I found a book on campus called Mountain Biking in Kentucky. I have found some humorous stuff in the intro. "We wish the acknowledge the following: Metro Parks in Louisville, who don't know what to do with us and don't understand the off road bicycle revolution, but have at least made some efforts to listen." Copyright in 1995 According to the book mountain bikers have made progress considering a race will be held there sometime soon. I forget when the date is set and I don't feel like looking it up.
"Also follow the simple rules of the off road cyclist"
1. Ride carefully and considerately of others who may be on the trail. This one is a maybe. 20 -25 mph on a downhill section yesterday, but I do completely stop for horses.
2. "Do not skid your tires, especially on a downhill" skidded my tires yesterday when I was going too fast
"3. ...."Don't hoot or holler, or act stupid. Other people have a right to enjoy their wilderness experience to." broke that rule, but I don't leave my punctured tubes or wrappers on the trail
4. "Plan your trip according to the weather and terrain and try not to get lost or injured in the middle of the woods. Doing so ruins other peoples days as well as your own." broke another rule ..... I got lost with a friend in the middle of a thunderstorm while searching for things in the DBNF
5. Be prepared to maintain the trails you ride on.
I've broke 3 out of 5 simple rules. Anyone else in the same boat?
If I find interesting information or humorous I'll be sure to update this.
Rod, Who wrote it,
Rod, Who wrote it, contributed to it and published it????
Stuart Ulferts, he was
Stuart Ulferts, he was IMBA's first Development Director and also a lawyer for them. He is originally from Kentucky, you can find out a bit more about him by going to :
http://www.google.com/search?q=Stuart%20Ulferts
Scott is correct the author
Scott is correct the author is Stuart Ulferts and Bruce Montana. Publisher was RSH Media in Louisville in 95. I haven't gotten to read anymore of the book because it's finals week. I should have it read sometime next week. I'm sure there's some good information for a new guy.
I've looked through the book
I've looked through the book and has a lot of mountain biking destinations. This is some good information for a person that doesn't know much outside of Prestonsburg and Cave Run. I've been to Laurel Lake once. I had no clue that Kentucky has so many places to ride.
Scott and Rod, thanks for
Scott and Rod, thanks for the information....
Rod, a nice line from the
Rod, a nice line from the Waverly section is “don’t be surprised to meet someone with a $2,000 bicycle” and that was over 10 years ago!
The Louisville Free Public Library has several books, and it’s very possible that they may share it w/your local library for anyone wishing to access a copy.
I’m glad you mentioned the date, published in 1995, which certainly calls into question our Parks Director statement in a memo from April of last year in regards to mountain biking “we’ve expanded it into four parks over the last decade.” False! Metro Parks was simply so embarrassed when their elitist trail policies were exposed that they chose to purposely mislead our elected officials. (We were riding in four park properties at the time the book was published.)
Furthermore, in that same April memo to our Metro Council, our Parks Director claims that mountain bikers have been “harassing and denouncing horseback riders.” What he failed to mention is that several years ago, Otter Creek’s Park Manager conducted a “secret” experiment and opened up the entire trail system to horses. He informed the horseback riders that they could ride on any trail they wished, but failed to inform any of the other trail users (and none of the signage was changed). Therefore, when mountain bikers informed horseback riders that they were on the wrong trails, parks used that against us! Go figure. I know first-hand, as I sat in on a meeting, with representatives from the hiking and horseback riding community as well as Otter Creek staff and a Metro Council member to get everything squared away and back to normal. The interesting thing is that you never hear of Metro Parks conducting “secret” experiments opening up trails to mountain bikers (and not informing other trails users).
Special thanks once again to Bruce Montana and Stuart Ulferts for providing a detailed snapshot of mountain biking back in 1995! Locally, mountain biking had great promise back during those days, unfortunately, here we are over a decade later and we actually have less acreage to ride on.
I will probably try to get
I will probably try to get some books from other libraries. Our library on campus has something called interlibrary loan. I can borrow books from almost any other library as long as they'll loan them. Oh yea I read the line that your quoted about someone owning a 2,000 dollar bike. I've seen a couple bikes here at the Run that would go over a grand, but I haven't seen someone that owned a ride over 2 grand.