Across the country, the growing popularity of mountain biking is increasingly a threat to our wildlands, even in designated wilderness. Some mountain biking advocates promote the idea that their sport is compatible with the goals, and even the legal obligations of federal land management agencies that manage wilderness.

Yet my feeling is that mountain bikers and their machines are a threat to the legal, ecological, and philosophical foundations of the Wilderness Act and public lands management. I say this as someone who regularly rides a mountain bike.