Without a doubt, the National Park Service (NPS) is my favorite governmental entity. Each time I visit a national park, I'm impressed with the Park Service's conservation of our wonderful natural resources. Hopefully, results of a recently completed study of mountain bike impact on trails will reverse the NPS ban of mountain bikes on trails, allowing future national park visits to be even more enjoyable.

In a collaborative project between Shimano, the Arizona State Office of the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM), Arizona State University (ASU) and Northern Arizona University (NAU) studing the ecological and physical impacts of mountain bikes on 31 Western trails, researchers found that damage to trails from equestrians was greater than or equal to damage caused by mountain bikes. Researchers covered 185 miles of trail in habitats ranging from alpine to desert.

National Park superintendents from Texas to Washington, DC are already looking at allowing mountain bikes on trails; however, major parks like Grand Canyon, Smoky Mountain, Yellowstone & Yosemite regard bikes with virtually the same disdain they have towards motor cars, relegating bicycle usage to paved streets. As a result, vast swaths of parkland are essentially off limits to the average visitor because hiking a trail takes more time than is available.