I just got notice from the DCR, the Fells RMP has been approved. The RMP now IS the plan. While it saddens me that the rules are still very unfairly biased against bikes, even the biggest pessimist can't deny, the rules are significantly less unfair than they were a month ago. The DCR has said again and again, that the RMP is a living document. The last 'living document' was set in stone for some 25 years. I hope this one turns out to be more flexible than that.

The DCR has released their final version of the Fells Resource Management Plan.

You can download a copy of the plan here: Fells RMP

The public comment period for the DCR's Fells Resource Management Plan officially ended last week. The DCR has posted all comments on their website. They have not posted any analyzation of the comments yet, just the raw comments. I did not read all of the comments, but I did spend a little while browsing through them. I was kind of disheartened to see so many comments that were clearly based on misinformation propagated by the FoF. I hope that the DCR is not going to count comments that are against biking for reasons that are false, like that they don't want trails in the Fells to be bikes-only. The only group to ever mention bikes-only trails are the Friends of the Fells. The Fof shouldn't be rewarded for their underhanded tactics.

You can download the public comments from this page, on the top-right corner:
http://www.mass.gov/dcr/stewardship/rmp/rmp-midfells.htm

There are less than two weeks left to send your comments to the DCR. If you don't know, the DCR is seeking public comments on their Resource Management Plan (RMP) for the Fells. The plan and other useful links are posted on the FellsBiker.com home page. The RMP is good, but it's too restrictive towards bike access. It is very important for every biker to read the RMP and send the DCR your comments.

The "friends" of the Fells have been running a huge misinformation campaign regarding the RMP. They've been making wild anti-bike-biased claims about the RMP, and even creating new misinformation websites about mountain biking. It is very important that mountain bikers balance out the FoF's craziness with some good old fashioned intelligent reasonableness.

Please spread the word to every biker you know that rides locally. We need a huge push, with as many comments sent to the DCR as possible!!!

The website remodeling is almost complete. There are still a few pages that need to be updated, but most have already made the switch. On the surface, the changes are subtle. A few rounded corners here, a few drop-shadows there, better font property consistency. But beneath the surface, the site has been essentially completely re-coded. The site should be leaner and meaner now, and also easy to maintain in the future.

Also, I'm trying out hosting the photo albums on Facebook now, so people can comment and like them. If that doesn't work out, there are plenty of other photo hosting options out there on the web.

So check out the new site, and stay tuned for some VERY important updates on the DCR's Fells RMP Draft!

Wednesday night, the DCR held a public meeting presenting their Draft Resource Management Plan. They didn't go into very much detail on the plan. It was more of a brief overview, with encouragement to read the full plan on their website one it's posted.

So within the next few days, I'll review the plan in full and comment on it. There does seem to be a definitely retraction of bike access between what was put in the Trail Plan before, and what is in the Resource Management Plan now.

The audience question and answer period at the end was more interesting than I expected, despite the small size of the crowd. The Fells Dog group definitely came out as the "winner" there. All of their commenters were well spoken, rational, and logical. The nemba folks had good arguments, but they seemed more interested in grinding their axe against the "friends" of the fells, than making valid points about biking in the Fells. And of course the "friends" of the fells commenters were off their rockers as usual, actually heckling everyone else that spoke, including the DCR. The two funniest audience quotes of the night come from "friends" of the fells members:

"has anyone interviewed the foxes?"
Regarding changes to DCR policy

"[mountain biking] is like cigarette smoking"
The attempted point was supposed to be that 20+ years of mountain biking wasn't enough, and that biking was still new and the research isn't there yet on biking trail impact. If there was an award for worst metaphor of the year, this guy would have won hands down!

Not to overstate things, but the future of mountain biking in the Fells is again going to depend heavily on everyone reading the RMP, and sending comments to the DCR. More info on doing that will be posted soon.