Mountain Bikers

“A Band of Renegades Reinvent the Bicycle” (Dec. 20) touches on the enormous problems that the Santa Monica Mountains Task Force has been confronted with, as bikes gain access to narrow mountain trails. Steep, fragile trails are eroded and rutted by heavy bike use. Plants and soil are impacted. Wildlife may be driven off. These conditions intensify as more narrow trails are opened to “ever-faster machines.”

Although many off-road bikers are courteous and careful, there are many renegade bikers who, as the article notes, live for “bone-jarring downhill rides” and “flying through what’s left of the natural world.” This aggressive sport is an increasing threat to people who walk in parks and along trails to enjoy nature, and to relax in safety.

Any mountain or park trail less than eight feet wide needs to be closed to mountain bikes, in order to protect the environment and pedestrians.

BOB GARSEN, Chair

Santa Monica Mountains

Task Force

* Mountain bikers, with expensive machines, are diminishing the quality of life for walkers, senior citizens, children, the handicapped, equestrians, runners . . . all traditional users who seek enjoyment in nature. As park managers open single-track (narrow) trails to bikes, those trails become closed to other users, who fear the silent, speeding bikes.

Many miles of fire roads crisscross the Santa Monica Mountains, on which high-tech bikers can ride, but they demand narrow trails for the thrill of “spinning down trails, fishtailing over rutted dirt and sand.” So those of us, and we are many, who yearn for quiet, peaceful trails are being driven out. Is this fair?

MARY ANN WEBSTER

Culver City

* The animosity between the mountain biker and the mountain hiker is growing hotter. One group wants more speed and more mechanical prowess, the other wants more tranquillity while communing with nature.

The only resolution lies in separating the two groups, either by designing separate trails for each (which would eat disastrously into pristine habitats), or insisting once again that the speed demons be restricted to more appropriate courses than sensitive hiking trails. They belong on fire roads and wide-track trails only.

DAPHNE ELLIOTT

Member, Santa Monica Mountains

Trails Council, Agoura

* The article states that the front suspension is “something never seen before on bikes” until 1987. In 1932, as a 13-year-old in Mann- heim, Germany, I was riding an NSU bike (made by Neckarsulm Company) with a front Stossdampfer, literally “shock-dampener.”

Today I ride a Charger, an electric battery bicycle, that gives me half a horsepower assist while pedaling uphill in Laguna Beach on my way home from errands. It has a front suspension very much like the one I had in 1932.

G. BORDING MATHIEU

Laguna Beach