Community Corner

Supes, Bike Coalition Call for Young Mountain Bikers from Equestrian Incident to Come Forward

The June 20 incident in which two young mountain bikers spooked and injured a horse and its rider in the Indian Tree Open Space Preserve remains the talk of Marin's cycling and equestrian communities

By Jim Welte

A pair of young mountain bikers who illegally raced past two equestrians in Indian Tree Open Space Preserve last month, spooking the horses and critically injuring one of the riders, continue to elude authorities, a move that bike advocates say hurts their efforts to fight for cyclists’ rights.

“There’s a real unified voice, no matter what your opinion of the issue is, that it would be best if these kids came forward,” Tom Boss of the Marin County Bicycle Coalition said. “This incident doesn’t help the work of bike advocates. It would really help a lot of if the parents or the kids stepped forward and took responsibility.”

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The incident occurred on June 20 on a narrow trail in the Indian Tree preserve – where mountain biking is not allowed – on the northwest side of Novato, with the equestrians saying the boys, who appeared to be 10 to 12 years old, sped off despite their pleas for help. One of the riders, Lisa Zeppegno of Oakland, suffered spinal fractures and was airlifted in a Sonoma County Sheriff's helicopter.

Linda Dahl, director and general manager of Marin County Parks, told the board that they’ve been unable to find the two young mountain bikers in question. Boss said while the incident has become a hot topic among Marin cyclists, the kids haven’t been identified.

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“We’ve put our ears out into the community but there really don’t seem to be any leads that we are aware of,” he said.

At the Marin County Board of Supervisors’ meeting Tuesday, several implored the kids or their parents to step up.

“There are a lot of things that bother me about this, the biggest of which is that (the bikers) didn’t help someone who was injured,” said Supervisor Susan Adams. “Somebody out there knows what happened. These two young individuals need to be located and held accountable.”

“Encouraging your sons to come forward and apologize would be an example of restorative justice that would last them their whole lives,” Board of Supervisors President Judy Arnold added.

Several supervisors also called for a crackdown on trail usage.

“We’ve been talking about education for a long time – we need enforcement – meaningful enforcement and fines,” Adams said. “I’ve had it – we can’t let this continue to go on.”

The board decided in 2012 to include specific policies about trail usage and enforcement into the larger "Road and Trail Management Plan/Environmental Impact Report,” which will be unveiled at 10 a.m. July 23 at a joint meeting of the Board of Supervisors and the Marin County Parks and Open Space Commission, though it won’t likely implemented until 2014.

Fines and penalties for illegal biking in open space range from $199 for the first offense to $615 for the third offense and each on thereafter, parks officials said.

But catching mountain bikers is often an impossible task given the speed at which they ride on trails, Dahl said. She pointed the supervisors to websites like Strava, where she said bikers compete with one another over who can traverse certain trails the fastest, including in Indian Tree, where mountain biking is prohibited.

“People are posting times and bragging about racing downhill at Indian Tree,” Dahl said.

Dahl said her park rangers have recommended that they start taking bicycles away from those caught riding in prohibited areas, and that county counsel Steven Woodside said the county has the authority to do so.

The incident has reignited the debate among the various user groups of the trails in Marin, prompting the Marin Horse Council to take an aggressive stance against “illegal cyclists” who they say are putting equestrians at risk.

“Trails that are narrow, steep or that offer limited visibility cannot be used safely by both mountain bikers and hikers/equestrians,” the council posted on its Facebook page. “We as a community need to join together to no longer tolerate illegal trail use...You wouldn’t let your teenager drive a car through an elementary school play ground; Don’t let them ride illegally on our trails." 

The incident has also sparked discussion about larger societal issues.

“It is really sad of what has happened to our sense of community and responsibility,” Supervisor Kate Sears said. “This is just not OK. We’ve got a much larger community problem here.”

“We always discourage people from going riding off road in places that they shouldn’t be – but once they’re out of our shop, there’s nothing we can do,” said one bike shop owner who declined to be named out of fear of having their business impacted. “People don’t listen. We live in an entitled society and kids are more entitled now than ever. They get to do what they want.”


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