other things, on the board of directors and a speaker at the North Shore World Mountain Bike Festival and Conference. In order to establish his credibility and scholarly merit, a brief biography is needed. The NSMBFC’s website states his experience well:
Dave Diplock is a professional environmental engineer with 9 years experience in the environmental sector. He is a director of the North Shore Mountain Bike Events Society (NSMBES) and former director of the North Shore Mountain Bike Association (NSMBA). Mr. Diplock has been living on the North Shore and been involved in trail building and management since 1997. He is currently employed as a Senior Environmental Specialist with the Government of Canada and also provides consulting services with Bear Environmental Limited.
Dave was full of valuable knowledge, and had much to say about sustainable mountain biking and the impact of the sport. First, he spoke of what environmental engineers tend to consider. “When considering impact on natural areas,” he said, “we look for potential disturbance of valued ecosystem components.”
In terms of the impact of mountain biking, Dave said “mountain bike trails cause localized and limited impacts within the trail corridor that are of low concern unless the trail is located in a particularly sensitive habitat. Examples of environmentally sensitive areas are wetlands, stream crossings, rare plant communities, and breeding sites…on a larger scale,” Dave went on, “mountain biking has the potential to displace wildlife. From the healthy populations of large wildlife (deer, black bear, cougar) adjacent to the urban Vancouver area there doesn't appear to be an unacceptable impact; although, no studies have been conducted in Vancouver that I am aware of.” In his experience with trail assessment, he said that “the primary potential impact trails have on wildlife is to small mammals (rodents). Given that larger mammals hold a higher affection than rodents, "armchair" conservationists tend to focus on these while those educated understand the susceptibility of the lower trophic species and their importance within the ecosystem.” All the above effects, however, are not independent to mountain biking, but rather are trail impacts regardless of non-motorized use. Surprisingly, Dave said that “from assessments [he has] been involved in the greatest impacts to trails was anticipated to be from off-leash dogs, and increased access to coyotes.”
In terms of mountain bike-specific impacts, Dave wrote:
“It is my opinion that the greatest impact of concern is the loss of soil due to displacement and erosion. Another environmental impact consideration is reversibility - while closing a trail will allow the forest to regenerate itself completely within a decade or two, significant soil loss requires hundreds to ten of thousands of years to re-establish itself. Thus without adequate soil management trails are not sustainable. Specific to mountain biking in the Vancouver area the mix of poorly designed trails (fall line, poor drainage, user flow), high precipitation, and low cohesive soils (due to a lack of silt and clay particles) with high rider use and high intensity use (big bikes); soil loss is a big concern not only to the environment but to the sustainability of the recreational resource.”
Unfortunately it is clear from Dave Diplock’s words as well as others’ that mountain bikes can leave a lasting impression on the landscape. Methods of avoiding this have been developed, as published in the Western Australian case study, but being able to implement them is yet another task on the horizon. The first step to being able to make trails sustainable is to address the biggest challenge: unawareness and apathy. Like many other environmental issues, the general public and, in this case, the majority of mountain bikers, don’t seem to grasp the fact that they are in danger if they don’t do something about the problem at hand. While there may be multitudes of solutions and strategies on how to build a proper mountain biking trail, they are useless without willing builders. Once people become motivated, then the trails will see more care given to them and they will slowly become more sustainable. This motivation seems to be more prominent as of late, mostly due to threats of trail closures. Hopefully it will not take the actual shutting down of a trail before mountain bikers begin to get involved. It is possible that mayor Walton’s proposed bicycle-based community will concentrate those willing to take up the torch of proper trailbuilding and encourage increased sustainability, but it will take more than his unique neighborhood to do so.
Even though the North Shore has a long way to go before it can be fully sustainable in terms of mountain biking, there is much hope. I asked Cam McRae at the end of our interview what he would say if he were to meet someone who had a great pessimism for the future of mountain biking. He replied “I'd take them up to Upper Oilcan and show them what's possible with state of the art trail construction. Peter Morin [the 68 year old builder] has built an example for the whole world to follow. I rode Upper Oilcan in a downpour the other day and there was almost no water on the trail. It was incredible.” Among all I heard and read from those I interviewed, what I found more inspiring than anything else was a bit of insight from Cam: “I do believe the bicycle can save the world,” he said. I believe him, and I think sustainability is a stepping stone on the way there.
mtbfreerider182
12-11-2005, 10:37 PM
kyle buyers
...yes?
