@jameso I absolutely take your point here. I had a similar reaction to the snow board manufacturers moving to organic epoxy. Like the impact of snow sports is the epoxy over lifts, piste bashes, hotels and flights. However there is a counter argument

I think you were in the debate about Cotic and Ti bikes. I learnt a lot from that. Essentially organisations have to take responsibility for what they control. In the case of a bike company that’s the impact of the manufacture and supply of bikes. Some of those bikes will be ridden from the door and some will fly round the world in private jets. I don’t mention the jets a possibility but a fact. A friend of friend is an ex pro and for a while guided top end road rides in the Alpes. When he met his first group at Geneva airport only one of the 8 hadn’t arrived by private jet. However terrible, a bike company can’t control this and they can’t use it as a reason not change the smaller percentage they do control.

Is there any need to print the magazine when it could be just published online ?

Or just published in print? The carbon footprint of digital can be higher than print, depending on e.g. how long you make the digital version available for, the source of energy used by your servers, the footprint of the raw materials for your servers etc. vs whether you use recycled paper for your printing and whether it is recycled responsibly (which is easy to do with kerbside collections).

Presumably there’s a calculation somewhere of the carbon footprint of operating a cycling forum?

In the current absence of the large scale structural stuff in the wider world to move towards sustainability, it feels like the only thing you can do (whether you’re an individual MTBer, a small indie manufacturer, or a global big hitter like Trek) is do the things you can to make it better/less worse.

If you don’t do that, I’m not sure you’re in a position to berate anyone else for not doing so.

For me, reading the article and this thread has at least done one thing in the context of MTB. I’m determined to be better at advocating for (and putting tools in the ground to create/maintain) my local trails. They might be a bit naughty and they’ll never be BPW, or even Cannock, but 95%+ of my MTBing is from the door on them, so anything that makes them more appealing for me and other locals can only be a good thing – every journey to ride away saved is a bonus.

(I’ll continue to support Cotic like the good fanboi I am too)

I know people who use ebikes in a way that means they’ve stopped driving to rides completely. They ride from their door… do the group ride… ride home. One return car journey a week… gone.

I still drive to the occasional bike park, and to the Alps, but as you say, my twice or more weekly ride is now from the door on my ebike. Previously it was a 40 mile round trip to Delamere.

I don’t think that the amount you drive to ride will make much difference, if you drive to the Peak District on any weekend it’s quite often rammed, the only people who seem to do anything positive are ramblers groups who hire a coach. Maybe its tme that someone ran a suitable coach trips from cities to nice areas locally with big bike trailers. I remember seeing an old documentary about whole groups of cyclist having a day trip to the countryside with a complete train dedicated to them and carridges with bike hooks.

Buy hardtails with frame fixings for rack and mudguards so bikes can have a second life after they fall from fashion.

The other thing nobody seems to consider is the impact of bikes on nature. Lots of species are in decline and often scant regard is given to the ground flora in woodland and ground nesting birds etc. I slightly cringed when I read the article about temperate rainforest. The last thing it needs is lots of bikes and boots with various trail hounds and and ramblers’ “well behaed dogs”

That’s not unfair, and we could also bash the MTB media for running features like this when they’re happy to send their staff and contributors on all-expenses-paid trips around the world to cover press launches, as a “perk of the job” to make up for the low pay.

I think we should. It might help them stick to writing about the sport rather than getting political. People in glass houses and all that,

Gotta disagree there. Your talking about ‘known unknowns’. You think that theres nothing new coming because you are only seeing what already exists.

We fundamentally dont know what the ‘next big thing is’, that why its the next big thing, not the current or just ‘on the horizon but still in view’ big thing.

There will be something else we are all clamouring for in 5 or 10 years time. We just dont know it yet – if we did, it would be here now.

I dunno.

