IMBA Europe wants your opinion

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IMBA, the International Mountain Bike Association, has never really had much sway in the UK, compared to the USA, where it is revered as the saviour and facilitator of mountain bike trails everywhere. Mountain bikers in the UK have always had their 1968 Rights of Way Act legal permission to ride trails to rest on, and have also been able to benefit from the work that the horse-riding community has done to improve and upgrade footpaths and generally get bridleways made better. As such, IMBA has never really had much to offer the disparate collection of random mountain bikers in the UK.

In order to see if it can make itself more relevant to mountain bikers in Europe, and particularly in the UK, there’s a survey that IMBA has released, calling on the opinions of mountain bikers everywhere. The survey is very in-depth and covers riding on illegal trails, how willing riders would be to join advocacy groups and trailbuilding groups too. So if you want to be heard (at least by IMBA – or to tell them why they don’t seem to do anything for you, then you should fill it in. It takes about ten minutes and can be found here:

http://imba-europe.org/news/final-week-european-mtb-survey-help-us-help-you

 

 

 

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Chipps Chippendale

Singletrackworld's Editor At Large

With 23 years as Editor of Singletrack World Magazine, Chipps is the longest-running mountain bike magazine editor in the world. He started in the bike trade in 1990 and became a full time mountain bike journalist at the start of 1994. Over the last 30 years as a bike writer and photographer, he has seen mountain bike culture flourish, strengthen and diversify and bike technology go from rigid steel frames to fully suspended carbon fibre (and sometimes back to rigid steel as well.)

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Comments (6)

    nbtnbt May 21, 2015 at 3:40 pm

    Wow. I’m nominally an IMBA rep, but I hadn’t heard about this. Think it might be time to call it a day

    ChippsChipps May 21, 2015 at 4:31 pm

    That does kind of sum up IMBA’s involvement in UK trail access, doesn’t it? Other than map out the Trans-Cambrian trail, I can’t think of anything in particular IMBA has done in the UK. (It may have done more, I just don’t know about it…)

    40mpg40mpg May 21, 2015 at 4:43 pm

    Thats quite a good, comprehensive survey, be interesting to see where it leads IMBA. My club used to be a member of IMBA, paid an annual fee, never had anything in return or even any info on UK stuff, I think the closest was Ireland.

    I do think we could do with a national, recognised, advocacy group. CTC seems the best bet, but obviously their interests are diluted.

    offthebrakesoffthebrakes May 21, 2015 at 5:30 pm

    Got as far as question 33, but it didn’t offer any sensible options and wouldn’t let me skip past it, so I abandoned it.

    Might have another go later.

    big_n_daftbig_n_daft May 21, 2015 at 11:59 pm

    painful, clearly trying to push certain agendas

    not sure why IMBA is relevant other than they say they are. They don’t have the resources/ legal clout to tackle the E&W access rules. Local groups are doing and achieving more and the horse riders have claimed/created more bridleways

    Ian FitzpatrickIan Fitzpatrick May 22, 2015 at 11:16 pm

    I didn’t complete it. All the question were in french. I’m not racist but…

    I just don’t have good enough French to e able to understand the questionaire

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