More than 7,500 people responded to a Boulder County survey about a proposed trail-use pilot, and a large majority opposed the idea of closing some trails to specific user groups on certain days.
The idea originated with a proposal from Boulder County Commissioner Claire Levy to test no-bike days at Heil Valley Ranch. County commissioners later voted unanimously to direct staff to explore the idea and gather public feedback before deciding whether to move forward with a pilot. Staff have said details remain undecided and that community input will help shape any eventual proposal.
Survey results obtained by Boulder Reporting Lab show that 70% of respondents opposed or strongly opposed the pilot, while 17% supported or strongly supported it. The remainder were neutral or skipped the question.
Just over half of respondents identified mountain biking as their primary activity, compared with roughly one-quarter who identified as hikers and 10% who identified as runners.
County staff said they are considering running the pilot at Heil Valley Ranch, Hall Ranch, Walker Ranch, or by expanding the existing alternating-use system at Betasso Preserve. When asked where the pilot should run, most respondents said they did not want it implemented at any park. The next most popular option, with 8% support, was expanding alternating-use days at Betasso. Six percent of respondents wanted alternating trail use at Heil Valley Ranch, as Levy originally proposed.
The pilot project was announced about a month ago and immediately sparked strong resistance from the mountain biking community, which worried it could reduce access to trails. The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance also encouraged members to participate in the survey after the proposal was announced.
Of the three most common user groups — hikers, bikers and runners — hikers were most likely to support the pilot; about a third of those surveyed supported the plan. But across all key user groups, a majority of respondents opposed it.
Mountain bikers’ concerns
A member of Boulder Junior Cycling’s 9-14 age group writes feedback on a proposed alternating trail-use pilot during a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
A Post-it note displayed during a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on the proposed alternating trail-use pilot project reads, “I like mountain biking / you want to keep us on screens,” signed by Declan, 8. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Members of Boulder Junior Cycling, ages 9 to 14, attend a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on a proposed alternating trail-use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Post-it note comments displayed during a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on the proposed alternating trail-use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Sticky-note comments displayed at a May 13, 2026 Boulder County open house on a proposed alternating trail-use pilot. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Post-it note feedback displayed at a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on the proposed alternating trail-use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Community members attend a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on a proposed alternating trail-use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Residents read post-it note feedback at a May 13 Boulder County open house on the alternating trail use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson 
Stan Needle, a member of the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance and a volunteer mountain bike patroller, conducts an informal exit poll at a May 13, 2026, Boulder County open house on the proposed alternating trail-use pilot project. Credit: Brooke Stephenson
Mountain bikers also showed up in large numbers at two open houses on the pilot hosted by county parks and open space staff, although several resisted being characterized so narrowly.
“I don’t like the fact that when you do the survey, you have decided whether you’re a hiker or a rider,” said Lester Pardoe, who helped found Boulder Junior Cycling and directs all the programs below the high school level. “I ride a lot with these guys, but I hiked the trails twice this week.”
Pardoe said he attended the May 13 open house because the pilot “has the potential to make our program smaller.”
“We’re a community nonprofit, and we’re at maximum capacity with the trail access we have,” he said. “The big frustration is where they’re wanting to close trails, there’s already hiking options. It just seems like a real knee-jerk reaction. If something’s too busy, you should expand. If it was going to be hikers being put off for two days, I’d feel the same way.”
Other bikers argued that nearly all City of Boulder trails are already closed to mountain bikes — a point the Boulder Mountainbike Alliance highlights prominently on its website.
Some also expressed confusion about the reason for the pilot. Dozens of survey responses characterized it as a “solution looking for a problem.”
County officials say the goal is to test whether alternating use can reduce user conflict, improve safety and enhance the visitor experience.
County visitor data from 2025 suggests reported trail conflicts are relatively uncommon. About 4% of surveyed visitors reported experiencing conflict, with little difference between trails that use alternating access and those that do not.
“I don’t think there is any problem, and the 2025 data appears to agree,” one person wrote. “If you have data showing there is a problem, you didn’t provide it.”
