He covers it well in his Instagram post.
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Itâs baffling the way they issue punishments. How is 6months in jail remotely related to a $5000 fine. I would pay well over $100,000 to avoid being in a jail cell for 6 months straight. Insane.
Then about VC, what an unbelievable idiot. Just follow the rules dude. Come on. If this happened to me, I would be too embarrassed to tell anyone, let alone the entire world online, tho I know his side hustle is doing exactly that. I still like him and his content, but my feelings about it is like, cmon dude smh 
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Itâs six months in jail AND a $5k fine. Itâs not a choice to pick jail time or fine. That doesnât exist in the United States.
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Itâs not at all unusual, when discussing penalties, for them to list both a max jail/probation time and/or a max monetary fine, with the final ruling to be determined by an agency or a judge based on whatever circumstances they take into account (unless itâs a mandatory sentence/fine).
i.e.nobody is saying you get to choose your punishment
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He says he was riding for like 5 seconds though. I totally get what youâre saying, but if heâs telling the truth, I could easily see riding onto the trail, realizing you shouldnât be riding, and getting off in 5 seconds. This feels like forgetting to use your turn signal and getting sentenced to 6 months in jail.
Op: I would change the title to read âVegan Cyclistâ. I almost didnât click the link because I thought it was going to be some weird Venture Capitalist discussion.
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I guess I am a little confused on a few things. It seems like they caught him because he posted a video which included him riding on the off limits trail. And per this video he said he knew it was illegal for him to ride a bike on that trail. So why on earth would he not cut that part out of before posting it on the internet for all the his followers to see? Just plain dumb. Buy hey, gotta get those clicks, right??!?
The maximum punishment is over the top. But it seems like in a lot of misdemeanor cases it is pretty rare to ever get the maximum penalty. I would argue even the punishment he got was a bit much given that he didnât hurt anyone or damage anything (or apparently didnât do anything that increased the risk of either thing happening)âŚespecially when there are so many people out there doing worse things who get lesser or no punishment
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My point is that, if you have to spend 6mo in jail, who gives a sh1t about $5000. Thatâs chump change compared to losing 6mo of life. It seems like they set the limit 100 years ago when $5000 usd meant something
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Ignorance is not an excuse. Even worse, he tells us all that he rides around there all the time. Hard to tell if he genuinely thinks heâs being mistreated or just milking us for the views
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Meh. Sounds like you just donât like him, which is fine. I think we should all be able to admit that 6 months in jail for 5 seconds on a trail is a bit much, but I get that you donât agree.
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Yeah I guess itâs just me, the law and the authorities? Why is following the rules so challenging for everyone. This reminds me of a recent Phil Gaimon video when a trooper wrote him a ticket for riding two abreast on a windy canyon road, after Phil gave him a hard time pushing his âwarningâ into a citation. Then, embarrassingly, he goes through all this work of trying to prepare for court, only for the officer to blow it off. Another instance of clowning around.
I liked VCâs old original content. But When he got hooked up w Canyon bikes, doing stuff like the Hawaii climb, etc, the clown show began. Just not surprised to see him get himself into trouble over something stupid like this. Sad
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If itâs 5 seconds on a trail heâs not supposed to be riding on, 6 months in jail seems WAY excessive.
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Reminds me of when Peloton threatened to sue GPLama for ALL THE THINGS
And as @mhandwerk suggests, the prosecutor likely used his video as evidence of him breaking the law. And I assume the clip was 5 seconds long. So why not leave that part out when youâre editing?
So I can almost imagine the verbal arguments here - youâre encouraging people to enter a NP without paying admission, and youâre encouraging them to ride on a path that they are prohibited from riding on.
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If he doesnt fit the definition of an entitled millenial I dont know who does.
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And further youâre profiting from it.
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So I can almost imagine the verbal arguments here - youâre encouraging people to enter a NP without paying admission, and youâre encouraging them to ride on a path that they are prohibited from riding on.
He says he has a park pass, so he wasnât entering without paying admission.
If you break the law and donât get caught when you did it, for crying out loud donât post evidence on social networks.
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Court, trial, publicity = clicks.
Clicks = $
If he does get jailed he will actually have something worthwhile to moan about.
That said I doubt jail will be a serious consideration by the court but who knows what the sentencing criteria is .
Understood regarding the pass, but VC is a content creator with a meaningfully large audience. I never saw the video in question. Iâm guessing in that video he somehow highlighted his route into the park and indicated (implicitly or explicitly) that it wasnât via the main entrance. Did he make any attempts to clearly signal that you canât enter the park without a pass?
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I think we need to be clear about a couple of things:
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The punishment noted is the maximum. That is usually only reserved for repeat offenders or very serious first-time offenders.
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The amount of time on the trail is immaterial in terms of the offense. Expect the Park Service to strictly enforce the law because they canât allow people to decide for themselves that it is OK if it was âonly for a few secondsâ
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VC has a habit of demonstrating poor judgement.
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Genuine question: Why was him riding on a specific road/area in Yosemite illegal and why is the punishment relatively severe?
He mentions it was a fire access road so it is a safety issue or was it a conservation issue where he was riding through a natural area they are trying to keep undisturbed?