OK HERE'S MY RANT

[DIRTTV]

Picture if you will... August long weekend and ideas floating around....."where do we go?"
Hey I know...Lets go to hunter valley and enjoy the weekend...Sounds like a great idea....hmmm I wonder?

So there we are its all good. Friday great weather .... not alot of traffic.
Saturday wake up.. sunny its all good. "hey lets go for a ride!" Where do you want to go......hmmm i dont know?"
Lets ride a quad trail just to see what is up in the north end of hunter valley!
Right then who pulls in but a srd guy...friendly and all he asks, "r u comin or goin?"
"We said ...just headin out"
He says,"you realize you have to load up your bike because no trails leave campsites". (hmm interesting) I'll come back to this one.
I said ok no problem. didnt want to piss anybody off.
He then said no bike trails in the area "you have to ride quad trail and we have hired a guy on a bike to gps all single track SO THAT SHOULD BE COMING SOON". (hmm interesting) I'll come back to this one too.
He then said the reason for the gamp is to protect the underlying water bodies. (duh tell me somethin I dont already know). FINE dont piss anybody off go ride a quad trail and see how screwed up those are.

so srd guy leaves after handing us 3 NEW maps. Supposedly the ones with no mistakes!
we then Ride down the ditch (srd guy says dont ride the ditch esentially its the same as the road!"(hmm interesting) I'll come back to this one.
To the cut line numbered 501(an approved government quad trail signed and marked open) so down the trail we go...(bored yet?) pulling 3rd to 4th gear on my 450 the trail is a little rutted...bumpy... to be expected when people ride on them with 4 wheels and no helmets(had to slip that one in). down a downhill thinking to myself("I hope nobody brings their family on this trail...little sketchy) no match for the big D though. OH look up ahead a change of scenery a river crossing! yeah some excitment!....oh a little deep two footer maybe ...ok out on the other side look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...look another river crossing...

WHAT THE F**K!!!!!!I thought that nice man in the uniform said gamp was to protect the water...What a crock of S**T! EIGHT times we crossed a river that in the month of may you will never see the other side of.

OH yeah hired a guy to GPS some bike trails.....WHAT ABOUT ALL THE TRAILS THAT ARE ALREADY MAPED OUT FOR YOU KNUCKLE HEADS! AND WHATS THIS ABOUT NO TRAILS LEAVE CAMPSITES??? YOU MEAN TO TELL ME ALL THE HEADS OF TRAILS WILL NOW HAVE TO BE LINED UP WITH SHINNY NEW FORD F350 TO UNLOAD THEIR DIRT BIKES...GIVE ME A BREAK. CJAY 92 ALL FRIDAY MORNING KEPT SAYING RCMP WILL BE CLAMPING DOWN ON THE ILEAGAL USE OF NON DESIGNATED TRAILS. WHAT A CROCK. I DIDNT SEE ONE RCMP OBVIOSLY A GAME TO USE THE MEDIA. OH YEAH.....IF THE DITCH IS ESENTIALLY THE SAME AS THE ROAD WHY CANT I DRIVE MY VEHICLE DOWN IT?

I KNOW WHY WE DIDNT GET ANY BIKE TRAILS.....

ARE YOU READY FOR IT?

THEY DONT HAVE ANYONE TO POLICE THE BIKE TRAILS......HAHAHA ITS SO STUPID!
I KNEW THERE WAS A REASON. HOW COULD I BE SO DUMB. HOW COULD THEY POLICE BIKE TRAILS ON QUADS...THEY CANT AND IF THEY CANT POLICE IT DONT OPEN IT.

I AM TIRED OF TYPING AND I JUST WANT TO SCREAM...AAAAAAHHHHHH

ITS JUST ANOTHER STUPID THING THE GOVERNMENT CAN GET AWAY WITH.

I AM THINKIN OF RUNNING IN THE NEXT ELECTION....

DO I HAVE TO KNOW HOW TO SPELL?

why are their still old dirtbike trails marked with signs in the huntervalley area? that tells me they are still open. if it has a sign with a dirtbike on it' it is open....SRD GUY TELLS ME...YOU F'N BONEHEAD!!!!

A little birdy tells me he rode from burnt timber to the fallen timber campground solely on single track and never once crossed a sensative zone ie. water skeg...blah blah blah!


please help me vent or please say something that might calm me down!!!!!

one more thing.... why am i getting penalized for riding a fat old guy quad trail the day before a harescramble on NON APPROVED TRAILS?

MAYBE IM THE F'N BONEHEAD??????

Belive me I think its good the race happened...it shows maybe there is some lite at the end of the tunnel where we can hold races on non approved trail and say its safer for the public if we hold events on trails where the public wont be. but I still ask you why should I have to pay 100$ to ride the same trail for 2 hours?

