The only builders in the world who have their trails get bulldozed by loggers

Mixed Feelings - Coastal Crew from The Coastal Crew on Vimeo.

"This is an on going unscheduled series showing the unfortunate side of building in BC’s forests - Logging. Logging and forestry can be a love - hate relationship in our region. On one hand it’s unfortunate to see our massive forests be mowed down, but on the other hand the hundreds of years of logging have brought us access to so many parts of the mountains we ride around our home turf."

The biggest bummer is that they almost got it right, too. They had me going with the love hate thing, but then they blew it with their supposed costs and benefits of logging.

In their small, small world, logging is bad because "it's unfortunate to see our massive forests be mowed down," but it's good because, thanks to logging roads we now have "access to so many parts of the mountains we ride around our home turf."

That's the mountain bike equivalent of the girl who says that she could never harm an animal and then orders the McNuggets.

Kill yourself.

I'm sure whoever wrote that blurb for the Coastal Crew video spent all of four and a half seconds on it, and normally I wouldn't lose my shit so bad over three sentences, but it represents an attitude I hear a lot around mountain bikers and it's impossibly stupid and wrong. Here's what these people don't get:

Logging is good.

Let me repeat myself: logging is good. Not all logging ever, of course. I'm not going to sit here and try to defend every tree felling in the history of the world. But logging, on net, is really good for the world. It's a sustainable resource. I like that you used the verb "mow" to describe logging. because watching your "massive forests get mowed down" is like watching someone mow their yard; it's gonna grow back, chief. Trees grow like weeds in the Pacific Northwest. And speaking of the Pacific Northwest, in the first sentence you imply that logging is the sort of cross that only you have to bear because you're "building in B.C.'s forests." I know this will blow your mind, but there is logging in other forests. In fact, there is logging in every forest ever. If there is a forest, logging is an issue.

Maybe you're reading this and thinking "We don't have logging where our trails are." That's either because you don't have trees, or if you do have trees there is a huge series of agreements and contracts and laws stating that those trees won't get cut down. Make no bones about it: 86 those rules and Johnny McLoggintruck will be up in your local woods tomorrow to start cutting that shit down.

"We're the only builders in the world who have our shit get bulldozed by loggers :("

-The Coastal Crew

It's not as if the folks in B.C. were the first people to connect the dots and realize that those big tall trees also make for a durable structural elements, a hot-burning fuel source, and can be pulped to make a multi-purpose writing surface.

No one in the entire world had ever cut down trees before the

formation of the Province of British Columbia. Yeah, that George

Washington fable about cutting down the cherry tree? It's bullshit.

If you're a mountain biker watching loggers turn your playground into a wasteland, be a grown up. Yeah, it's a bummer that trails get plowed every once in a while, but if you're not an idiot then you'll take the occasional trail closure with a smile on your face. Logging is good, everyone should be happy it happens, and if you aren't you're an asshole. Here's why:

1. Wiping your ass

I hate to start on such an obvious one, but going to Portland State, Lewis and Clark College, living in Portland, and just generally living on the Weak Coast I've encountered a lot of people who complain about biodiversity and resource depletion and the global warming costs of logging and the spirits in trees, but I have yet to meet anyone that wipes their ass with their hand or a rock. Not that I always ask what people wipe their ass with, but people in Portland seem to think everything else under the sun is fair dinner conversation, so I figure that if someone did it would would have come up by now.

So until you grab one of those and start to really take ownership of this environmental fad you subscribe to, you're going to need to add a big "but" to the end of your sentences when you start going into the evils of logging.

2. Your house

I also haven't met many people who live in an adobe pueblo or a cave. Most people I know still live in these things called "houses," and most of those are made out of wood. Oh, you live in a steel-framed apartment complex? That's sweet dude, way to save the trees. Hey, bro, where does steel come from again?

Oh... bummer.

Until I see the Coastal Crew's next episode being filmed out of the new SRAM/Specialized Collabo Coastal Crew Wigwam Village®,  probably they should just wave to the loggers and say thanks.

