MTBNB

MTBNB Seeks Crowdfunding: Couch Surfing for Mountain Bikers

by 0

We don’t often feature crowdfunding pitches, even though plenty come to our inboxes, because most are strange ideas from people’s garages that the bike industry has tried before. MTBNB is a bit different though: It’s not quite couch surfing for mountain bikers, though it includes that; the main focus is trying to create something where people can find and exchange local knowledge.

MTBNB
They’re obviously not riding in America, because at this point in the river crossing five people would have popped up from behind rocks already to talk about wheel bearing life.

The plan seems to be that it’ll run on yearly membership fees, and from the Three – Verb – Tagline, to expressions like “join the movement now” it hits on some colossal marketing clichés, but the idea behind it isn’t unsound: Unless you’re going to a destination known for hosting a lot of riders, trawling generic listings to find bike-friendly accommodation can be a real pain. It’s not the first niche-specific couch-surfing thing we’ve seen, but it is the first mountain bike specific one and is aiming at more than just linking people up with friendly accommodation.

It’ll run via membership fees, and they’re asking for money for two things: to add more features to the website they’re launching next month, and to help them get into a business accelerator programme, which probably, ultimately means pitching to venture capitalists. See what you think, and take a look at their Indiegogo.


(No video showing? Here’s a link).

Lack of local knowledge is a familiar problem to a lot of riders – we get it here sometimes; a rider turns up having heard the riding’s good around Hebden Bridge, pootles around a couple of the tamest, most obvious bridleways, then goes home to tell everyone it’s rubbish. Or a friend goes off in search of [Super Rad Gnar Woods] in Derbyshire, takes a wrong turn and ends up on a towpath. Whether MTBNB is the solution to this kind of thing or not remains to be seen.

The Indiegogo page also contains short profiles of the founders, who certainly sound very businessy and startuppy. Some of the future plans are a bit vague, but the rewards at least are tangible. If nothing else, the video has some stunning locations. It appears to be Réunion Island, off Madagascar. I reckon that when MTBNB launch, any mountain bikers signed up and living there are going to get a lot of friend requests.

MTBNB
Reunion Island looks pretty stunning… can we just all go and stay with them for a week or two please?
MTBNB
Photo: Thomas Brynjulf Svensen

David started mountain biking in the 90’s, by which he means “Ineptly jumping a Saracen Kili Racer off anything available in a nearby industrial estate”. After growing up and living in some extremely flat places, David moved to Yorkshire specifically for the mountain biking. This felt like a horrible mistake at first, because the hills are so steep, but you get used to them pretty quickly. Previously, David trifled with road and BMX, but mountain bikes always won. He’s most at peace battering down a rough trail, quietly fixing everything that does to a bike, or trying to figure out if that one click of compression damping has made things marginally better or worse. The inept jumping continues to this day.

More posts from David

Leave Reply