All bikes are road bikes

The invention of the wheel led to the invention of the road. The evolution of the wheel led to the bicycle. The evolution of the bicycle hastened the evolution of the road. The invention of the mountain bike led to the term "off-road bicycle." But that term is incorrect. Except for a few natural surfaces, any route passable on wheels has been constructed. Sometimes the engineering and effort are obvious. Other times the enhancements are few and subtle.

Even on the wide open plains of the American west, traversed by wagon trains of settlers, ruts indicated the common path. The early routes may have been called trails more often than roads, but they served the general purpose. Anything that rolled was well advised to stick to the road most traveled.

Every category of modern cycling has its intended road. Some of them may be called paths or trails, but they were all built. Even a skilled technical mountain biker riding a rocky hiking trail is following a line created and enhanced for human travel. Any natural feature that an adventurous cyclist might attempt, like a dry -- or not so dry -- stream bed is imitating the qualities of a roadway sufficient to the passage of the vehicle using it. Or so you hope as you launch down it. Most of the time, riders use constructed facilities.

With construction and maintenance comes cost. Public roads are financed through taxation. Every adult pays something into the collective coffers, regardless of what motorists might think about deadbeat cyclists who clot things up and pay nothing. The costs are hidden in prices we routinely pay, and folded into our total tax burden. This also includes some public cycling infrastructure, as well as unpaved trails in parks and other public lands. Networks not funded publicly have to charge admission or rely on donations, unless they're completely clandestine operations on land where the builders and users hope they will go unnoticed or at least be tolerated.

None of these concepts are new. I was just reminded of them a few days ago when one of the fat bikers from last winter's trail poaching incident greeted me in the hardware store. We said nothing about controversial matters. It just pulled my mind back to the dispute, and the fundamental principle that lies beneath it.

Bike riders always have to defend their access to ridable surfaces. A couple of times during my years in Maryland, some legislator or other would introduce a bill so restrictive that it would have made cycling on the roads nearly impossible. Only the concerted legal efforts of organized cycling clubs managed to beat back those threats. There may have been more since I left. Getting bikes out of the way is a recurring theme in countries dominated by the automobile. When mountain biking surged in popularity, resistance to them surged proportionately. There's even resistance to building recreation paths and converting rail lines to trail corridors, when local land owners fear that these roads for the unmotorized will attract riffraff.

When bike riding is outlawed, only outlaws will ride bikes. But unlike the outlaw with a gun, the rider can't carry concealed and only whip it out as a deadly surprise. When you're riding a bike, you're right out there, balancing on two wheels. Your odds of passing unseen vary depending on the size and popularity of the road you are using. A trail might see so little use that you could come and go with no one to know. The fat bike poachers outed themselves by posting vain selfies on social media. The weather had kept the legitimate users off of the ski trails that day. A skier might have happened by --  the snow conditions were fine -- but it was a stormy day in late winter, both factors that reduce attendance. On a nicer day, there you'd be. And at any time on a trail or road, some other user may come along. Enough people had to be interested in the first place for a road to get built. Then a rider has to consider whether their use is permitted at all, and what their welcome might be like.

The fatter the tire, the less you need a refined surface for it, but any wheel has limits. Most of the time you do need some sort of road. We're all road bikers in some form.