Those in support of the pilot cite safety and access concerns
But concerns about visitor experience remain for some, including Commissioner Levy.
Levy said her interest in the pilot came from hearing from community members who hike on open space and said some routes popular with mountain bikers feel uncomfortable or inaccessible.
People who voiced support for the pilot echoed that sentiment.
“Currently, I often feel unsafe or anxious when hiking with a dog or running alone on trails,” one respondent wrote. “Some cyclists are excellent at alerting hikers to their presence, but many are not.”
“I’ve spent hundreds of hours out in the field and interacted with loads of mountain bikers, and 99.9% of them are great people,” said Dave Sutherland, a retired City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks naturalist who now leads free nature hikes. “The trouble comes from the fact that my wife had a stroke back in 2005, and she’s now a person with disabilities. She has some coordination and balance issues, she’s also lost most of her hearing.”
“She’s a poster child for a lot of the people that want to hike on open space, but simply can’t coexist with bikes on the same trail,” Sutherland said. He explained that his wife’s medical condition means she often doesn’t hear approaching cyclists and can be slow to react when she does.
As a result, they have stopped hiking trails that are open to bikes.
“It’s really difficult and actually downright dangerous,” he said. “We’ve almost had a couple of collisions.”
Sutherland’s experience reflects another trend in the data: Support for the pilot was concentrated among older respondents.
Forty-six percent of respondents 65 or older supported the pilot, and 22% of those ages 55 to 64 supported it. No more than 11% of any other age group surveyed voiced support for alternating trail use.
A small town’s economic argument
Survey responses poured in from across the county. Thirty-six percent of respondents were from the City of Boulder, while 39% were from elsewhere in Boulder County. Longmont represented the largest share of those respondents at 11%. Hundreds of responses also came from Coloradans outside Boulder County.
A notable portion of the Lyons community, which is surrounded on two sides by Hall Ranch and Heil Valley Ranch, also weighed in. A total of 324 people who responded to the survey reported living in Lyons — about 15% of the small town’s population. A large majority (82%) opposed the pilot, citing a desire to keep nearby trail access unrestricted.
Lyons Mayor Mark Browning said he also has economic concerns.
“On weekends, in particular Saturdays, Lyons gets a lot of mountain bike visitors,” he told Boulder Reporting Lab. “If you go to Moxie Coffee, there’s a lot of people hanging out. They go to the bike shop, Redstone Cyclery, they go to the St. Vrain Market to get snacks and sandwiches and drinks.”
Browning said Lyons has struggled for decades to get people to view the town as a destination, rather than a “pass-through” on the way to Rocky Mountain National Park or Estes Park, and attracting outdoor recreationists is one key way the town tries to do so.
“The idea of restricting bike access to Lyons is troubling,” he said.
In an open letter to county commissioners penned by Eric Kean, owner of MainStage Brewing, Lyons business owners also urged commissioners to abandon the pilot, highlighting Heil Valley Ranch as a particularly important connection between Lyons and the rest of the county open space system.
“For Lyons, this is not an abstract policy question. Our town’s identity, economy, and appeal are tightly linked to ready access to world‑class mountain biking at Hall and Heil,” the letter states.
The Boulder bikers have been powerful lobby representing their specific interests for decades, and because they are so well-organized, they have been very effective. As evidence of their organization, note that over half of the respondents identified as bikers. But on the trails, hikers, runners and walkers considerably outnumber bike riders. Unfortunately, those on foot did not respond to the survey, so the results are skewed. So, as has happened many times in the past, the squeaky bicycle wheel gets the grease.
“It didn’t give the results I wanted, so the survey is skewed”
Respectfully, if you move to restrict access to a certain user group, it should come as no surprise that they are the ones most passionately involved in the discussion.
Furthermore, your argument that “those on foot did not respond to the survey, so the results are skewed” doesn’t hold much water in light of the fact that, of those hikers who did respond, only 1 in 3 are in favor of the program. Hikers, who already have access to literally every mile of trail in Boulder county, might just not be as engaged in the matter, since they have so much less at stake.