3. Furniture

If you want to know what furniture looks like without wood, look at Skymall next time you fly. Because that five-person bean bag chair seemed like it would be a party-and-a-half until you actually got one.

"Dude, I'm telling you, couches have WOOD FRAMES bro. Yeah,

my neck hurts too, but we're helping Gaia and shit, man."

4. Every organization ever

If you a have a diploma of any sort ever, you couldn't have done it without paper. Doctors, lawyers, liberal arts majors, high school graduates, even high school dropouts need paper just so they can drop out officially.

Every school, hospital, office, business, home, church, government, army, and charity simply could not operate the way they do without paper. It sort of helps with, like, keeping track of stuff and shit. Basically no paper = instant anarchy.

And so help me God if you say that "papyrus facilitated the written word before the advent of pulped paper" I will hunt you down, I will find you, and I will rip your brainstem directly out of your ass.

5. The modern world

I know books are so outdated now that you have your iPad and it's, like, so sick to watch movies and to look up Tupac's discography on Wikipedia while you take a dump, and I don't want to exaggerate the importance of this technological break through, but

The printing press = The modern world

Yeah, I know no one actually goes to the library anymore in the 21st century, but there was a time when THERE WEREN'T BOOKS. Holy shit there weren't books and books changed everything. And not like "the internet changed everything." I don't mean you couldn't watch the Simpsons, listen to Britney Spears, and read an organic frog turd soup recipe from your couch; I mean that before books people couldn't experience culture, science, medicine, other places, study history, learn about God OR atheism, learn math, or learn about literally anything other than shoveling shit. The way to learn and experience anything was to either A) physically go there or B) listen to Uncle Larry tell you about it when he got back, as long as he didn't die on the three-week journey to get home. This means you sure as shit couldn't help innovate or progress any of these fields of thought unless you picked ONE and went to the central city specializing in that field and then studied for half your life just to memorize everything before you could even contribute to the process.

So, in case you're not clear on how this works, let's go through this, briefly:

The printing press (which, yes, requires cutting down some trees)

The Renaissance

Humanism and the rediscovery of the Classics means that culture and science escapes grasp of "The Church"

The Enlightenment and the Scientific Revolution

Democracy, modern medicine, the industrial revolution, global peace, the invention of "the middle class," modern thought, and the fact that you can even sit here and read this.

I feel like your grandpa telling you "sonny, I remember life before fire and the wheel when we had to walk uphill both ways..." but shit man, if you think "cutting down trees is dumb" then you're apparently too stupid to figure this stuff out on your own. And this just in, the reason all the various old people you meet all seem to keep repeating the same couple "cliche" things is because they're REALLY IMPORTANT AND YOU NEED TO GET THIS SHIT.

Without cutting down a couple trees to make the written word possible in an easily stored and reproduced method (books), we'd still be squatting over the fire and hunting ogres. Without books, and subsequently logging, there is no modern world. There is no democracy. There is no internet. Everything you know is gone.

The only logical conclusion:

The Coastal Crew hates the spread of knowledge and culture, and they want you to wipe your ass with a rock.

*In case that got WAAAAY too heavy for you and you're just like, "dude, I just came hear to listen to you talk trash on French people and Brian Lopes," here's something that should suit your pitiful human brain better, and should fit neatly into your comfort zone as you chuckle in complacency and ignorance:

**If you're a member or friend of the Coastal crew, wow, thanks for checking out team robot. You guys are really climbing the ladder in the mountain bike world, so congratulations. If this post hurt anyone's feelings, though, let me say that I'm not sorry. I know that you probably don't understand the concept of satire or irony, but hey, it's not your fault: you're Canadian. Unless you were a cast member of Kids in the Hall or your name is William Shatner, if you're Canadian there's a 0 in 1 chance that you understand irony, but I'll flesh out that pearl of wisdom in another post. In the meantime, just remember, everything here is a joke, much like my life, my relationships, and my grades.

***Yeah, this took a really long time to write. Please see the above comment addressing my: 

1. Life
2. Relationships
3. Grades