Easing rules could put more bikers on national park trails A new federal proposal will give national parks managers more power to permit mountain bikers on trails. Mountain bikers are banned from riding anywhere but on roads in most of the country's 391 national park units, said Jeffrey Olson, a spokesman for the National Park Service in Washington, D.C. In the 40 where riders are permitted to use trails, permission was required from the NPS' central headquarters. But the change being pushed by mountain biker President George Bush would let local park mangers approve off-road riding in "non-controversial" situations, Olson said. Olson said the current restrictions were enacted in 1987, and represented the best thinking at the time. Now, the park service is willing to give superintendents more flexibility in letting riders use trails, he said. The proposal is being pushed by Bush and by the Boulder-based International Mountain Bicycling Association, and could be published for formal public comment within a few weeks, Olson said....It still amazes me that the Bushies have offered more flexibility and regulatory relief to all kinds of users of Forest Service land, but not to ranchers. Has the NCBA requested such relief or reform? Have they requested that all the vacant allotments be returned to grazing?