A decade ago I owned a 29er, and a 150mm trial bike with 66deg head angle. They weren’t the same bike, but all those developments were out there. The pace of “new” has slowed down a lot in the last 20 years. Around the millennium “new” bikes were gaining 10-20mm travel over the old model each time as frames and shocks improved. These days with the exception of XC coming late to the party with 120mm travel/66deg HA’s, most bike types have been the same for over a decade. If you showed me any of the last 3 Spesh Enduros or Stumpys I’d probably struggle to put them in order without seeing the geometry tables.

A decade of incremental improvements do have a cumulative effect (my 150mm travel 29er is without doubt mostly a much better bike), but I think we’ve passed the point where new models are going to make outgoing ones obsolete. If anything 35mm bars, superboost, and various BB’s probably show that we’ve reached the edges of the envelope and people/brands/manufacturers are turning back to 31.8/BSA/boost.

Which is a good thing. It was always true that a 3 year old bike wasn’t any worse than it was when it was new, it just felt rubbish when ridden back to back with the shiny new one. These days you could throw some budget minded parts on a 3 year old Santa Cruz or Yeti and be no worse off than a new one, or a new but better value bike.

A bit like road bikes, mines now 20 years old, and the model itself is nearer 25. 4 more gears, bolt through axles, deep wheels and disk brakes would all make it better, but ~2004 road bikes hit the point where at least the good ones were good enough that the performance left on the table was small enough that however much you chip away at it we’re still only talking minutes over a 200k audax.

I still drive to the occasional bike park, and to the Alps, but as you say, my twice or more weekly ride is now from the door on my ebike. Previously it was a 40 mile round trip to Delamere.

This has been tempting me. I can just about ride to Swinley and do a lap or two and then limp back. I can just about ride to Tunnel Hill too. But I generally don’t because it really is too far to be practicable. An e-bike though……….

This goes for all technology and ‘stuff’, just look at phones. Decades ago we thought we were at peak tech in your pocket. Clearly not.

Actually a good example, my phones 5 years old. The latest ones can take a better pic of the moon, or make Kate Middleton look weird. Buit they no longer do those things better enough that you get a new phone and go “ohh, this is better”. And TBH that probably goes back further, it’s been a decade since I “upgraded” a phone rather than just replace a broken one.

I think we should. It might help them stick to writing about the sport rather than getting political. People in glass houses and all that,

In your analogy your stoning them from the outside because you don’t want to be hit?

I don’t think that the amount you drive to ride will make much difference, if you drive to the Peak District on any weekend it’s quite often rammed, the only people who seem to do anything positive are ramblers groups who hire a coach. Maybe its tme that someone ran a suitable coach trips from cities to nice areas locally with big bike trailers. I remember seeing an old documentary about whole groups of cyclist having a day trip to the countryside with a complete train dedicated to them and carridges with bike hooks.

This was the kind of thing I was thinking about earlier and as you pointed out it’s been demonstrated as doable long ago, it does require of course two things, organisation and a community of people who are willing to take it up. Both of which are easier in the internet age.

I think we should. It might help them stick to writing about the sport rather than getting political. People in glass houses and all that,

Everything is political, people who expect their hobbies to be kept free of politics are kind of vapid IMO. As pointed out already climate change is also an existential threat to our species. For now at least you have some choices, all anyone is really trying to do is nudge you towards recognising the consequences… For now.

Our first instinct is probably to complain about Instagram or something but these are people who’ve come to the outdoors to enjoy life, which is something we are normally positive about.

Yep, but if anyone is serious about climate change and/or just halting rampant capitalism, we might need to accept we can’t all be heading to honeypot destinations every weekend to practice our preferred recreation in the exact way we want to do it.

I’ve learned to make do with what I can ride/walk from my doorstep, mostly due to circumstances rather than hair-shirtedness, but once you adapt, the idea of driving hundreds of miles every weekend to climb a specific mountain, or ride a specific trail centre, just seems extravagant. At what point do we say maybe we CAN’T have our cake and eat it all the time?

