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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!

On April 6th, 2018 Bicycling Magazine took a break from telling its readers they needed the latest $10,000 super bike to post an article by Ayesha McGowan.  The article is about diversity, or more correctly, the lack of diversity within the cycling community.

Before going any further take a few moments to read Ms. McGowan’s article.

Ms. McGowan’s article is so powerful not only because she points to a real problem in the bicycling world, but includes relatively simple fixes to these problems.  While the article is aimed at the corporate/industrial side of bicycling, the fact of the matter is that bicycling is more than Specialized’s graphics department.  It’s all of us that use bicycles and love bicycles, whether we ride to work or on the trail.

What are other ways that the industry and us, as cyclists, can help ensure cycling appeals to everyone?

While man has always sought to fly, in the post-World War 2 time period, there was a growing interest in the idea of “flying cars”, that is personal flying devices that could pull into a garage and then whisk their inhabitants off to a location.  At the time, it seemed like the stars had aligned for just such a reality.  Thru the war, 2 inventions were refined that seemed to make this possible: the gas turbine and the helicopter.  In fact, German engineers had developed the intermesh helicopter, a type that auto hovers.  Many of those engineers and scientists found their way to the United States via Operation Paperclip.

On paper, a flying car sounds great.  Faster than ground transportation and able to go point-to-point versus following roads.  However, in practice, the idea of a flying car is a nightmare.  Besides the complexities of actually flying an aircraft, there is the matter of preventing all these flying cars from running into one another.  Then there is the fact that conditions in air are always changing as the atmosphere takes on many properties of a fluid in a vessel, with competing air currents and changes in air flow.  From that time till today, history is littered with failed flying car ideas, some famous, some not so famous.  In the end, the idea of the flying car remains (and likely will always remain) an idea.

When it comes to user management techniques, there is one that sounds like a great idea on paper, but a nightmare in actual usage: Alternating Use.  This leads to the following questions:

• What is “Alternating Use”?
• Why is Alternating Use such a bad idea?
• How are other management techniques superior?

​Let’s see how the idea is not matched by the reality.

Many things come in boxes, from the small boxes for jewelry to the large heavily built boxes for appliances.  In mythology, it was Pandora’s Box (though in the original Greek it was a jar) that contained all the ills of the world that were let loose when Pandora decided to take a peek.  In religious connotations, the Jewish Ark of the Covenant was an ornate box to hold the original tablets of the commandments.

There is another type of box we will consider, one containing mountain bike trails.  This type of use is known as Boxed Use.  To know what comes in that box, we need to answer the following:

• What is “Boxed Use”?
• How are Boxed Use and Segregated Use different?
• When does Boxed Use make sense?

​Let’s lift the lid and see what Boxed Use all about!

While we think of some cars as being “hybrids”, having both gas and electric powerplants, the greatest use of hybrids has always been in agriculture.  Farmers realized certain types of wheat had more yield, but were fragile and other types of wheat were hardy but had low yield.  The answer: pollinate one type with the other and cultivate the wheat that had both characteristics; yield and hardiness.  From the moment man began farming, creating hybrids, either on purpose or by accident, was just a basic part of the process.  Today, large percentages of fruits and grains we consume are hybrids in some way.

But what if, as we are creating urban mountain biking trails, we need a little bit of this and that?  Is there a way to do what a farmer would do, mix the attributes of various user management techniques?

There is, and that is called Hybrid Use.  To explore this user management technique, we need to know the following:

• What is “Hybrid Use”?
• Where does Hybrid Use make sense?
• How does Hybrid Use keep users happy?

​Let’s do some cross-pollination and see what we get!

​When you do laundry, you are well aware of the need to place certain colors and fabrics in separate loads.  Cottons, whites, colored.  This type of segregation of clothes is important as placing certain clothes together can damage them.  Reds and whites are a common example of this, as either the colors will run, turning whites pink or the red will be bleached out.
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While we have spent the last 3 parts of this series talking about how to share trails, today we go a much different direction: ensuring these users that previously shared, never share.  Much like the laundry, we are going to sort them, segregating them in other words, into their unique experiences.  If that is the case, we have some questions we need to answer:

• What is “Segregated Use”?
• How canb Segregated Use be considered sharing?
• What can Segregated Use do create successful hiking and mountain biking?

It’s time to sort everyone into their boxes with the Segregated Use user management technique.

Preferences can be strange things.  Some preferences, like our favorite flavor of ice cream are relatively minor with little or no influence on our lives.  Others, like whom we wish to form romantic attachments to, can be very powerful and they can be one of our defining characteristics.   Many preferences change with time and a few stay the same our whole lives.

When it comes to trails and users on those trails, we can make choices that sort users and show that we prefer one set of users.  Therefore:

• What is “Preferred Use” in relation to trail sharing?
• How can we make Preferred Use a true preference?
• What specifically is needed to be successful in Preferred Use?

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Get your favorite ice cream spoon out as we dig into Preferred Use user management techniques.

Going back to the metaphor that we used in the Part 2 of this series, if we imagine a set of scales, preferred use trails would tip one side of the scale toward one user group or another.  But they wouldn’t remove the other user group completely.  Clearly, when making choices in trail design and management, we are going to skew our choices toward our preferred user group.  But that doesn’t mean we would be callous to choices that might affect safety or other factors with that other user group.  Think of it as affirmative action for trails.

As we discussed in Part 1 of this series, the preference can work out in the real world in 3 types of preferences.  Those preferences can be in the favor of hikers, or they can be in preference of mountain bikers.  Or we can really turn the dial and go bike primary, where we basically build a full-on mountain bike trail that we let hikers and trail runners on.  All three are still preferred use.  Think of them as the vanilla, chocolate and Under the Stars versions of trail flavors.

