i ran across this story recently. i didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
the various points of story are almost too unbelieveable to be real. a stellar and nationally recognized group of volunteers, doing everything by-the-book. thousands of man-hours. insane levels of hoop-jumping and good faith. every step of the way the model of new-school partnershipping and organization.
all completely thrown under the bus by the Wisconsin DNR at the first sign of a problem. not to be a droning old coot, but this isn't the first time. the Wisconsin DNR has a historic relationship with mtn biking that is overidingly awash in lies, covert and sophisticated back-room dirty deals, and a beyond blatant disregard and viscousness toward the individuals involved as users in the sport. they have done this for over a quarter of a century.
it is always a little surprising to me that the people active in advocacy today seem to prefer to ignore the history involved in this state, but i suppose it is for the best. acknowledging the bad blood that was shed by the bucketful in the early days when the DNR robbed mtn biking of everything would prevent the gains that they have managed to slowly claw back. nobody that took those brutal beatdowns in advocacy then is still in the game today. and even now, the HPT and other modern people are meeting with the DNR this very evening to attempt to continue to get them to throw a bone mtn biking's way, even after they watched the DNR run them down in their headlights and feast on their still breathing carcass. god bless those guys, maybe they will get something, and they are far better men than i am for walking back in there and trying. still, it pains me to see people making the same sucker mistakes we did - hint: never talk with or put in 5 minutes of time toward anything with DNR on a verbal agreement, guys - GET IT IN WRITING. and i don't care if they have a smiling smooth talking "trails coordinator" on the payroll these days - she is NOT ON OUR SIDE, OK ?? you don't need TmonT to tell you that, the "no biking" signs should suffice ( speaking of which - didja ever notice that when a new trail gets built it is always up to the hardworking cash-poor volunteers to procure signage because "there's no money" in the DNR - but when they close a trail the "no biking" signs spring forth like magic ?? ).
so sad, over 25 years later and they still play us like violins.
2 comments:
I am right with you on this, we as mtb bikers, worba and everyone else for the most part would just roll over and take it dry whenever the DNR felt like it. They used all the worba groups as the repair unit of the dnr for many many years and still do for the most part. Hell it took 5 years of complaining to get them to remove rails to trails mileage from the DNR website MTB trail totals. We need to get crazy left wing nuts like the Sierra club to make things happen. I am sure you remember the great DNR/UW borkman trail study that showed without a doubt MTBs did the least amount of damage to the trail surface. The DNR went nuts make sure it wasn;t ever put on line for all to see. I have a paper copy, its a good read on how the laziness/ lack of skill of hikers caused the major damages on a trail system.
Hey, I like the photo ;).
bmxmtbfan, scan that sumbitch in and publish it! Its my opinion that the DNR is entirely too powerful for their own good. They really do need to remove heads from asses.
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