If you’ve been on TrailForks in the Las Vegas area lately, you’ve probably been surprised to see a new addition. Suddenly, all of Calico Basin is redded out in what is being labeled as the “Calico Basin MTB EXCLUSION ZONE” What exactly in the hell does that mean, and where did it come from?
On the morning of February 4th, 2026, TF user “williejacobzs”, an admin, added the polygon which effectively blacked out all mountain bike trails in the area and apparently labeled them all as “hiking.” This has since been updated and is now shown to be authored by a different user (we’ll get to that shortly).
I reached out to Willie directly on Trail Forks and received this response:
“That exclusion zone was added to the system at the request of Patrick Ryan, an officer of Trailforks Admin for the Red Rock Bureau of Land Management and a regional admin for the Southern Nevada Mountain Bike Association.”
Hmm. Interesting. So who exactly is Patrick Ryan?
Frankly, I have no comment on the BLM or Patrick. Patrick has been cordial, professional and extremely responsive to any questions I have had. The Bureau of Land Management are what they are. They are not easy to deal with, frequently hold an arbitrary and unfounded discrimination against mountain bikers that should have been left behind in the 1990s, but…..it is what it is. They’re the government and complaining about them or even trying to initiate any change with them is about as much use as shouting at clouds in the day.
Patrick is someone who I’ve previously had intermittent contact with as I began to try and figure out exactly what the issues were with SNMBAs complete failure to achieve anything beneficial for mountain bikers in Las Vegas, NV. At the time of writing, I am not sure exactly what Patrick’s job title is, other than the entity he actually works for is the BLM. He seems to be an official liason with the SNMBA (unpaid by the SNMBA per the best of my knowledge) and the greater IMBA for the area in general.
That said, as of this article, there is no evidence to support any conclusion other than this “Calico Basin MTB exclusion Zone” is nothing more than the BLM trying to over-extend their authority. We can find no evidence of any official approvals from the BLM, no documentation, nothing included in the 2022 RAMPs (the most recent version), and have received no more information from TrailForks’ admin about the threshold for where “officially approved” BLM regulations begin, and the whims of government offices end.
And again, back to the necessity of a new organization like the Red Rock Riders, SNMBA did absolutely nothing to stop this. They provided no friction, no pushback, no questions, NOTHING.
When the defacto mountain bike advocacy authority in the area is always aligned with the BLM reducing mountain bike rights, that advocacy authority is actually far more detrimental to our rights than they are even neutral to them. It is abundantly clear that Las Vegas would better off without any group at all than with the SNMBA. This is because the SNMBA legitimizes ridiculous BLM discrimination through both silence and the condoning of their actions.
This is just another example and another reason why SNMBA should stand down, now.
