In September 2016, Balz Weber published a blog post on Ride.ch calling on people not to take shortcuts on single trails. Damage to the trail is the result, and such behavior is a steep pass for calls for bike bans. That's right! And then I thought back to my childhood. Of the hikes with my parents and how we marched down shortcuts back then. Where paths zigzagged through the terrain, there was almost always a shortcut. What was once normal for hikers is now a scandal for mountain bikers. Just like the ancient Romans: Quod licet lovi, non licet bovi. If two people do the same thing, it's not the same thing.

The shortcut issue is not the only polemic where mountain bikers become the scapegoat. Pasture fences are another example. If you listen to mountain farmers, you get the impression that there is a mountain biker behind every open pasture fence. Why is that? Has anyone ever seen all the mountain bikers who leave pasture fences open? Not me. On the contrary. I don't know a single mountain biker who doesn't put the electric fence back up behind them. There is no reason for bikers not to do this - they had to dismount to open the fence anyway. And yet the myth that mountain bikers leave fence passages open cannot be dispelled.

Want another example? It's about dead sheep. Years ago, Roland Thöni came at me like a fury on the Stilfserjoch. Thöni was once one of the best slalom skiers in the world, today he breeds sheep. And one of them recently crashed fatally, he said at the time. We mountain bikers were to blame. He hadn't witnessed the incident, but the matter was clear. But Thöni should also know this: sheep have already crashed in the high mountains before mountain bikers rode along the Goldsee Trail. But there was no one to blame at the time.

Back to the trail abbreviations. When reading Balz Weber's report, you may well get the impression that mountain bikers are now thundering down the mountains in a straight line thanks to fat tires and plenty of suspension travel. My experience is different: I hardly know of a more prudent and exemplary group in the Alps than mountain bikers - regularly thwarted by a few unforgivable black sheep. The comments on Balz Weber's report prove it: mountain bikers are seriously concerned about their behavior and that of their trail comrades. Mountain bikers are not half-witted people who ride recklessly through the Alps. And yet we can't get rid of the role of the alpine scapegoat. Yet ibexes would actually be a welcome species in the mountains. At least the ibexes would be.