ANYBODY?

[markvfr]

Awesome and I mean awesome rant! I have been feeling like this since the Waiparous closure and the dipsh*t article in The Sun about "bikes wallowing in the mud"... Out of all the offroad vehicles our two wheelers have the LEAST impact on the bank erosion, silting etc... Your description of the quad trail with river crossings makes me laugh and reminds me of what I saw at Waiparous before they closed it. I was riding a ridge right by the river and look down and what do I see??? I see four quads parked IN the river power washing their fourwheeled pigs!!!!! But I guess that doesn't contribute to silting at all. WTF?

Anyway, I can feel my blood pressure rising so I think I'll call it a night.

[markvfr]

for some reason my response got posted twice... sorry.

[Dakota_c69]

I saw a SRD truck on Monday with a Govt Fleet plated KLX300 in it. Rear tire was toast though...

[porschev]

My Thorn,
To ride or not to ride from the campsites? Who knows!

We camped in Waiparous this weekend & were told by the campsite management, not the grunts but by management (and they should know they are management) that there were trails leaving the campsite at either end that will lead us to the main trails. And that it was alright to do so. Later, others in our group spoke to the same management and they were told they weren't allowed to ride from the campsites. Go figure!!??

Anyway, the first path went about 50 yards into the bush & dumped you at the river with no possible way of getting up the bank on the other side and there wasn't a trail on the other side. No big deal turn all 15 kids around, and we will leave from the other end.

Hah!

Not a chance at the other end of the campsite the "path" if taken would get someone killed, 40 feet of grass then a 20' drop.
With all the work they put into GAMP you would think someone would have seen that the paths that were there for trail access were gone from the floods.

We did see the SRD truck with a single ramp, thought they must be out on a bike, I was told that they are looking to hire 2 riders for policing the trails leading me to believe DirtTv is right.

Dallas

[DirtGirl]

Dallas,

what campground were you camped in? If I may ask.

[Dragon997]

Doug
I was camped at the Fallen timber campground July 22 weekend. Me and another rider crossed the river where the washed out bridge used to be, rode under the 940 bridge and started going to the campsite, past the meadow.
We were stopped by a SRD officer and said there was no trail leading from the campsite to the trail we were on.
He didnt mention anything about the stream crossing, that he watched us ride through.
I asked him how me , my wife and 2 kids were suppose to ride from the campsite.
He said we were to loop around up north, cross the 940 hiway and keep riding. Tried it later, with my kids they couldnt make it on the hills.
Or we can truck it to the trail.Hard with a motorhome!
I then pointed out sign # 215 on the east side of the bridge , and asked him where that goes.
He just shrugged and said I dunno.
He replied with an email to me last week, and said that trail#215 does lead to the Fallen Timber campground staging area.
And did you know that $400,000 of taxpayer money is being put into the Fallen Timber campground to build a trail system between the sites to link to the trails.
Because its illegal to ride on thecampground road.
I had a conversation with Mark [campground leaser] and he thinks its ridiculous, Change the legislation!
If they build trails in the campsite, its going to become a mini mx track. Which will piss off the non OHV campers even more.
Motovan Johnny

[porschev]

DirtGirl
We were at the Waiparous Group Camp.
Very clean, great spot, worked well for a medium sized get together (under 15 units).
It was a little harder/risky to get the younger riders to the trails, and we did end up having to lock the gate to keep the dozens of cars from burning through the campground each day.

regards
Dallas

[DirtGirl]

oh that was you guys in there...we were up at hunter valley.
there is a cutline to the west of the campground, although it is not an approved one and you probably wouldn't want to take the kids on it, there is one hill that is bad.

This whole issue just burns my butt!!!

[Brent]

Why doesn't the GAMP plan add up??? why does all of this not make sense???? I have a good idea why. The guy in charge of the plan, does not care about OHV's. In fact, he is against OHV's. Thats why. We GPSed our single track...bad idea. Why? Because now they know where they can find us. it was all a ploy. We were trying to be intelligent and do the right thing and now it's bend over and take it up the ..... The OHV community is a HUGE community of valid users. We are and should be allowed to use this land. We just need to figure out a smart way of using it. But this is all rediculous. We've been screwed and you know what the worst part is, they know we are quiet. We are busy and don't have time to fight this, they just do whatever they want and it gets passed. The sled guys are organized. The mountain bike crew are organized. The greens are very organized and they know it. They have a way smaller group of people in AWA, most of whom hardly use the area and can make anything happen. Why? because they are organized and have the money. Our OHV community is HUGE, far bigger then their group. I guess we are just easy targets. They take one picture of a guy in a truck stuck in the biggest mud hole on a long weekend and call it "All Year Abuse"
It's like a game: theres one board with a bunch of land on it and there are 4-5 players sitting around the board holding cards and some dice: what cards have we brought to the table and when do we get to roll the dice?