Impressive article
Thanks, Lee!!
thats too long to read. whats the jist of it?
Sorry, I don't write Cliff Notes. If you're so afraid of reading several pages, fine, but please stick to more unintelligent threads.
That was cool Kyle. It must have been really hard for you to get an interview with the mayor. I bet that he is really busy now having just gotten into office and only has spare time for family.
P.S. Oh, and I met a guy named kyle last night at a party in the cove. He looked a lot like u and even had the same style hair cut and a leather jacket!!
P.P.S. On a more general note. I also met a guy named Ross Measures. Ross, if u read this; Hi!
Haha thanks. Yeah that mayor's tough to reach. And if you met a similar looking Kyle, was his hair new short hair or old hair, and if it was old hair, did he look like Matt Hunter too?
mtbfreerider182
12-14-2005, 04:33 PM
Go Banana Slugs!
Pretty decent paper, you did alot of research, but some key elements of the North Shore trail building history were left out.
1. All the original trails were built without permission. There was a period of one-up manship where each new trail was built steeper and crazier than the last.
2. Cypress chainsaw massacre.
3. Formation of NSMBA. Development of standards for mtb trails. As far as I know, Vancouver was the first area to legitimize MTB-designed trails. At the time, most trails legally open to bikes were hiking trails, and any new trails built must have been multi-use. The NSMBA really pushed the idea the hiker and biker needs and wants for trails are at odds with one another, and designing every trail to be multi-use is not the way to go.
It's funny, I myself thought my paper was lacking in several aspects, but I hadn't considered those. The assignment was 8 - 12 pages, and with what I posted I was maxed out on the page limit already, which was unfortunate because there was certainly much more I could have written, especially considering your keen advice. Thanks for the criticism!
mountaintime
12-15-2005, 09:51 PM
I too wrote a paper on North Shore mountain biking , this one was for a political geography course at Simon Fraser University here in Vancouver. Seeing as how some forum members have voiced their opposition to reading scholarly works, the synopsis of my paper focused on the debate over mountain biking on the North Shore with special focus on Mt. Fromme. The paper was not so much about the trails themselves, but rather the conflict that has been created by riders accessing the trails. Overall, my paper argued that the recently initiated Alpine Recreation Strategic Study was the first step in re-shaping the "logic of consumption" for this area. After all, save for a few vocal DNV councillors, not many are opposed to mountain biking on the north shore, nor can they deny the economic impact it has on the area. For the most part, they are just sick of pot-smokin long hairs parking their cars in front of their houses and riding their bikes into the woods. While this description of mtb'rs is far from accurate (most have short hair, no? :fro: ), it reflects how the negativly regarded actions of a few can impact a majority...
Basically, Lynn Valley streets were not designed as a parking lot for MTB'ers, but for locals and their guests. To use them for mountain biking access is to use them for something they were not designed and the ARSS seeks to rectify that by building parking lots. While this seems advantageous to mtb'ers on the surface, the days of pay to play are not far behind. This is based on the neo-liberal political machine that pervades all avenues of life. Just look at Cypress and Whistler bike parks. These spaces have a "logic of consumption" specifically engineered for mountain biking, not unlike the north shore, however, for the time being, you don't have to pay to ride mt. fromme.
if anyone would like to read my paper, pm me and I shall make it so...
-mike
surfinguru
12-21-2005, 12:25 AM
Hey mtbfreerider182, nice paper! I had the chance to ride the Shore for the first time this summer and it was interesting to get a little more background on all that is going on up there. Good job on getting ahold of the Mayor for your interviews.
On a side note, to Incorrigible, there is plenty to ride out here. Nothing even near what the Shore has to offer (damn litigious society I live in!), but hey, that's what make the Shore, the Shore! We do have our hidden nuggets here and there. :shhh:
Anyway, mtbfreerider182, I'm in Santa Cruz too. Shoot me a PM and let's ride or check the NorCal board over at RideMonkey as we tend to set up group rides now and again. It's always good to ride with new peeps.
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