New ground
As Moab opens 200 miles to e-bikes, Colorado BLM also weighs expansion

Brian Martinez recently went out for a mountain bike ride near his home in Moab. He saw a grandfather on an e-bike pedaling alongside his son and grandson. 

“They had found that fleeting sweet spot where the grandkids were old enough to rip and grandpa could still hang,” says Martinez, a Grand County, Utah, commissioner who has long advocated for expanding trail access for e-bikes. “It is such a small nexus, and if we can do anything here to extend that time, I’m all for that.”

Martinez added that when it comes to “multiple use” on public lands, we all share a love of place whether we are on a dirt bike or hiking with our dogs. “If we can come back to that commonality, that shared appreciation for our place, we can be better managers,” he said.

A few weeks ago, the Bureau of Land Management in Moab opened more than 200 miles of singletrack to pedal-assisted e-bikes, marking the most significant expansion of e-bike access in the West. The BLM in Colorado is studying a similar expansion for e-bikes, marking a milestone for now-ubiquitous electric mountain bikes.

“I think e-bikes were going to come either way,” Martinez says. “It was more about how are they going to be rolled out and managed? Do we want to open a couple trails and see how it goes, or do we want to embrace e-bikes and say this is happening and let’s make it work?”

The BLM’s Moab Field Office spent more than 18 months studying the expansion of Class 1 e-bikes – which are powered only when the rider is pedaling, top out at 20 mph and do not have a throttle – on its 1.8 million acres. Before March 1, the office allowed e-bikes on fewer than 18 miles of its 230 miles of nonmotorized singletrack.

The BLM’s approval of expanded Class 1 e-bike access around Moab was published in September and outlined a phased introduction with monitoring to make adjustments, should safety issues or trail impacts arise. The plan revolves around education and outreach, with trail ambassadors championing a new trail etiquette for the powered pedalers.

“We are out there trying to come up with messages for folks to consider when they come out riding,” says Martinez, who expects signage to convey something along the lines of “yield often” so e-riders give way to human-powered pedalers.

At the same time, the BLM’s Upper Colorado River Valley Field Office is collecting public comments on a plan to open more than 220 miles of singletrack to Class 1 e-bikes. The district currently allows e-bikes only on 18 miles of trails at the Grand Hogback trail system north of Rifle.

The BLM’s proposal would allow Class 1 bikes on the trails in several “special” and “extensive” recreation management areas in Eagle; New Castle and around Carbondale. The plan also would expand e-bike access around the Catamount Creek, Dry Rifle Creek, East Glenwood Canyon, Fisher Creek, Horse Mountain, Gypsum Red Hill, Sheep Creek and Windy Point BLM areas. 

The expansion follows the BLM’s 2020 national study on e-bike access that collected 24,000 comments and gave field office managers final say on where the powered bikes could roll. The U.S. Forest Service in 2020 also delivered local land managers more say in opening nonmotorized trails to e-bikes while keeping the definition of an e-bike as “motorized.”

The thorniest issue for bike advocates in 2020 was the potential that land managers would change trail designations from nonmotorized to motorized to accommodate e-bikes, instead of carving out specific permissions for pedal-assisted e-bikes on trails that do not allow motorized travel. 

Every two years, the nonprofit Vail Valley Mountain Trails Alliance surveys its members in the Eagle River Valley. Questions about e-bikes and access on local trails remain “one of the polarizing issues” in the surveys, says Alliance Executive Director Ernest Saeger. 

Saeger says that while a vocal group has pushed for access, broad support for e-bikes on singletrack remains limited. More recent surveys reveal that while e-bikes appear to be more established in the system, the issue remains divisive.

To continue reading, visit the Colorado Sun here