This is very definitely getting political though and I’ll probably be getting branded an extremist by Gove at this rate 😂

I’ve learned to make do with what I can ride/walk from my doorstep, mostly due to circumstances rather than hair-shirtedness, but once you adapt, the idea of driving hundreds of miles every weekend to climb a specific mountain, or ride a specific trail centre, just seems extravagant. At what point do we say maybe we CAN’T have our cake and eat it all the time?

Agreed. It’s not about hair shirts or moving up onto higher horses imo, it’s about how our expectations and motivations change or what’s normal.

I’m lucky to have had some experience of the exotic places but I’m happily back to appreciating a more local world or landscape. Travel has given me a better perspective of what’s available in the UK.

I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to deny younger people similar travel experiences. If I see flying and extensive car travel as something the world can’t keep on doing but also can’t eliminate – so if there’s limited miles available, who gets to use them? (.. and on that note those celebs with private jets and largely young fanbases need to wind it right in imho)

At what point do older folks say, yep, seen enough of the world to have a perspective on my own part of it that brings me happiness, peace, a better understanding of some things etc? Isn’t that the aim of travel? It’s not meant to be a dinner party story collection exercise or a tick list thing.

So I’m not anti travel, I just think it’s not something we can all do to the extent we might like to. Exotic far-flung destinations becoming the norm isn’t good either, it loses a lot of what makes your first trip to somewhere like the Alps so special.

^ and on ‘the Alps being special first time’ – I guess for most we go there for the quality of the riding. Perhaps MTB as a destination sport is what I’m not so comfortable with now, I’ve generally seen cycling as something we do from our door but the gap between the terrain on our doorsteps (on average) and the terrain the average or mainstream MTB is optimised for has grown over the years.

Perhaps a part of the shake up could be be better MTBs for less extreme terrain. Gravel meets MTB sort of cross-over. There’s a bit of that about but it’s always felt quite niche and I suspect marketing has a fair bit of influence in what we buy and the average trail MTB spec.

The driving I do for MTB’ing is pretty minimal compared to the driving I do for work.

I was hired to be fully remote, but now we’ve been ordered “back” the office. It’s 170 mile round trip twice a week! I’m job hunting but nothing local is coming up. And if we move, my partner loses her local business.

Maybe the world of work needs sorting out first. Companies aren’t penalised for this at all.

I think it was what it represents in terms of kids being driven everywhere. Plenty of those kids would be perfectly able to walk to their exercise but the parent’s first thought is to jump in the car. Just like the daily dog walk, drive 300m, walk for 5 minutes and drive the 300m home brigade. Or the car that I followed this morning that did a u-turn on the main road, pulled in at the school 30 seconds later, let a kid out and then tried to u-turn back the way they came.

As pointed out already climate change is also an existential threat to our species. For now at least you have some choices, all anyone is really trying to do is nudge you towards recognising the consequences… For now.

So my choices were to work from home no no commuting and not to have children as they are the biggest single cause of climate change there is. Especially those born in the west. Instead I spend my free time travelling as much as I can.

I couldn’t or wouldn’t want to deny younger people similar travel experiences. If I see flying and extensive car travel as something the world can’t keep on doing but also can’t eliminat

So how would you propose to make those 2 diametrically opposite ambitions work?

Yep, but if anyone is serious about climate change and/or just halting rampant capitalism, we might need to accept we can’t all be heading to honeypot destinations every weekend to practice our preferred recreation in the exact way we want to do it.

That’s virtually no one then, or at best a tiny fraction of the mtb community, let alone the population as a whole.

Maybe the world of work needs sorting out first. Companies aren’t penalised for this at all.

I think where it get’s messy is the interfaces like this.

Where do you start and stop the measurement of a carbon footprint? Does the carbon footprint include the marketing department, does it include flying a team of people all round the world to race it, flying the press to a launch party?

