Tell Congress to Keep Bikes Out of Wilderness!

For over 50 years, the Wilderness Act has protected Wilderness areas designated by Congress from machines of all types. This has meant, as Congress intended, that Wilderness areas have been kept free from cars, trucks, ATVs, snowmobiles, bicycles, and all other types of motorized and mechanized transport.

Unfortunately, a loud contingent of mountain bikers and an off-shoot mountain biking organization – the Sustainable Trails Coalition – have convinced Utah Senators Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee to introduce the “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act” that would ride rough-shod over the Wilderness Act of 1964 by amending and weakening the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in units of the National Wilderness Preservation System. 

The “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act” (S. 3205) would also allow chainsaws and wheeled devices like carts and wheelbarrows in Wilderness.

Earlier this year, Wilderness Watch lead an effort in which over 100 conservation organizations from across America wrote Congress with one simple message: Keep Bikes Out of Wilderness! A copy of that letter is here.

Now we need your help! Please take a few minutes to urge your Senators to oppose the “Human-Powered Travel in Wilderness Act” and all attempts to amend and weaken the Wilderness Act to allow mountain bikes in Wilderness.

At a time when Wilderness and wildlife are under increasing pressures from increasing populations, growing mechanization, and a rapidly changing climate, the last thing Wilderness needs is to be invaded by mountain bikes and other machines!