This is sour grapes. The majority of hiker respondents also disagree with the alternating use proposal. Further – I would encourage you to reframe your thinking and think beyond the self. We are in a time when access our public lands is under attack. Anything which reduces that access is loss to society. The kids out ripping their bikes on the trails are the next generation of stewards of our lands. If you take away access you remove their connection to land and disincentivize them caring to protect it for the rest of us.
Boulder’s own survey data shows that Bikers outnumber Hikers and Runners at Heil and Hall. So unfortunately you are wrong about bikers being the minority users.
You must not be familiar with the history of mountain bike access in Boulder City and County. The only reason mountain bike advocacy is organized within the county is as a response to historic discrimination and outright hostility to mountain bikers by politically active folks who have tried repeatedly to prevent people from riding mountain bikes in open space often successfully.
Am I alone in thinking there is an obvious compromise where everyone wins? We should have trails where only bikes are allowed on some days and only hikers are allowed on other days. There are examples of trails in Colorado (Centennial Cone, Apex) and other states where this is already the case. I’m a hiker/runner and would happily lose access to some days if it meant gaining days where I don’t have to worry about bikes.
The major issue I have as someone who both hikes and mountain bikes is that there was no proposal for bike only days. The county is proposing a periodic bike ban, not an alternating use plan.
There are already 100 miles of trails near Boulder that are not open to bikes. There are no trails that are bike-only trails. Restricting bikes on the trails that currently allow them will only condense use on other days or other trails.
Absolutely agree. I am both a hiker and a mountain biker, living in the Boulder area for over forty years. There, as Wendy has referenced, are 100 trails that hikers can choose from that are already off limits to bikes. Further limiting trail access to mountain bikes just doesn’t make any common sense to me. When I hike, I just choose to go on trails that bikes are not allowed on. Then there are no issues. I often hike with a friend who has hearing issues and we always make this work. There really are not many mountain biking trails comparatively. Government hands off! The people have spoken!
I hear you, Wendy. That said, I assume mountain bikers hate having to stop all the time due to hikers on the trails. Yes you’d be giving up access on certain days, but you’d be getting days where you have the trails all to yourselves. Isn’t that an overall better outcome?
The proposal isn’t creating bike only days. Just bike restriction days.
Those on foot–runners and hikers–have access to pretty much EVERY trail. Bikers do not. If we want to play “fair”, open ALL trails to every user and alternate days. I have run all of the trails and wow, I would love to ride all of them too. Claire Levy is cresting a solution yo a problem that foes not exist. 4% is a VERY low percentage but I suspect there are a couple of voices screaming loudly at her and makes it sound like thousands. I agree with a previous comment that hikers didn’t respond to the survey because it is not seen as an issue to them. Bikers responded because they were the ones being attacked. Honestly, my taxes pay for the trails and I should be able to use them ALL. So let’s open Chatauqua to alternating days of bikers and hikers — but let me guess– there will be “opposition” mainly from those on foot…
What this article omits (and it should include) is that others, outside of Boulder County have volunteered to help the County in making trails that are safe for all. However, Boulder County has rejected their help.
I’m one of those persons, who offered to help at no cost to the taxpayers of Boulder County. Other places, specifically urban or suburban trail locations, figured out how to share trails without issue and did so decades ago. Yes, its a bit different of a process than Boulder County residents are used to, but it works and works well.
Mr. Dave Sutherland, if you want to have a trail your wife can hike and others can ride without issue, its possible. I (and others) would love to show how and where those processes are being used now.
Framing this as hiker vs biker is such a ridiculous framing. As is the vast majority of cyclists are not also hikers.
Do you have data to support that?
I hope Claire Levy and the other Commissioners recognize this feedback as an opportunity to improve their understanding of their constituents, and shift their approach to supporting them.
