The new paragraph 4 in section 47 of the Austrian Media Act now explicitly prohibits the distribution and import of mountain bike magazines. The reason given for the introduction is the fact that the titles have repeatedly encouraged their readers to commit criminal offenses, i.e. to ride on single trails. According to the Ministry of Justice, the publishers have failed to understand why the legal restrictions are now being introduced. The Austrian title "Lines" will therefore be discontinued by decree, and the introduction of the traditional German titles "bike" and "MountainBIKE" is no longer possible. The Swiss title "Ride" will be particularly affected by this cut in the important federal state of Vorarlberg. The Austrian border police will carry out increased border controls as part of the introduction of this law.
 
The ban on mountain bike media, which is effective immediately, also applies to relevant websites, in particular tour databases. They must be taken offline immediately or all content relating to Austria must be deleted. In the case of foreign websites, the measure is carried out automatically using a semantic filter. A proven server technology from North Korea is used for this. When asked whether this procedure is not excessive, the ministerial media spokesman Christian Rotz replies: "We have been looking for amicable solutions with mountain bikers for years to get them off the trails and have tried to convince them of the advantages of gravel roads. Unfortunately in vain. The stubborn mountain bikers now have themselves to blame for the tightening of measures."

Automatic sentencing through social tracking

The seriousness of the Austrian justice system is also reflected in another measure. By combining movement data from mobile phones and official geodata, the ministry can now automatically identify offending mountain bikers. The use of a single trail is detected in real time and across the entire area. The technology is called social tracking. The algorithm is based on the assumption that anyone riding at over 15 km/h on a single trail must have done so on a mountain bike and is therefore illegal. This real-time recognition was developed by the same North Korean team as the network blocking of mountain bike sites. Thanks to it, it is now possible for the Ministry of Justice to recognize the offending mountain bikers in real time and automatically impose fines. Fines of up to 500 euros can be expected per single trail used. The amount of the fine is automatically added to the next phone bill and there is no upper limit. 30 percent of the fine goes to the local hunting organization as compensation.

The issue of automatic fines was one of the central concerns of the national hunting association "Jagd Österreich". According to press spokesman Luzius Nolter, they have had to spend a lot of time and energy over the years stopping recalcitrant mountain bikers and telling them off. Now that they have been automatically sentenced, this has finally come to an end and they can finally concentrate on their core tasks again, namely hunting and socializing with their peers.
 
The move to tighten up the treatment of mountain bikers is an unexpected bang from the hunting lobby - in hunting parlance, it can probably be described as a shot in the arm. While big politics in Austria is currently absorbed with bans on going out and mandatory face masks, these legislative changes were pushed through largely unnoticed and in just under two weeks thanks to the strong position in the offices of hunters, in this case under the protection of farmers.

 
Note: This article was published on April 1, 2020 and is an April Fool's joke. The content does not correspond to the facts, but is an exaggerated and satirical exaggeration of the discussion about trail access in Austria.