From Dangerous Sport to Fun Activity – Reframing Mountain Biking

Even thats only risky if you are riding well beyond your abilities – and thats a long way from the mainstream or are we now back to “if you don’t do 20foot gaps its not mountainbiking”

Its his insistence that MTB is inherently dangerous and that serious injury ( broken bone is a serious injury) is the norm

My MTB ing often has a very different risk profile – because guess what – I go out in the mountains in winter.  You know real mountains where people die every year – and its still not risky!

Safe would be accidents rare and serious accidents extremely rare

some of us don’t want some snowflake saying what others can and cant do and trying to make out stuff is dangerous and making threats to have trails closed because they think they are “dangerous”.

Mountainbiking would fit this

Your idea of it might…crack on

BYW – I am trained in risk assessment and am not confusing incidence and severity.

LOL .. sure in your head

Why you have this need to claim its risky, broken bones are the norm i cannot fathom.

I didn’t say its risky I said minor injuries including a few broken bones are the norm for people (e.g. homo sapiens) and that is not risky it’s normal life .

Why this pretense that its an extreme sport

WHERE DID I SAY ITS AN EXTEME SPORT ???

when its a safe pastime

Unless you define safe that’s meaningless.. I’ve never said it wasn’t safe.
Even huge crashes off road rarely kill someone ergo it’s not dangerous ergo its safe.

and why this weird emphasis on snowflakes and health and safety ruining things?

Umm because some people have no life of their own and instead get their enjoyment out of trying to ruin everyone else’s fun by pretending minor injuries are dangerous and not perfectly normal

Its so detached from reality or the norm its unfathomable to me

Life is reality not the screwed up cotton wool world where people are scared of doing anything fun and people think its OK to threaten people for building a few gaps jumps on private land…

tjagain

Its his insistence that MTB is inherently dangerous

Once again it’s not DANGEROUS… people rarely die.

and that serious injury ( broken bone is a serious injury) is the norm

No it isn’t, that’s why they treat it at the MINOR INJURY CLINIC unless there are complications

As often on STW, I think we’ve got people here unable to understand, or even see, that their particular view or case is not the same as other people’s, and might not even be typical of anyone’s.

And therein lies the problem. How can we become a more inclusive community (can’t see how anyone would want to argue that we shouldn’t try to be?) if we can’t even accommodate each others’ PoV when we’re all riders here?

If there are issues with particular trails and conflicting user groups, then put all that righteous energy into trying to resolve that (and make stuff better for everyone) rather than arguing circles on here?

Get out on your bike. Have fun (whatever that means for you). Keep yourself safe (whatever that means for you). Come back and tell anyone who’ll listen that (mountain) bikes are ace and they should get one and go ride it wherever and however they want, and bollocks to anyone trying to tell them what they can and can’t enjoy or that they’re not a ‘real’ MTBer if they don’t fit any single narrow (minded) definition.

Colournoise

bollocks to anyone trying to tell them what they can and can’t enjoy or that they’re not a ‘real’ MTBer if they don’t fit any single narrow (minded) definition.

The issue is snowflakes and ambulance chasers are trying to control what other people can and can’t ride and getting trails closed down because of either their screwed up idea of “safe” or just to make money.

There was a bloke 2 weeks ago THREATENING a charity, the Friends of the Hurtwood over a couple of tiny and completely optional gap jumps saying how he’d been an expert witness on a case awarded £2M of damages .. when someone got hurt and demanding they were removed.

Ultimately there is no “safe” mountain biking by the snowflake definition .. its mountain biking and slippery roots, rocks coming loose or that 2″ rut are going to catch someone out sooner or later.

Colournoise

And therein lies the problem. How can we become a more inclusive community (can’t see how anyone would want to argue that we shouldn’t try to be?) if we can’t even accommodate each others’ PoV when we’re all riders here?

Mountain biking doesn’t need more snowflakes that go running to the personal injury lawyers every time they have a minor injury and the volunteers didn’t go out before them and sweep the trails clean for them and unless that happens then sniper roots, loose rocks and 2″ ruts are going to catch people out and people are going to have a few minor injuries and even a few major injuries and deaths. The case they guy was saying he was an expert witness on led to someone becoming a paraplegic .. because shit happens and it’s MTB

The sad thing is these threats don’t need to be more than threats… they just need to have a chance of winning in court to get trails closed down.

This was alluded to in the Cost of Events thread basically saying that MTBers are too disorganised, have no coherent club structure and actually quite a lax attitude to rules and regulations – classic case in point being riding on FPs.

As a result (and as demonstrated over 4 sodding pages by TJ above) is that one person’s definition of MTB is not shared by others. There’s a host of advocacy groups, mostly very local (and I’m not knocking them, they do great work) but no coherent national picture. Cycling UK, bless them, try and get involved sometimes, Sustrans don’t really care other than occasionally claiming that some random bit of BW would make a great part of the “National Cycle Network” (or as I’ve heard it called many times, the Notional Cycle Notwork…).