Banning an entire user group on certain days to accommodate a minority group (namely older hikers, those with disabilities, etc) is once again failing to address the problem at all. If commissioners want safe trails, they should advocate for new, ADA friendly trails to be created in Boulder county. If commissioners want to avoid the speed delta and visibility issues on trails where cyclists are traveling much faster than those on foot, they should be seeking advice on how to redesign trails. Instead, they’re trying to push out a user group.
I agree with most that this issue is a ridiculous framing. I could be convinced of true “alternating use days”, but this proposal IS NOT THAT, it’s actually “some hiking only days”. People bemoan the hikers who don’t feel they can coexist with bikes, but at least they have options — the bikers who likely are the source of complaints likely don’t want to coexist with hikers either but have zero options to do that.
To be clear, I am not a mountain biker — I don’t feel safe biking on trails and don’t really want to. However, similar to bike infrastructure on roads, the more people who are happy biking in their dedicated spaces, the less traffic there will be in mine!
I fully support the pilot program. Because of negative experiences and frequent close calls with fast moving bicyclists I simply quit trying to hike at Heil Ranch. I have had similar experiences at Marshal Road trails even running into bicyclists blocking the bridge with their bikes while they take a break or actually riding on a short trail supposedly closed to bikers. Very few bikers call out to alert that they re behind you. As a result, my hiking is limited to Betasso on no bike days and the open space above Lehigh. In my experience, the bicycle lobby is well organized, and dismissive of other outdoor user needs. I’m a 77 year old hiker with some hearing issues. I’ve lived in Boulder 49 years.
“In my experience, the bicycle lobby is well organized, and dismissive of other outdoor user needs.”
Eye-roll. The bike lobby so well organized and powerful that they have accomplished the creation of zero bike-only trails and failed to gain access to nearly 100 miles of currently hike-only trails. The “bicycle lobby” has its tendrils so deep into politics that the complete and total bike ban (linked above) remains in place.
(I’ll grant, as a cyclist, that much of the 100 miles of hike-only trails are not appropriate for bikes, but my sarcastic point stands.)
Inconvenience feels like oppression when you’re in power, and by outdoor opportunity, hikers are in power. Even if you’re correct that the “bicycle lobby” is “dismissive of other outdoor user needs” (which I would contest, but moving on), this periodic bike ban plan (not “alternating use”) is dismissive of cyclists needs, which begins with simply being allowed to exist. It’s one thing to complain about negative experiences as a hiker, it’s another to take away the opportunity to even be in these shared places because of your discomfort.
If this plan was more evenly balanced, and didn’t punch down, it might be better. But as proposed, it’s the powerful limiting access to an already restricted class of users based mostly on feelings.
Understood your perspective. You do not enjoy bikes and they seem to scare you. Please understand you have a plethora of hiking only trails available to you between Marshall Mesa and Heil where you can recreate without bikes currently. The trails within the city are virtually all hiking only. There are 0 options for bike only and the options that do have multi use include hike only trail options. Bikers have limited options. Further limiting these options based on your reasoning is note reasonable when you do have bike free options only and have access to all trails.
Jeanine, thank you for sharing this. Your experience is exactly the kind of thing that should be taken seriously, and I mean that genuinely. A 77 year old hiker with hearing issues encountering fast moving bikes on a narrow trail is a real problem that deserves a real solution.
Here is the core of what I am advocating for, and I want to be direct about it: mountain bikers deserve trails designed specifically for their activity, just as hikers deserve trails designed specifically for theirs. Not alternating days on the same inadequate shared infrastructure, but purpose-built routes optimized for each user group from the ground up. This is the standard in trail systems across the country. It is not the standard in Boulder County, because BCPOS has not built it. That is the failure worth addressing.
Consider what the numbers actually show about access equity. Commissioner Levy herself acknowledged in a recent interview that of Boulder County’s approximately 140 miles of trails, roughly 124 miles are open to mountain bikers. That means hikers currently have access to every single mile of trail in the county. Mountain bikers are excluded from 16 miles. Separately, the City of Boulder’s open space system has 70 miles of trails completely closed to bikes, all of which hikers can access freely. The pilot would reduce mountain bike access further, on trails where hikers already have full access. That is not balance. That is addition by subtraction for one group.
