Problem about being able to ride legally!!!(not sure what to do...)

[downhiller]

Today I was riding and we had built a huge hip. A ranger came and told us we were not aloud to ride any single track the mountain and only the fire road. We had to tear it down. He was threatening that he could take away our downhill bikes. He took all our tools and got our names and numbers. Would you sugest to ride single tracks and not worry about it? I want to ride but I do not want my bike to get taken away. Do you have any ideas?
-Zander

[Nemesis Gnat]

i wouldnt push this point, but they cant legally take your bike, just give you a warning and then a ticket... which is way expensive

just go find someplace more remote and make youre own trails... but be really careful that you dont get caught if you do that, cause thats a bigger deal

basically, ride wherever you want (taking care to ride illegal stuff when its less crowded, weekday mornings, or after the rangers go home, usually at about 5), and dont build on existing trails

but really, where are you? theres tons of empty forest even in the bay area, you just have to look for it and then be careful that the beginnings and ends of youre trails arent obvious. just find a good out of the way place to have a shuttle drop off, then go atleast 50 ft into the woods, then start clearing... google earth it first to see that you wont hit houses... a gps can help you stay on course, but we just do it by keeping track of gullies cause theyll show up on google earth and are easy to navigate by in real life. thn aim for another out of the way place to pick up at the bottom of the shuttle, stop your trail atleast 50 ft short of where it would become visible. rinse and repeat

and be prepared to bail out fast if someone finds you building, dont leave tools lying around... also, trails that you build will be booby trapped or posted eventually, so be careful... and i never said any of this.

[Nemesis Gnat]

also ive heard of rangers coming onto this forum to see about illegal riding, so keep it quiet

and if they see this? haha **** you guys! just try and catch me...

[East Bay Rich]

I'm gonna take a guess based off your past posts that this is in the North Bay. If you're building in an area that's being patrolled, you're building in the wrong place. You should find a friend with private property instead. Alternatively, you could seek permission from a private property owner. If I were an absentee property owner and someone offered to help with upkeep of the land in exchange for usage, I'd entertain the idea. Especially with fire season- someone's gotta take down that dry brush.

[ChaseRider07]

Actually some of those rangers can legally take away your bikes. Like here in the east bay they have East Bay Regional Parks and they patroll and are almost like there own police force and can arrest you and take you to santa rita jail. But on the other hand your better off making your own trail or building off an old existing or abandoned trail. Just when you get a good trail flowing dont tell very many people because word spreads fast and people know people who know more people

[FR4life]

Ride where you want, run/ride away when necessary.

[downhiller]

yah see thats our problem. So many people find out. We had made this awesome course where there was a fire and no one was using. It was right next to a road so many people found out about it. It got torn down. We built there again and it got destroyed so we moved on. We then decided to build somewhere else and that got destroyed. And this has happended again and again. I guess we should not tell many people. The hard thing is we tell people so they can come to film and then more bikers and then it gets really hard for people not to find out...

[Nemesis Gnat]

do some trust exercises so your filmers dont yap... or become a biker gang

and dont build right next to roads