Different areas of the country have very different riding conditions so attract different sort of “MTBing” – what is MTBing on the South Downs is very definitely not MTBing on the North York Moors and you don’t get that distinction in road riding other than a definition of “hilly”.

That’s getting dangerously close to the “gives others a bad name” nonsense… That’s not a go at you for writing it but that sort of stuff does need to be countered. The example of helicopter evacuations etc isn’t bad – how many happen at Glentress vs how many people do laps of the centre with no issues at all? I suspect it’s in the very very low 0.something of a percent.*

*I admit I’m not the best person to write that, I’ve had 2 helicopter evacuations therefore MTBing is ridiculously dangerous. Or I’m shit at it.

As a result (and as demonstrated over 4 sodding pages by TJ above) is that one person’s definition of MTB is not shared by others.

Woah! It’s not TJ trying to limit the scope of what’s called mountain biking!

Ta Scotroutes

So what can we do to change that if anything?

For me its get away from the elitist machismo bullshine that too often pervades these pages and in a wider sense.  The idea that you need a gnarpoon worth thousands, that if you are not injuring yourself you are not trying hard enough.  the idea you need all this special kit.  IE once with the tandem at the top of spooky woods ( GT red) I was told by a bunch of fully armoured up lads that I couldn’t ride down the red.  Not a ” have you been here before?  are you sure?” but ” You cannot ride that down there!”

To approach skiing’s level of accessibility to the moneyed newbie, kit hire and instruction at recognised locations need to become way easier to sort out. That’ll take a sizeable cash commitment and a strong build-it-and-they-will-come belief.

Tweed valley?  Aviemore area?  Lochaber?

For me its get away from the elitist machismo bullshine that too often pervades these pages and in a wider sense.

I agree to a certain extent, but we are getting constant comparisons with skiing on this thread. I’d suggest that surfing might be where we want to be. (In every sense! 😀 )

BadlyWiredDog

I’m also unconvinced that access rights have anything much to do with the image that mountain biker do or don’t have. The main obstacle as far as rights of way go anyway, is our barking mad, arbitrary, archaic system.

Within England and Wales the main barrier is that landowners are seen to have some duty of care to people on their land and snowflakes that complain/threaten if they feel something isn’t safe enough and sue of they have an accident.

On one level not everyone is public spirited enough to want to see hoards of walkers, bikers, horse riders using their land as a leisure facility but many QUANGO’s who manage a lot of the land are somewhere between genuinely concerned and using it as an excuse to restrict and where possible remove MTB (and walkers and horse riders)

Some land management QUANGO’s flip flop … some sorta support MTB and some see the public using the land they manage as something to be minimised. Ultimately it doesn’t matter as the THREAT is real and they can use it as they like and even if 9/10 people on a board want to allow more MTB access it only takes 1 to bring up being sued for millions by a single snowflake to block.

This whole idea that you can MTB without a few minor injuries is extremely harmful especially when combined with the idea if someone crashes and hurts themselves someone must be to blame.

cookeea

It’s all sort of irrelevant. Really the issue just comes down to the fact that MTBing is a diverse hobby/sport, but those public perceptions are becoming a limiting factor if you want to grow it.

I don’t want to GROW it .. more people = more snowflakes = more people who sue if someone didn’t sweep the trails for them and they have a tumble = less trails and sanitized trails.

The idea you can ride carefully inside your limits and unless someone else has screwed up by not filling a rut or moving a stone you will never crash and have a minor injury is the most destructive idea to trail access and trail diversity.

I don’t want to GROW it

I guess even MTB can have its own version of NIBMY’s.

I’d suggest that surfing might be where we want to be

as someone who’s surfed in this country for the best part of 30yrs, that’s a terrible idea.

Until it gets big, it’s so busy at any good spot from dawn til dusk. Forecasting is so good that an app tells you where to be and when. Wetsuits are so good the depths of winter aren’t a challenge in hypothermia management. All the things are in place to open it up to the masses. Lots of people have made a lot of money. It’s not improved the surf.

The biggest danger in surfing now isn’t the waves, it’s other people.

Citation needed.
How many people / organisations / charities have actually been sued by someone falling off? How many have tried to sue MTBers for using the land? I mean, I don’t have the figures either but it has to be vanishingly small surely?

There was the famous case of the trail guide being sued when a client died on BKB in the Surrey Hills, I remember that one.

Examples? Alongside likelihood of it ever actually happening?

Growth or no growth you’re going to get belters and barrackroom lawyers threatening to sue. It’s inescapable because some people are **** idiots and they also ride bikes.

