Marin: One-track mind
I’ve been an active runner since my high school days and an avid mountain biker for 16 years. I live in the East Bay but spend a great deal of time in Marin enjoying the many wonderful areas to run and ride my bike. Most often, my trips to Marin are with groups of friends and we often spend money in your eating establishments and sporting goods stores.
That said, we increasingly find ourselves looking elsewhere to ride because there are simply not enough non-fire-road trails in Marin that are open to mountain bikes.
I understand that mountain bikers are now about a third of the users of Marin open space lands, but they only have access to about 10-15 percent of the single-track trails. I don’t know how many times I’ve come across awesome-looking trails only to find that they are not open to mountain bikes. We are greatly disappointed that in the county where modern mountain biking was born, this growing user group is only allowed to enjoy a fraction of the public trails.
I have ridden in many other places like Annadel State Park in Santa Rosa, Joaquin Miller Park in Oakland, Rockville Park in Fairfield, Skyline Park in Napa and Crockett Park [in Crockett], where most narrow trails are open to all users and everyone coexists on the trails just fine. If people can share there, why can’t they in Marin?
Jeannine C. Pires, Benicia
