SWAST is gathering steam. And I've attained at a new level of blogging: the rant.
Before venting, it seems appropriate to set a baseline. I ride trails on a CX bike. I dislike suspension forks and hate rear suspension. It's entirely possible that I've never ridden a properly tuned bike, but I enjoy climbing and love the feedback of a stiff frame. I've been hitting the local trails year 'round for about a decade and have learned to live with the rocks and roots and logs and the annual rhythm. Ride fast in the summer when the paths are clear. Pick your way through the leaves in the fall. Feel damn lucky that you can get out at all in the winter. Stay out of the mud in the spring. My definition of a great ride is staying clipped in for the entirety of various climbs. Until this year.
In this winter of my mild discontent, leaves disappeared from the local trails. At first, sections were swept. Then holes appeared where rocks once lay. Someone was pulling rocks out of eskers. You might as well pull words out of sentences. New England without rocks is Kansas. And logs that could be moved were; logs that couldn't were built up with sticks. In some spots (see above), borders were added. The photo above is of a trail that was regarded locally as technical, although it looks more like a garden path now. The log in the distance was ridable, but now it's a rollicking speed bump. And the path is four times the width of the old trail.
Who would do such a thing? Only bike riders build up logs. But what bike rider widens a path and adds borders? To my way of thinking, the time it took to build borders would have been better spent learning to clear a log. The changes have been going on all winter long and over a pretty wide range of trails. And I never see anyone actually doing the work.
I really don't like what's been going on, but I've accepted it as legitimate and well intentioned. I'm not about to undo anyone's efforts. What has been difficult to accept is my own reactions. Have I become such a curmudgeon that I get all worked up about a couple changes? Have I developed that awful dismissive attitude that there's nothing worse than a newbie?
Truth be told, the trails in question are literally across the street from a large neighborhood full of kids - less than two minutes of coasting downhill from my house. That's a detail that only a complete curmudgeon could overlook. I'm not ready to thank the people of SWAST for stealing rocks and widening trails. But in a world where every kid has a mountain bike that barely leaves the sidewalk, I will find the SWASTies and shake their dirty hands if I start seeing kids riding bikes in the woods.
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