I have to hand it to the Bonner County commissioners for shutting down the Panhandle Bike Ranch. It’s about time we got some common sense back in the woods. Living in one of the nation’s most beautiful BNSF rail corridors — Sagle, Idaho — we know a thing or two about constant peace and quiet.
“Bicycle ranch”? If the Lord intended us to move through timber that way, He wouldn’t have given us Cummins turbo-diesels, two-stroke motorcycles and high-performance snowmobiles. Real nature is ripping brodies in the dirt until it’s stacked to your truck door handles.
Pro-bicycle folks whine about “selective enforcement.” They ask why the paintball place is OK, but bikes aren’t. Simple: paintball involves shooting stuff. And that massive nonprofit youth camp? Well… it’s “grandfathered in,” OK? If the noise of thousands of screaming kids has been here a long time, it’s “Historic Rural Heritage.” But a new, quiet bicycle park?
Welcome to the Upside Down Bicycle. Courtesy image
Quite a nuisance.
I love the crisp sound of jet skis on the lake, a Stihl dropping a larch at 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning, and the rhythmic thunder of one or two trains bellowing through Sagle every hour. But bicycles? Come on! That’s just loitering with wheels. It’s got no motor and it ain’t natural.
So, thank you, Bonner County officials, for finally proving that hiding behind an appointed position gives you the power to override the decisions we actually voted for you to make. Using the heavy boot of an unelected bureaucrat to crush a private landowner, simply because we don’t agree with their flavor of the “pursuit of happiness”?
That is tax money well spent. It upholds the true Idaho way — freedom for me, but regulations for thee.
Now, I’m gonna idle my diesel for a while and blow up some tannerite. You know — good ol’ peace and quiet. Don’t tread on me.
Brian Hilland is a Sagle resident.
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