You can’t mitigate for all eventualities, and much like you’re saying riders have to suck it up in regards to partaking in a hobby that carries a degree of inherent physical risk, the same goes for trail associations in regards to people having a pop at them. When you build trails, fight for access the risk is others are going to disagree, or look to hold you or landowners responsible for unfavourable outcomes.

You act like hard-core riders are virtuous and accept the risks without question. Which you and I both know is utter bollocks.

So you’re saying because of one case that newcomers shouldn’t be encouraged in to MTB?

No I’m saying we absolutely shouldn’t try and “reframe MTB” as something you aren’t going to get hurt/cold/wet/hot…because then it sets unrealistic expectations.

Planting the idea that it’s “safe in a snowflake sense” is only going to BOTH attract people who are going to look for someone to sue when it turns out it’s MTB and provide a backdrop of expectation for courts
There is a real chance (near certainty) someone (sooner or later) gets hurt on any trail whatever you do.

Sadly the way English and Welsh law works is through case law… so all it takes is one case not that is the concern of Crown Estates or MOD, they just want an excuse to bypass their obligation in public access.

However look wider at places like Fleet dirt jumps… Hart council took a punt and did something incredible (IMHO).
Yes people get hurt.. of course people get hurt and they should EXPECT to get hurt sooner or later.

If MTB is reframed into “safe for snowflakes” then people will be arguing that the council should have made it “safe”, you see this in children’s playgrounds where council’s close them in case a child has a minor injury or they put that foam stuff down.

as someone who’s surfed in this country for the best part of 30yrs, that’s a terrible idea.

Until it gets big, it’s so busy at any good spot from dawn til dusk. Forecasting is so good that an app tells you where to be and when. Wetsuits are so good the depths of winter aren’t a challenge in hypothermia management. All the things are in place to open it up to the masses. Lots of people have made a lot of money. It’s not improved the surf.

The biggest danger in surfing now isn’t the waves, it’s other people.

is quite funny when the post immediately above yours is:

I don’t want to GROW it .. more people = more snowflakes = more people who sue if someone didn’t sweep the trails for them and they have a tumble = less trails and sanitized trails.

Total crock o shite.

Fwiw, the few times I surfed this year – a couple of beaches in Gower – it was a lot quieter than when I started about 20 years ago. I may have been lucky, though. 😀
You’re missing my point though, I think. I meant we should be aiming towards the same attitude as surfing. It’s accessible, easy to get into for any age or sex or colour and seen as a bit of an adventure if you don’t live surrounded by surfers, like I do. Compared to the elitist, once annually in an expensive destination thing that is skiing, it’s a far better comparison.

Sounds like you don’t want to welcome new people to MTB

MTB just doesn’t need more snowflakes…. in fact neither does the whole country.

TBH your constant over use of one phrase makes you sound like someone that’s not worth listening to anyway.

Sadly the swear filter probably won’t met me describe the scum properly..

Sadly the swear filter probably won’t met me describe the scum properly..

Seriously dude. If a discussion about what we call “mountain biking” is making you this angry, maybe it’s time you took up another hobby.

scotroutes

Seriously dude. If a discussion about what we call “mountain biking” is making you this angry, maybe it’s time you took up another hobby.

It’s not a discussion about what we call mountain biking, it’s a discussion about changing what we call mountain biking, specifically to attract people that don’t like the idea of mountain biking.

It’s like doing touch rugby to attract people who don’t like contact sports…. when there are numerous non contact sports they can just go and do. Not that basket ball is intrinsically “safer” than rugby… people still break ankles and wrists because well… that’s life.

The problem or problems is/are it is based on a lie if people are led to believe they are partaking in some activity they won’t get a few minor injuries, cold, wet or sweaty in summer.

No matter what you do send 1000 people of any skill level down a groomed green run 1000 times and someone will have an accident. It’s then

a) How they react (I got told, expect etc. this is a “safe” activity)
b) How courts react (what expectations they had)
c) How trail associations, landowners etc. fear the courts might react.

The recent furore over a couple of avoidable tiny gap jumps on private land managed by a charity shows that the trail associations can be bullied into focussing on c

jameso

Surrey Hills were a great example of how we’re our own worst enemy, all those diggers doing whatever they liked for so long.

No-one is forcing ANYONE to ride features…. if someone doesn’t like it ride slow and push/ride around.
Who do you think the official diggers need to justify themselves to anyway?

If you didn’t ride it before and you don’t like risking a bit of a tumble ride it slowly first BECAUSE that’s MTB.. there might be a rock or log fallen on the trail BECAUSE that’s MTB… They are only a bike length and case friendly anyway so no-one is going to injure themselves worse than just coming off on a corner and less than running into a tree.

Sadly it may knock a second off some strava times…

I’d concede, he’ll batter you with word count.