Dave, I’m glad you haven’t gone down the piano wire route! I used to be a pretty active off road rider (2 wheels) and I hate guys that ride irresponsibly. I have a policy that if a chap is somewhere he’s not supposed to be on a bike and he gets close enough to me, I’ll knock him off his bike. I’ve only done it once and it didn’t hurt a bit.
The other thing I do when I hear them around is drag logs at inconvenient angles across trails, just around tight, blind corners. If they are riding too fast they’ll have a spill. I am a bit of a wilderness wierdo though 😉
Etter, I don’t begrudge people who want to use them, particularly for land management. I’ve never walked more than 40km in one day, but you could cover that in less than an hour on a quad. I’ve helped a fella cut a trail through his wooded property and his quad was a really handy tool. Do you guys have a lot of problems with people shredding topsoil with them or something? I know high powered sports quads tear up soil like just about nothing else on the planet 😕
In my mind one of the greatest challenges would be enforcing any usage restrictions. I don’t know what your parks are like, but rangers here are too few to police bikes and quads as it is, when you can hear them all the way across a valley. When they’re silent, fellas will be able to get away with just about anything they want, which is a real worry.
I’m completely at a loss thinking about any solution that would both be likely to gain popular support and actually protect wilderness areas from abuse. I get depressed thinking about it actually.
Jim
