The Crested Butte News Serving the Gunnison Valley since 1999
Should they stay or should they go?
When mountain bikers don’t want to ride up the mountain from Crested Butte, things sometimes get heated. That’s because the Mountain Express, which runs the shuttle buses between Crested Butte and Mt. Crested Butte, has limited space on its bike racks. Each bus can carry six to eight bikes between the front and the back of the vehicle.
Crested Butte councilperson Dan Escalante described a heated scene to his fellow Town Council members at the July 6 meeting. The incident occurred over the Fourth of July holiday: apparently the issue almost came to blows between two people who wanted their bikes on the bus but there wasn’t enough room.
“Is there any way to make it more convenient for people?” Escalante asked. “We are a mountain biking Mecca and we should look for ways to accommodate bikers.”
Councilperson Reed Betz suggested that the bikers might consider biking up the mountain but Escalante said there are times a family with a couple of kids just wouldn’t be able to do that.
Councilperson Roland Mason sits on the Mountain Express board and suggested, “It might actually be better to take off the racks to get rid of the expectation that the bikes are easily transported up the mountain. Maybe a private business can fill that need and also shuttle bikers to the various trailheads.
“The bikes become a problem all summer for the Mountain Express,” he continued, “because whether it takes too much time to put them on and that throws off the schedule or there’s a danger of a bike falling off, it is not easy.”
Councilperson Jim Schmidt suggested a bike trailer be attached to the buses since the shuttles never back up but instead travel in a loop.
Mountain Express director Chris Larsen stated there are indeed times the bike racks cause problems. “Sometimes problems occur when we have too many bikes and they don’t all fit on our racks,” he said. “It seems that sometimes we aren’t a very polite society anymore. It is first-come/first-serve but that doesn’t always mean anything.”
Larsen described an incident he witnessed earlier this summer when a family of four was waiting for the bus, “and then a bunch of kids cut in front of them and the family got left,” he said. “I was there so I gave them a ride up in my pick-up, which they really appreciated.”
Larsen said the bus drivers shouldn’t be expected to mediate the rack problems and it isn’t a daily occurrence, but it happens often during busy weekends or when there are big events in town like Fat Tire Bike Week.
“We have had bike racks on the buses for decades,” Larsen said, “but I think the only systems that use rear racks are us and Snowmass. The other systems don’t like the liability issues involved. As far as what we should do, it’s up to the board. In June we carried 13,800 people and 1,655 bikes, so that is a big part of our ridership. It is a service people have gotten used to so if we take it away, I would anticipate that we’ll hear about it.”
Crested Butte Mayor Leah Williams, who also sits on the Mountain Express board, promised she would bring up the issue at the next meeting. Larsen said the next Mountain Express board meeting is scheduled for Monday, July 19.
