CARLSBAD -- A group of some two dozen mountain-biking enthusiasts lobbying the Carlsbad City Council on Tuesday for preservation of a county-owned region that's commonly called "Flightline" because of its closeness to the McClellan-Palomar Airport.

It's going to be at least two weeks, possibly three, before the council discusses the Flightline parcel, which is on a list of spots that a new city committee recommends that Carlsbad preserve. The council's meeting on the committee report is expected to be mostly a discussion session -- any land purchases are a long way off, city staff members have said.

But the mountain bikers said Tuesday that they wanted to start their campaign early.

"I just want to tell you how important Flightline is to us and to the citizens of Carlsbad," said 53-year-old Richard Julien, a Cardiff resident and the group's designated speaker at the meeting.

The county-owned parcel on the northeastern corner of Palomar Airport Road and El Camino Real is extremely popular within the mountain biking community, he said. Its rugged trails, which cling to the steep hillsides on the property, make the area unique in the region, he said.

Carlsbad High School teacher Bruce Aster said that the trails also are popular with pedestrians, saying his family takes a stroll through the area every Christmas.

"To me, and to a lot of people, it's really important to have that open space," he said.

The trouble is that those trails technically aren't legal. San Diego County, which owns the land and the nearby airport property, didn't authorize the installation of the trails and has been taking them out recently. The company that the county has hired to manage the native habitat in the area also has been meeting with the mountain bikers and asking them to stay out until a compromise can be reached.

A solution to the problem, the mountain bikers say, is for the city to take ownership of the area. They're upbeat about the new report produced by the city's Proposition C Open Space and Trails Ad Hoc Citizens Committee.

The report put the Flightline area among the top-five spots that Carlsbad might want to protect. The rankings were based on habitat quality and community trail potential among other things, committee members have said.

The committee has been given the task of identifying such land in order for the city to fulfill the obligations of Prop. C, a ballot measure approved by voters 2002 that authorizes the city to spend more than $1 million on a number of items, including open space preservation. Though the committee's environmental assessment is done, some issues -- including how much the city might spend on land preservation and whether any of the property owners want to sell -- remain unresolved.

- Contact staff writer Barbara Henry at (760) 901-4072 or bhenry@nctimes.com.