Betasso already operates under alternating use, and you have found it workable. But the county’s own data shows Betasso’s conflict rate is 5%, higher than the 4% system average at properties without alternating use. The model the pilot wants to expand has not solved the problem at the one place it has been tried for twenty years.
You deserve trails built for the way you hike. Mountain bikers deserve trails built for the way they ride. The county has 140 miles of trails and has built dedicated infrastructure for neither group. That is the problem worth solving, and it is the solution I am pushing for.
Boulder is just going to push away valuable tourism and money away from local businesses with this move. This is going to ruin Lyons businesses. While trail systems like Lair of the Bear and Maryland Mountain continue to run laps around us. Just make activity specific trails if there’s actually a problem (there isn’t), it’s proven to work and it drives people into those communities. Mountain bikers built these trails, and I’m sure they’d be more than happy to build more.
Or just ignore the constituents, that’s what this country is these days anyway.
You are absolutely right on the economic point. Lyons is a perfect example. Hall Ranch and Heil Valley Ranch draw riders from across the Front Range who stop for food, coffee, and gear in town. Purpose-built trail systems in communities like Bentonville, Arkansas have generated hundreds of millions in economic activity precisely because they gave mountain bikers infrastructure worth traveling for. Boulder County is sitting on that same potential and actively declining to pursue it.
The condescension embedded in this process is worth naming. The implicit message from BCPOS and the commissioners driving this pilot is that the public, and mountain bikers in particular, cannot be trusted to participate meaningfully in decisions about how public land is managed. That the complexity of balancing recreation and conservation is simply beyond us. That the agency knows best, and our role is to accept whatever they decide. This from a department that has not built a single mile of purpose-built bike trail on 100,000+ acres, whose own model at Betasso has produced worse conflict numbers than the system average, and whose justification rests on data it cannot keep consistent between its own web pages.
The irony you point to is real and worth saying out loud. Boulder County positions itself as one of the most progressive, constituent-driven governments in the country. And yet here we have a pilot program directed by commissioners at closed administrative meetings that did not allow public comment, targeting the majority user group at these properties, based on the stated preference of one commissioner, contradicted by the county’s own data, and opposed by a significant majority of the survey respondents the county itself commissioned. When the survey came back 71% against the pilot, the county’s response was essentially to keep going anyway.
The political parallel you draw is uncomfortable but fair. Ignoring constituents, concentrating decisions in small groups, dismissing data that contradicts a predetermined outcome. These are behaviors Boulder’s political class spends considerable energy criticizing when they see them elsewhere. It is worth asking whether the same standard applies at home.
Restricting bikers trail access to a select number of trails concentrates the biking community to those trails. This inherently impacts the hiker experience and presumably increased negative interactions. More trails open to riding distributes riders rather than concentrating them. A hiker may then encounter 1 or 2 bikers vs 5 or 6 (thinking of marshall mesa).
Cyclists need to show up and demonstrate that they do not comply with new bike bans in their city. Hope to see you all out at Betasso this Wednesday and Saturday.
Three points to stress (others I admittedly think have already made)…
1) The vast majority of OSMP trails are hike-run only (Chautauqua, sanitas, lions lair, settlers, ncar/shanahan, etc etc). If you are old or disabled in some way or don’t like bikes, go to one of these many trails and not the one trail in Boulder proper (betasso) or two around Lyons (hall, heil). Oh, or go to betasso on Wed and or Sat when bikes are already banned!
2) A bike ban at Hall and or Heil would be particularly bad for Lyons and its businesses. Imagine the impact of a Sat (half the weekend!) bike ban at the bike shop, coffee shop, Oskar blues, etc?
3) Bikers are organized and have played a huge role in building and maintaining these trails.
It sounds like the county opened the survey to being easily skewed so that it doesn’t reflect the county’s demographics. That’s just a rooky mistake. Mountain bikers know how to game the system if you let them.
Do you have data to support that bikers are not hikers?