Riders in the spiritual home of mountain biking are going to willingly flout the law about staying off the singletrack trails.

There has been a ‘critical mass’ style protest ride arranged for this coming weekend, with the following description…

“Come and ride with your friends, and people you don’t know in the first dirt critical mass ride! Please join us and make sure to tell your friends! The route will be released on the day of the ride, much like sfcriticalmass.org . Please help our cause by coming out to ride together and celebrate the joy of mountain biking. This is a protest against the lack of access to single track in Marin County. We need all hands on deck to make a powerful statement with our bodies and bikes! We will hold these protests monthly until we gain acceptable access. We need your help! Let’s ride!”

Marin County Open Space Land

As any mountain biker knows, narrow trails are more fun than wider trails. Singletrack is arguably the main point of riding mountain bikes in the first place.

In recent years however Marin County have banned bikes from pretty much anything that isn’t a wide dirt fireroad. Local mountain bikers are frustrated at the lack of consideration they’ve been given and the slow pace of any change or development to the controversial Marin County Open Space Land rules.

Their position is that the ‘no bikes on singletrack’ blanket ban was introduced instantly and any subsequent re-opening of singletrack to bikes has been painfully slow and heel-dragging.

This group of mountain bikers have formed a group called the New Paradigm Trail Group. A dozen or so of this group’s members effectively ‘grabbed the mic’ at a recent meeting of Marin County’s Board of Supervisors and expressed their frustrations.

David Carbonell, co-founder of New Paradigm Trail Group said: “We represent 40 percent to 45 percent of the users out there, but we’re relegated to less than 10 percent of the trails. I don’t want to be 65 years old before I see my vision for trail access sharing in Marin County implemented.”

The Group also voiced their opposition to the current 15 mph speed limit on Marin Country trails that is now being enforced by officers with speed guns.

“We will be as disruptive as possible”

The New Paradigm Trail Group said this on their Facebook page: “The RTMP is a failure, and its implementation must be modified or destroyed. We stand alongside Marin County Bicycle Coalition and Access4Bikes in demanding more trail access, but do not think the current tactics have gotten us the access that we need. We will be as disruptive as possible, acting within the guidelines of the law.”