Eco group opposes mountain bike race
A proposed mountain bike stage race to be held in the Tally Lake Ranger District is being met with opposition from a local environmental group.
Keith Hammer, chairman of the Swan View Coalition, submitted a four-page comment to the Forest Service contending the bike race will promote conflicts and collisions between cyclists and wildlife.
The Swan View Coalition, established in 1984, has a history of lawsuits against the Forest Service. The group previously challenged a 100-mile trail running race in the Swan Mountains in 2010.
Race organizers Craig Prather and Matt Butterfield filed for a special-use permit from the Forest Service to host the Reid Divide Bicycle Race, planned for Aug. 3-5.
Butterfield says the race will be promoted as the Hellroaring Mountain Bike Stage Race.
Day 1 of the race is a time trial proposed to be on the Whitefish Trail, which is partially on land managed by the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. About 0.2 miles of the trail is on Forest Service land.
Day 2 will be a 34-mile loop utilizing Forest Service roads and the Reid Divide and Bill Creek trails near Tally Lake. All of the roads and trails are open to two-wheeled motorized travel in the summer, with the exception of a 2.1 mile section on trail No. 801. The race is planned to start and finish at a gravel pit in the vacinity.
Day 3 of the race is planned for trails at Big Mountain.
The estimated number of participants is 65, with a maximum cap of 100.
Flathead National Forest spokesperson Wade Muehlhof says there is nothing out of the ordinary about the permit request and that minimal impact is anticipated. District Ranger Lisa Timchak made a preliminary decision that the race is excluded from an Environmental Assessment or Environmental Impact Statement.
Hammer, however, contends that bike racing and speed sports in general encourage reckless behavior that greatly increases the risk of negative encounters with wildlife.
“Trail runners and bikers alike have been swatted, butted, mauled and killed during surprise encounters with bears, lions, wildebeests, and other wildlife,” Hammer said in his comments to the Forest Service. “While folks can get hurt hiking, wildlife and land management officials have become fully aware of and advise against the added risk of increased trail speeds involved in running and biking.”
Hammer cites his own experience mountain biking in Krause Basin of the Swan Mountains when he was charged by a black bear sow defending two cubs.
“As I rounded a blind corner, the sow charged me and stopped only after I managed to stop my bike, a few feet short of my getting swatted if not mauled — which I most certainly would have been had I been biking any faster,” he wrote.
Hammer suggests the entire race be held on Big Mountain, where he says speed sports have become established.
“We urge Flathead National Forest to confine speed sports to the developed Big Mountain area so the negative impacts to fish, wildlife and human safety do not spread across the forest,” he wrote.
He says it would be a compromise to move the race to Big Mountain because that area is also important to wildlife.
“To issue such permits elsewhere will simply spread such wrong-headed behavior and promote a culture of thrill-seeking on public lands that runs contrary to the protection of wildlife and human safety,” Hammer said.