Dear Sundog: I mountain-bike solo a lot, and when encountering hikers, they almost always ask,“How many?” Do I always need to blurt out“Just me”every time I see one? If I just passed a group of bikers, should I add them to my count so I’m not haunted by saying “Just me” when the hikers encounter the next biker and curse me under their breath for misstating the actual number? What if I’m in a group of bikers—but out front by ten minutes—and say “Threemore,” andthey endup standing on the side of the trail for ten minutes waiting for the next biker, which delays them getting over the ridge, and they becometrapped in a thunderstorm, where they curse me for not giving them the other bikers’distances and times? —Just Me
Dear Just Me:Now and then, when old Sundog wrestles with the nagging questions of midlife—Don’t I deserve a new truck? Why do I always have to do the dishes?—he sits on the couch before the Guru (or, in the age of pandemic,getson aZoom call withthe Guru)and asks direction. The Guru asks: “What are your deeper needs, Sundog?”
In your case, Just Me, I sense deeper needs bubbling beneath the anxiety produced by recreating on mixed-use trails. But first let’s address the surface needs of this situation.Sundog has been on both sides of such anencounter, and according to the venerable who-yields-to-whom trail signs, it’s the biker that should be yielding to the hiker. In other words, Just Me, instead of shouting a courtesy to incoming humans, we should be dismounting and stepping off the trail till they pass. But this rule makes no sense! It must have been invented by someone who has never actually hiked or biked onsingletrack. Walkers can get off the trail in a single step, while bikers have to dismount and rut into nearby shrubs and cacti. Groups of cyclists doing this all day arenot only unwieldy but will erode the trail.
It seems to Sundog that this new habit of bikers announcing, “Three of us!” is a shorthand acknowledgement that, No,we’re not going to follow official etiquette and get off our goddamn bikes, but we want to appear helpful even as we flauntthe rules.And it does make it marginally easier on the pedestrian to simplystep off the trail onceinstead of three times for each hazard who pedals past.
Some hikers may indeed consider this a courtesy, but an equal number—Sundog included—find it irritating, or askids today might say, an act of performative etiquette. What’s more, if my hike is already impinged by sprockets, I don’t really need them to quantify their annoyance as if doing me a grand favor. What I reallywant is silence.
So, no, Just Me, you don’t have to volunteer your numbers to anyone. If they ask, then of course tell them. It’s not your job to announce the presence of another pod behind you. But also be aware that when a hiker asks you, “How many?” what they mean is, “You know you’re supposed to getoff that ridiculous contraption and letme pass, and I know that you know it, and by asking you this question I’m simultaneously establishing myself as the ethicallysuperior rule-abiding person, as well as forcing you to do a little math in your head as a small punishment. Oh, and by the way, ten years ago there were no bikers on this trail at all, asshole.” If said hikerbecomes so attached to their position of righteousness that they standparalyzedfor ten minutes as the storm clouds gather,that’s on them, not you.
Now let’s address your deeper needs. It sounds like what you really want, Just Me, is a bike trail with no hikers, to not have to navigate their passive-aggressive shaming nor plumb the acute neuroses that ittriggers in you. Similarly, the hiker’s deeper needs includea trail devoid of bikersand to grieve the loss of their oncesecluded nook that’s now overrun by panting jocks blurting, “Six of us!” at every switchback. In effect, the How Many? Just Me!dance is a miniature Cold War, an escalation of veiled hostilities toward a fight nobody wants. What we really crave, Sundog proposes, is an inkling of humanity, a moment of shared wonder at our good fortune to both be on this trail, on this planet, at this moment.
What to do? Number one: you might consider a dedicated bike trail, where this conundrum can be avoided. Failing that, Sundog suggests number two: avoid the breathless, flyby, military-style grunting of logistical information. Instead, hit the brakes till you reach molasses speed, establish eye contact, then pick a phrase from the catalog of normal English, perhaps, “Have a nice walk” or “Did you see that hawk?” or “Thank you,” which does doubleduty as it acknowledges that the hiker has already shown kindness by stepping aside. If your level of radness plus the sheer number of hikerobstacles meanslosing your flow and not having any fun, please refer back to number one.