Trouble is, when it comes to individuals, they’re often really reluctant to actually consider their overall impact. E.g. the uproar about shell’s sponsorship of BC. When in the real world Shells carbon footprint is dwarfed by it’s customers. Peoples commute they think of as their employers problem, the fuel for it is Shells problem, the electricity for their house is Drax’s problem, etc.

We are Vegan, have no children, cycle most places we go where possible, I commuted to work  by bike for 30 years. Most of my cycling is from home. We are active in trying to make places for nature in the urban environment.We have holidays in the uk and very occasionally drive somewhere to sea kayak or ride bikes.

I don’t think we qualify as Satan’s children or consider ourselves to be entitled.

Longtime lingerer first time poster.

There is an argument that putting several hundred people on a plane for 4 hours isn’t as bad as 2 people in a car for the same time @weeksy

As someone who has been involved with production in China and Taiwan if we all in the UK stopped driving our cars tomorrow it would still not make up more than 0.17% difference to the global issue .

Yes it would instantly help the air around you but the bigger issues has to be sorted and these most polluting countries who are blatantly flouting pollution laws .

Brazil China Philippines India are absolutely getting away with it and doing absolutely nothing about it .

If we look at the very very basic  issue recycling

Until 2018 the UK at great expense was shipping 34% of the uks recycled !!!! Waste in shipping containers to China,what did China do with it? Incinerated it .

The deal involved a fine of every container that was found to be contaminated.

Once the fines were getting so out-of hand the UK pulled out .

The recycling that we put out week in week out only 60% of that is getting recycled

It is reported that another 30% of that cannot be recycled because its contaminated by us

If we all made drastic changes right now it would still only work if the rest of the world followed suit .

It shouldn’t be. We’re currently at the point where some people are buying new bikes because there’s a new way of mounting a rear derailleur. I find that unnecessary and troubling.

True-ish, how many people actually did that though? I’m sure someone did, but most people using ‘old’ X.01 with a conventional hanger probably just sighed and carried on.

If we all made drastic changes right now it would still only work if the rest of the world followed suit .

This gets said a lot, but it’s becoming less and less true.

Part of the problem is that different countries want different metrics to be used.

China in it’s own eyes sees it as quite right that it’s emissions should be comparable per-capita to Europe. Which is why it thinks it’s emissions should be allowed to peak much later.

The UK (and yourself) seem to think that because we’re a 70million drop in the ocean Vs the 3.something billion people in China and India that means we should just carry on regardless because a small change there would dwarf anything we did. Meanwhile we blame Scandi countries for having lower carbon footprints because they’re better at insulation, and Spain is blamed for being warmer, etc.

All that’s happening is we’re slipping further and further behind the curve against comparable countries. And in reality everyone needs to be doing better, not just play whataboutery with the worst cases.

2 parts of the same system, consumer and supplier.

This is my usual point, if you really hate oil companies, just stop buying their products.
They’d soon ramp up investment in renewables.

Consumer manipulation works though. It’s not like we have an easy or cheap choice to just stop driving ICEs. It’s not easy for most of us here and we’d think a 10 mile commute is easy. I was car-free for 12 years and I know how frustrating it can be, and how it’s just not practical for so many.

I agree, but then you go onto the economic downfall thread and it’s just people complaining that the live in the middle of nowhere but their office is a hundred miles away.

I read a good comment on an anti-car forum: “The reason so many people look back fondly on university, is because it is the one time in their life they chose to live in a walkable community”. Friends, leisure, doctors, ‘work’, shops, bars, all without needing to go near a car at most universities.

(and if you got in a car to go surfing/cycling/canoeing/raveing it was almost a guarantee there were at least 5 of you crammed in and the car probably did less miles in a year than your commute is now)

@sazmtb

China and India are net exporters of emissions. So while they are producing more greenhouse gases, it’s because they’re making all the stuff we consume in the west and shipping it over here. They also have much lower emissions per person than a lot of western countries. So we in the west are the problem – we have effectively outsourced our manufacturing emissions to the east.