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Your bike, just like you, needs a wash after it plays in the dirt.

Yet, bike wash stations at local trails can be all too rare.  Why then are bike wash stations an important part of the infrastructure for urban trails?  What styles of bike wash stations are there?  How do you get one?
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Get your sponges out and suds up as we dive into bike wash stations!

In part 1 of this series, we discussed what active and passive recreational uses were and how they are defined.

As we discussed, to be a passive use, the activity would have to meet 3 criteria:

1. Have no greater impact than other passive uses
2. Use the same recreational facilities as other passive uses
3. Can occur with other passive activities and users simultaneously

As point #2 illustrates, it’s not only the activity, but the infrastructure of that recreational use that would be a factor in determining if an activity could be considered passive or active.  The example used in the previous article was that of a football field and a multi-use trail.

However, if we have a trail, in this case multi-use, could an activity come along might not be passive use?  And where does mountain biking, as an activity, fit in with the idea of active and passive use?

That will be some of the questions we will answer in this second part.

In the discussion of scientific instruments and measuring devices, there are two major categories: active sensors and passive sensors.  Active sensors use some kind of directed energy, whether that be light waves, sound waves or kinetic means to measure properties about an item.   Passive sensors do not emit any energy, but measure the observed item's own emitted energy, again, light waves, sound waves or kinetic means to measure properties of that item.

Some types of instruments can be in either passive or active types. Microscopes can be passively viewing or, like an electron microscope, they can actively view.  Sonar on ships and submarines can do the same, passively listening for other vessels or sending out a “ping” to listen for the echo.

​​But when talking about active or passive recreational uses, what is being referred to?  How can one activity be referred to as “active use” and a seemingly similar activity be referred to as “passive use”.  How does this understanding of active and passive recreational use affect mountain biking in urban areas?

This article is bit longer than the post.  But there was a lot of ground to cover.

​On May 8th, 2018 the Hopkins, MN Center for the Arts hosted and interesting group.  Calling themselves Conserve Lone Lake Park, they hosted a meeting on why the citizens of neighboring Minnetonka should be opposed to the proposal for mountain biking trails in Lone Lake Park.

One of the strange things about urban mountain biking is that it’s not completely codified.  That is, while we have techniques or methods we know that work, there is always room for new (and sometimes) better ideas.  While there are a certain range of user management techniques, for instance, some group or location could create something new that would be added to the menagerie or even replace an existing technique.

One of these new methods is currently arising in Minnesota, one that seems to address situations applicable across the country.  This new method is walk-through kiosks.