In the old days (I'm talking Tokai here) you rode up the road to get it over with as quickly as possible, and have a chat on the way, and rode down the singletrack for the fun of it, which was the point of going mountain biking in the first place. You rode up one or two steep link sections for a proper technical challenge, and see if you could do what your mates couldn't, and that was enough of that sort of fun. If you want to practise your 'riding up technical singletrack skills' then do so when nobody else is around, or at the very least, be vigilant, and give way to the rider coming down (apologising profusely if you get in the way). Why on earth put time and effort into building singletrack for people to ride up it?! I think it's a silly debate, and the only way to resolve it seriously is to have dedicated 'up' singletrack and dedicated 'down' singletrack i.e. one-way traffic where 'passing right' means passing right. Ask Meurant and beneficiaries (us) how much budget to allocate to building 'up' singletrack, and get votes to decide which proportion should be 'up'. Most races / rides worth doing do not aim to please riders wanting to ride up singletrack. Right way of way for the person coming up makes sense for 4x4 vehicles on jeep tracks, but not for mountain bikes on singletrack.
