Some mountain bikers want to be able to ride in wilderness areas . . .
No mechanical transport in the wilderness — not even a wheelbarrow.
A ban on wheels in the wilderness has long stood as a principle of the Wilderness Act, but one mountain bike advocacy group is gaining attention for its effort to change the hard and fast rule that impacts millions of acres of forest in Northwest Montana.
The Colorado-based Sustainable Trails Coalition is peddling the Human-Powered Wildlands Travel Management Act of 2016. The bill aims to undo the 1984 blanket ban on bicycles in the wilderness and give local land managers more flexibility in deciding whether treaded tires should be allowed on some wilderness trails.