The bad thing about laws is that they seem to never go away, even when it is obvious that the majority is not in favor of them. Slowly, inch by inch, our personal liberties are being stripped from us, and it seems that this vice just gets tighter every year.

There is a reason so many people want to live in Alaska or Montana -- it's a lot easier to slip through the grips of big brother...

 

I've never voted for a DemoCRAP!!! hehe...

 

haha i laugh at all of that.... i wonder if the MNDNR can keep up??

 

so what all is gonna happen like what cant I ride? and where? and what should I do?

 

Hey highwaytohell, first you need a quad lol jk man.

 

idk if youlook in the kawi fourm but I got another mojave from a friend that needed $$ to fix his truck

 

Luecker, I was at the Gilbert site last week with my sport machines. It's definately geared more towards the 4x4 crowd (I shoulda brought my Arctic Cats). Actually, I was kinda disappointed in the place. The trails maked "easy" were too easy, even for my wife, who's somewhat of a beginner. The trails marked "intermediate" were challenging enough for me, but were too difficult for my wife. There wasn't anything in between. The actual trails bear little resemblence to what's on the map as you see some where you're sure it's an ATV/OHM trail and it's really a "all use" trail. There are trails not on the map too. Very few of the trails were addaquately marked. Many had an "easy" rating sign at the beginning only to switch to an "intermediate" rating somewhere down the trail (which required us to turn around and go back).

Contrast this to places like Red Top (near Isle, MN) and Red Dot (near Silver Bay, MN). Both these trail systems are fairly clearly marked and have maps that are pretty close to the actual trails. Of the two, Red Top offers more of a challenge, but Red Dot allows for faster riding. We rode Red Dot twice last week. The first time took us over two hours (because we didn't know what to expect) but the second time was less than an hour because we could ride it at speed. This counts slowing down for puddles because we didn't want to get too muddy (we were actually on our way home and stopped for a quick ride).

This is my concern with the pressure the "greenies" are putting on the DNR at this time. While trails like Red Dot are occasionally fun, they quickly become boring if they're all that is available. Trails like Red Top (with it's more difficult "Ten Bruin", "Adventure" and "East Side" trails) are more the standard I like but even Red Top lost a good mudding area (the "sink hole") due to enviromental pressure and you now see a lot of off trail riding. Addaquate trails means trails that appeal to all forms of riding. This should include scramble area's, mud pits, rock crawls and winding forest trails, to name a few. I suspect the opposition would like to keep us on groomed, dirt road like trails (no, wait, we'd kick up too much dust then!).

 

Control & $$$$$$$, mainly $$$$$$$$- People are always looking for new ways to get into other peoples pockets.

 

AMEN!!!!!

 

I wouldn’t have a serious problem with designated trails on State land. I’m afraid this is probably necessary due to the irresponsible in our own camp. When these people make us look bad the greenies can capitalize on it. And as much as we would like to believe we are in the majority we are not. Most of the ignorant masses only know nature from TV and see us portrayed as tearing up the countryside and running over furry woodland creatures.

We really must police our own ranks. I will relate a little example.

Back several years ago a group of guys I rode with had permission to ride on a very large farm. There were several other groups of guys that rode here also and everything was great. We chipped in a few bucks for the use of the farmer’s land, didn’t tear things up, closed gates, maintained the trails through the woods and didn’t ride on planted fields etc. It was a great place to ride and word got around and some new groups of people showed up. Some of them didn’t get permission to ride on this mans property and the ones that did were causing problems. Some of them decided to ride across planted fields. Others actually carried wire cutters so they could cut fences that were in their way. Still others left gates open so cattle got out.

I don’t want to incite flames here and DO NOT have a problem with people who ride certain machines. I don’t want you guys who ride them to take this as disrespect or criticism…I think sport quads are great.
Ok now that we have the disclaimer out of the way here is what happened. The worst problems were with the guys on Banshees and other high powered sport ATVs. They ran loud exhausts and rode very irresponsibly. They went to a bluff area that was highly erodible and decided to hill climb there and caused major damage. They would do this wherever they found a hill. Wherever there was a hill there were long cuts they made doing hill climbs. These were very damaging and caused serious erosion problems. On our trails they would constantly spin their tires and make huge ruts. They even made a racetrack in the middle of a newly planted field. They rode where ever they wanted and always seemed to do it with the throttle wide open and spinning the back tires to dig ruts and throw as much dirt as much as possible. In the space of one month after they started showing up the farm looked like terrible. There were scars on every hillside and our carefully maintained trails were wrecked. There was trash scattered everywhere and the farmer was seriously pissed. A few of us spent about a month of weekends and evenings repairing the damage and picking up trash. We managed to stop the hillside erosion and repair the trails but the damage on the bluffs was so bad heavy equipment had to be brought in to stabilize the hillside. The offenders were told not to come back but they sneaked in the back way and did more damage. Finally the farmer had enough and banned riding (along with hunting, fishing and hiking) all together. What we spent several years building it took only a handful of a-holes only a month or so to destroy. If these guys had been a little considerate and rode responsibly we would still have several hundred acres to ride on.

I think there are people in our own ranks that are as much as a problem as the greenies and antis.