The first thing we should understand is that to do preferred in way that doesn’t alienate the other user we need to think about experience ahead of time.  Remember, we are preferring a user group, not kicking the other user group out.  That means we still need to understand what user groups want and what they are comfortable with.  Even the not-so-preferred group.

For preferred use trails, that means directionality.  Directionality helps us control on-trail experiences, meaning we can know how user group A will approach a corner and how user group B will approach that same corner.  It basically removes a whole set of variables from the equation.  This allows us to focus on getting the rest of the experience just right.
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A special note here.  Because there is directionality, that means we should strive for a real stacked loop system.  There is some confusion in certain parts of the country as to what qualifies as a stacked loop system.  Some think a stacked loop system is moving from one trail to another that eventually returns you to the beginning.  That is a route, not a stacked loop.  A stacked loop is basically a series of full loop trails, each beginning and ending off another loop.

Because we have directional traffic, that means we can narrow up the bench in relation to a shared use trail.  These can be as narrow as 36” in width, except at choke points.  For trails were we prefer hiking, we would also want to tighten up the corners to the point they require slow mountain bike speeds and maybe a bit of body English.  Whether hiker or biker preferred, we can also narrow up the choke points, being 18” wide at the bottom and at least a handlebar wide where needed.  We wouldn’t do choke points on a bike primary trail, except at the entrance to corners and intersections, where the entrance speeds would need to meet a safety factor.

Depending on who we are preferring as far as user group, the trail bench should be manipulated to match.  For a hiker preferred trail, we might include timber steps, whether singularly, or overlapping.  Because we aren’t trying to keep mountain bikers out, its best to keep the step at 6” or less, and for uphills, spaced out where they won’t cause too many issues for most mountain bikers.  For directionality that is opposite/face-to-face, these can be used on mountain biker downhill, hiker uphill at full height (8”).  Bermed corners are now an option for mountain biking preferred trails, though a flat inner section should be included to allow hikers to easily negotiate the turn.  For bike primary, the trail should be constructed as you would for a full-on mountain biking experience.
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Please remember that so long as the directionality of the trail isn’t altered, there is nothing wrong with having some trails in a larger system to be hiker preferred and some be biker preferred.  This will sort out users and over time each trail will gain a reputation within the user community.

Previously, when talking about Shared Use, we discussed the importance of signage.  All those recommendations still stand and are maybe even a little more urgent with Preferred Use.

However, signage isn’t the magic bullet to successful preferred use.  What often can be the difference between good and poor preferred use is how the trail enters and exits from its access points.  Many preferred use trails have a short two-way (and sometimes rather wide) pre-trail that leads to a definite “T” with an unmistakable set of signs to get users going the right way from the beginning.  This works in two ways.  First, it reduces confusion by only providing one point to go to (or come from).  Second, it leads users down to a point where much larger than normal signage can be used to direct them.

Just like Shared Use, adding items for one user group or the other is not out of the question.  However, because we are tilting the scales a little bit with preferred use to one user group or another, its less important to do this.
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For preferred use, user group patrols of trained patrollers are highly suggested.  While it’s a great idea for safety and to act as ambassadors for the trails, parks and land managers, on preferred use trails, these patrollers can act as “guide dogs” and lead other users in enjoying the trail to the max.

Preferred Use works great for district or larger trails.  It’s not as easy to implement as Shared Use, but it does have its benefits.  It still allows conversion to segregated use if needed, though it’s nearly impossible to convert down to Shared Use. Once created though, the amount of land manager overhead for the trail drops considerably.  All user groups are accommodated, but the trail itself is doing some of the management versus staff.  

As part of the Knobbies in the Neighborhood presentation a complete User Management Techniques matrix is available that contains all the information presented here and much more.

This is Part 3 in a series on User Management Techniques.  Up next: Segregated Use.

Raising Children Australia, says the following about “sharing”:

​While it’s safe to assume most of us learned how to share at home and kindergarten, it does raise some questions that are pertinent to the idea of shared trails:

• What is “Shared Use” when we talk about trail sharing?
• What allows for positive Shared Use?
• What specifically is needed to create positive Shared Use?

We will answer these questions and more as we discuss Shared Use user management techniques.

One of the easiest ways to help cities and land managers to feel more comfortable with urban mountain biking is to feel like they have control over mountain biking, but also that it’s not totally on them.  From the standpoint of a mountain biking club and the land manager the maintenance of, management of and control of trails, being partners can bring great benefits to all involved.
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How can you codify a partnership between your local mountain biking club and the land managers?  With a document called a “Memorandum of Understanding".  Let’s look at what a memorandum of understanding is and how you can create one that is both useful and simple to understand for all parties.

On some medieval maps, unexplored areas where marked with drawings of monsters with the cheeky warning, “Here be dragons”.  It was a way to denote unspecified dangers lurk outside of a known area.  Today, Google Maps doesn’t have dragons or sea creatures at the edge of the map.  Most of us would scoff at the idea that out there, somewhere, is a place with unknown monsters waiting for us.

But do we believe in a different type of dragon that might live outside our local area of comfort?  Maybe those dragons, they vote different than we do.  Maybe they worship different than us.  Maybe they enjoy a different type of work than we do.  Maybe they live in a part of the country we have preconceptions about.  Maybe those dragons don’t seem as sophisticated as us.

For many things, “local” should be default.  We want local schools.  We want to shop at local stores.  We want local produce.  We want local beer.  But “local” can become a way to isolate ourselves, to avoid in other words, the things we consider to be dragons.
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Believe it or not, this same belief in the dragons out there can affect how we make urban mountain biking happen.