The Forest Service will start over with its plan to extend the popular Maah Daah Hey Trail from Medora south to the Burning Coal Vein Campgrounds near Amidon.

The existing 96-mile trail that goes north of Medora has attracted thousands of users, most of them in spandex riding on two fat, knobby tires.

A record number of protests on an earlier plan to exclude mountain bikes from about two-thirds of the new Maah Daah Hey Trail are causing the federal agency to take another run at it.

The agency received more than 1,400 comments last fall, most from state and national mountain bike association members, when it released a draft plan.

It does mean it will take longer to get the trail started, because of all the steps involved in a second round of public comment, drafts, final versions and any possible appeal.

Ron Jablonski, supervisor of the Medora Forest Service District, said the agency will release a second draft environmental assessment in May on a plan to run a bypass loop, so that trail users can have a second option to the Burning Coal Veins if they're on a mountain bike.

Nonbikers who don't bypass will stay on the original trail option, which will travel through some beautiful Badlands plateaus that have been designated as suitable for wilderness in the agency's new management plan.

Mountain bikes are typically not allowed in designated wilderness areas, and the agency doesn't want to kick them off at some later date if the area is ever formally recognized as wilderness.

Jablonski said the Forest Service has been working to make sure the bypass route is an exciting and vista-filled route for mountain bikers and others who use it.

Originally, bikes would have had to leave or turn around on the trail about 17 miles south of Medora, though hikers and horse backers could continue down south to the ponderosa pine country in Slope County.

In all, the new trail - Maah Daah Hey II - will be about 45 miles long.

Jablonski said the bypass would be about 12 miles in length. All users would start and end on the same trail, with bikers bypassing the middle stretch through the wilderness-suitable area in the plateaus.

He said he isn't sure if the Forest Service will put all three original trail alternatives back on the table, or focus on its proposed trail with the addition of the bypass loop.

He said the bypass route has been surveyed to make sure it doesn't impact any archaeological sites, but it still needs to be studied by a botanist come spring to see its effect on the plant life.

Jablonski said just because the bypass assessment is on the table for 2007, doesn't mean construction is off.

"It depends on how everything goes," he said. He said it is likely a final decision wouldn't be made until September. That wouldn't leave much trail-building time before winter.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)