Potential Trail Loss

There is a proposal to allow bicyclists to access previously horse/hiker only trail in upper Michigan. The danger of sharing the trail is acknowledged by the proposal and instead they want to alternate days/weeks that horses and bikes can access it.

Please add your signature to the petition and/or send an email to the Forest Service emails listed at the petition site to ask them to not do this. And share!

The threatened trail in question is a linear trail like that used by Shore to Shore and horseback riders will ride out and camp and come back, using the trail on multiple days. To alternate use, especially if it's a day or even week, would extremely discourage equestrian use and impact what little trail in Michigan is left. There is plenty of area to create a new trail for exclusive bike access. They do not need the

I've shared on this blog before how poorly our previous interactions with mountain bikes on shared trail has been and this horrifies me that access is getting restricted. Please help us Michigan riders out and support the cause. We don't want the precedent set for other horse trails across the country.

The part where we nearly collided is where the horses and bikes share a trail VERY briefly. If you ride the red loop counter clockwise, you share the trail head-on to the bikes (who have a unidirectional trail).  I saw the overlap coming. We paused before stepping onto the trail, I didn't see or hear anything.  Then we proceeded and ZOOM.  A guy came around the bend and was apparently ready to just zip on by us.
I started shouting, "Hello?! HELLO! HEY!" Gwyn tucked her tail under and I felt her begin to spin, dude on the bike finally figured out that hey, maybe I should slow down (no FUCKING shit, asshole) and she 180'd back the other way. I sat deeply and grabbed mane. I turned her back and asked her to walk toward the bike. Her whole body was tense. The guy apologized and he went on his way, saying there was one more behind him. The one more came not long after and I kicked Gwyn into a trot to get the fuck away from the merged section before we died.

Every other bike encounter was less dramatic, but Gwyn was more charged up about it. Bikes were obviously out to get her.

So I think that's poor trail planning.  *grumble*