[SlowPoke]

Big Dog, I think we can do something. We have to unite and make ourselves heard. We got to create a stir. Like you said, we are legitimate users and we have to demand change. There is problems with GAMP that need to get addressed. Lets create a list of OHV users that are willing to spend some time and money fighting this. If we get 300 people together, we can band together to inundate politicians, sustainable resources, and the media with multiple letters or emails within a short period of time. We can stage rallies at Waiporous to point out the inadequacies of their plan. We can crash the legislature with our numbers and ask for an audience with the premier or sustainable resource minister. We can purchase radio advertising to promote our view. We can write letters to the editors of our provincial newspapers. I would be willing to help with this cause, but as Big Dog mentioned this is a huge task for any one individual. We need commitment from many. Who is willing to stand up and invest time and some of their own money. we need unified action from our members and members of other groups to make initiate change.

[MotorEd]

Big Dog, I think we can do something. We have to unite and make ourselves heard. We got to create a stir. Like you said, we are legitimate users and we have to demand change. There is problems with GAMP that need to get addressed. Lets create a list of OHV users that are willing to spend some time and money fighting this. If we get 300 people together, we can band together to inundate politicians, sustainable resources, and the media with multiple letters or emails within a short period of time. We can stage rallies at Waiporous to point out the inadequacies of their plan. We can crash the legislature with our numbers and ask for an audience with the premier or sustainable resource minister. We can purchase radio advertising to promote our view. We can write letters to the editors of our provincial newspapers. I would be willing to help with this cause, but as Big Dog mentioned this is a huge task for any one individual. We need commitment from many. Who is willing to stand up and invest time and some of their own money. we need unified action from our members and members of other groups to make initiate change.

EXACTLY

This GAMP is a joke...poorly designed and researched. I see ZERO scientific evidence or backing for why they closed the trails...the plan does not do what it is supposed to do. It was poorly set up... and the implementation was and is still is chaotic......nobody has any idea what it really means...not even SRD.

GAMP is a total failure.

To put everyone to the task, how many out there have written letters to their MLA expressing your...'displeasure' with this GAMP?

[DirtGirl]

all the more reason to join a group like the AOHVA. By all means still write the MLAs etc but join a group that has a paid representative fighting for our rights, Cal Radach.

[Spinalguy]

The biggest problem is UNIFICATION of ALL OHV users. There is power in numbers but our own politics is our own undoing.
We have 2 race bike clubs that do not want to co-operate with eachother.
We have 10+ offroad clubs for 4x4's that want to co-operate with everyone.
We have a few quad clubs that will co-operate with one bike club but not the other or visa versa.

If we just dropped our petty emotional and personal differences and ALL of us got together to fight this, than we have a chance. Its not about quad size, bike muffler size or 4x4 tire size but it is about MOTORIZED use and all of us have one of those. The sooner we come together rather than putting distance between us, the better chance we ALL have.
SRD loves it that they have created a division amongst user groups. There was no real conflict between user groups until SRD started planting "seeds'.

There will always be a 10% factor wheter in big truck, small truck, bike or quad. Idiots exist in life. We should just leave it alone and concentrate on the 'good' 90% of ALL users

OR

we can continue to distance ourselves from those we do not like or those we PERCEIVE to be the problem and than we will have more closures in other areas.
The truth is that AOHVA wants nothing to do with the 4x4 community as they think their chances were better with government if the trucks were not part of 'them'. Well look at what it got them.....
100% singletrack closure and 40% quad closure. The trucks got 95% closure.

i am just sick of hearing blame being pushed onto other users when in fact it is all of us to blame. So, maybe if we ALL united and held a public protest by wheeling, quadding and riding on illegal trails in Waiporous and we all got tickets we could fight the sysytem????

And maybe we could get all 4x4's, trucks with quads or bikes in the back and do a road traffic blockade in Banff to bring awareness to the ridiculous plan called GAMP which is the template for the rest of Alberta.

Tom

[DIRTTV]

TOM,

MARK ME DOWN FOR THE BANFF ROAD BLOCK. WHEN ARE WE DOING IT? THATS THE BEST IDEAI HAVE HEARD YET.

HOLD IT HOLDIT!!!!!!!!!

IT JUST HIT ME......LETS DO A DEERFOOT ROADBLOCK IF CALGARY WANTS THE WATER SO BADLY LETS SEE IF THE CAN DO WITHOUT THE DEERFOOT FOR A DAY????????????