be nice to horses

I’ll soon post a thorough account of my rides on the west side of the McDowell Mountains in Scottsdale, Ariz.
For now, there’s something I really have to get out there. Too many of my fellow mountain bikers have atrocious trail manners . This mystifies me. My only guess is that they’re fairly new riders who ride alone all the time. Maybe they never had that Obi-Wan Kenobi-like figure to teach them the ways of the fat tire as I did (Props to my former masters, Gil and Jason). All I can say is that I ran into nine riders the other day. Five of them displayed varying degrees of jerkitude, while the remainder were paragons of trail courtesy. That ratio is horrible. One in 20 I can understand. Five of nine? Unacceptable.
Okay, so I’m going to take under my wing every rider who nearly bumped me off the trail, refused to yield or just completely flat-out ignored me as we passed. Pay attention, white belts of the wide tire:
1. When you pass people in either direction, say hello. It’s just good courtesy. Other cyclists will take away a nice sense of solidarity from a fellow rider. The other trail users (hikers, runner, equestrians, whatever) will be like “hey, maybe these mountain bikers are pretty cool after all”. We could use some of that mojo.
2. If you’re going downhill, yield to the person on the way up. I know this is a bummer. I get it: You worked hard to get to the top, [...]