I presume you are talking about being de facto disabled. If so, true.
The individual alone knows their capabilities.
The 50-year-old should at least be allowed to try.
It is presumed that they would have the wisdom of age to know if it is even a practical goal for them, & that they are able to train for such an endeavor.
If they don’t have that insight, then just consider it to be Evolution In Action™ if /when Nature takes its course.
Not sure if an Ultramarathoner would fare much better outside their specific skill set, either.
No, of course not. I wouldn’t expect a Toddler’s Trail to be developed, either.
Does that Ultramarathoner of yours have their own trail?
Seems like the easier trails would be easier to build, in the first place.
So what is the difference when it comes to e-bikes? Why shouldn’t the 50-year-old out of shape dude be required to try to do the 40 mile bike loop the same way that the 24-year-old mountain biker does, rather than using assistence?
Aside from length, I’m pretty sure the opposite is true. Easier trails require things like switchbacks, a leveled path, rocks and stumps removed. Hard trails require a cairn piled up every quarter mile following the deer path.
If you aren’t riding a fixie, then you are cheating to compensate for obvious fitness deficiencies and you should stay off of the trails. See also: eyeglasses in bookstores and hearing aids in concerts.
Sarcasm aside, the gold standard would be to make reasonable accommodations for the differently abled. Fun things are better when shared and most non-cyclists just don’t have the cardio to hang on a good ride. A mountain bike with pedal assist can bridge the gap and should be just fine on a mixed use trail or a dedicated singletrack.
On the other hand, something substantially faster would not be reasonable because it would create a hazard for other users and thus diminish their enjoyment… nobody wants to get buzzed by a lightweight stealth motorcycle. Dirt bikes on singletrack are dangerous enough and at least you can hear them coming.
Singlespeed. Fixie mountainbikes aren’t really a thing because you need to be able to get your pedals out of the way to avoid obstacles. Singlespeed mountainbikes on the other hand actually solve some mountainbike problems like chain dropping.
I was kind of going for intentional absurdity there, but yes you are absolutely right.
I remember John Tomac used to do goofy stuff like ride singlespeed bikes or tandems (probably both) in a local mountain bike rally just for the lulz back in the day, but I did not realize that singlespeeds were a thing. Is that strictly for downhill?
Not just the gold standard, it’s the standard in the US. Reasonable people, and lawyers, can disagree on what is meant by reasonable, of course.
In Mammoth Cave NP there are trails where certain activities are not allowed. This would include horses and (presumably), e-bikes. Some trails simply aren’t accessible by anything like a motorized wheelchair, and it’s not reasonable to require the park to cut wider flatter trails.
Some previously-accessible sections of the cave are off-limits to everyone but staff and researchers. No accommodation whatsoever for staff or researchers who may have disabilities. That’s just life.
I guess it isn’t obvious to me. If you are “Allowed to try to get to the petraglyphs.” that seems to imply that there is no way to get to the petraglyphs except by trying and thus in order to get them one is required to try. If one does not need to try to get to the petraglyphs, in what way is one allowed to do so?
Anyone can choose not to try to see the petroglyphs, even those qualified to get there. The assumption that people shouldn’t be allowed to attempt something because others think they will fail is a problem.
Being allowed to chose to try assumes neither success nor failure. The marathoner can twist an ankle climbing too fast, while a less athletic person, proceeding with caution, can eventually get to the goal.
Your comment says that the person needing assistance should be required to forgo that assistance.
Yes but I still don’t see a situation where “This person is allowed to try (in manner X) to get to the petraglyphs” does not imply “To get to the petraglyphs (in manner X), this person is required to try.” Neither sentence says anything about assistance.
The question that vernonbird was originally answering was “Should special assistance be provided for a healthy but not super-fit person to reach the petraglyphs?” The answer that vernonbird gave was that “He should be allowed to try”. My interpretation of this is that vernonbird did not think that the healthy but not super-fit person should be given special assistance and thus in order for the healthy but not super-fit person to see the petraglyphs they would have to try to do it without assistance. Is your reading of his response different?
That analogy only really works if the exoskeleton does not in fact damage the path more than a person without one does. I’m not really sure how much a “powered walking assist” exoskeleton would weigh (do those actually exist now?) The examples I’ve found with google are industrial ones used for heavy lifting which weigh 100s of lbs). I think if we are talking “damage to trails” we have to take the weight of the thing into account.
As far as bikes go, according to a google search mountain bikes can weigh up to around 33 lbs (for fancy ones with lots of springs and suspension, the one I have only weighs 12 lbs). E-bikes, by comparison weigh between 40-70lbs, depending on the battery. So e-bikes will cause more wear-and-tear on a bike trail than a non-powered one will because of the additional weight. The question is, how much more? And is the difference enough to worry about restricting how many people use them on the trail? If e-bikes become more common then regular bikes, because they become common for local transportation, instead of most bikes being used by people wanting to exercise, and most people switch to using them instead of human-powered bikes, than that could have a large impact on the trail maintenance required to keep the trail safe and usable.
Also, there are many different kinds of bike trails. There are the paved ones, which are flat and smooth and easy for any bike, and then there are the mountain bike trials, which are much rougher, and not easy for a “street” bike to navigate. Taking a heavy e-bike on many mountain trails might not be safe (they are designed for getting around town, not handling gravely curves and rough terrain).
Yes they exist, though they are currently very expensive. And much like an e-bike they wouldn’t really cause any more damage to a trail than a person moving entirely under their own power.
Excluding e-bikes under the rationale they would open the door for motorcycles is like excluding the device pictured above under the rationale it would open the door to battle-mechs.
The only issue I have with exoskeletons is that they often require some training and they’re quite inferior to a simple wheeled transport for people with mobility issues.
It came up in the other thread that it is evidently a new thing to have downhiller types of mountain bikes that also have e-assist. The idea being that they will work for downhilling even in places where there is no ski lift.
I guess I am opposed to normal national park types of trails being used in this way, less because of the e-assist than because downhilling speeds make things dangerous for everybody. I would say that there should probably be a speed limit on national park trails that aren’t specifically designated for downhilling.
Surely that is an issue that the disabled person should decide for themselves? It is not my place to tell another person what kind of mobility device is best for their own situation.
Yeah. I can certainly see that there would be trails that would be made passable with an exoskeleton that would not be passable via any sort of wheeled contraption. I’m very much in favor of disabled people having these in their arsenal to make places accessible and I highly doubt that many able-bodied people would choose to use one to increase their stamina etc.
Yes, I think that safety is the real issue here. Setting speed limits would help as well as focusing on promoting a strong emphasis on sharing the trails. I don’t think this is really an e-bike vs bike matter as much as a reframing of the responsible riders vs assholes problem. If people want to send it, then they should do it on dedicated trails.
eBikes by themselves are not a problem. It’s the speed - that’s a big part of why motorbikes aren’t allowed on trails, because they haul ass.
Some eBikes haul ass. Just a couple days ago I saw a kid riding an e-Assist bike doing ~40mph down the road. That kind of shit needs to be verboten on bike trails.
The solution is speed limits for bike trails. Or, sensible exceptions for the less abled. Or both.
This doesn’t have to be hard - and some simple signage will get people to mostly behave especially in the higher trafficked trails. The mostly empty trails, who cares, they are mostly empty anyways.
The trails where I used to live, for sure, if that kid blasting along at 40mph did that on a weekly basis, he’d sooner or later put someone in the hospital. Big groups of families walking mixed with heavy bike/rollerblade traffic, which can be tough to navigate on a conventional road bike. The added speed means, you’re likely to miss seeing something as you blast up and past a group of people.
