Trail Runners Are Lazy Parasites | Hacker News Reader

Trail Runners Are Lazy Parasites

outsideonline.com

15 pointsjoegahona7 comments

Facepalm at the clickbait shitpost. Mountain bikers and especially any type of motor sport is actually destructive and the contrived anecdotes about how some groups do trail work doesn't make up for that destruction and erosion, only time does. You have basically zero impact on the environment if you are hiking or running and carry your trash like a decent person. Every other animal out there is doing the same damn thing and not participating in this snoody bullshit.

> But anecdotally at least, when compared to mountain bikers and hikers, trail runners are the least likely to volunteer to build and maintain trails.

Anecdotally. Okay.

More to the point: how much damage will a runner do to a trail compared to a mountain biker?

edit: I'm not sure why hn isn't letting me reply to you over fifty minutes after the fact but I don't believe individual behavior has much to do with it. I see serious damage to trails from bikes all the time (in a wet climate) and I'm not even sure what equally serious damage from a runner could even look like.

Close enough to the same that the individual behavior of the rider/runner is the dominating factor.

> Every time one steps around a puddle to keep their shoesies clean

can't imagine why they don't volunteer with you.

I appreciate the article’s message, but I’m disappointed that the author had to make comments like that.

The author really isn't doing any favors to the article's argument with that writing style. It is really insulting and puts the person reading it in a mood that is not only suspicious, but actively hostile towards the author.

Plus if you are going to have points like: Which gets us to today. Nine million trail runners and counting, yet a widely held belief—if an unproven one, as most trail crews don’t ask too many questions—that they have the lowest turnout among the core user groups when it comes to trail maintenance., you really need to be a lot less hostile with your writing.

I'm all for a wide range of content on HN but ... what is this whiny rant about trail building doing on the front page?

It's based on no evidence and presents nothing interesting. Plus the headline is clickbait.

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