Is It Time For A Shakeup In The MTB World?

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.

Im sure that might apply to some. Is suspect for many it was because it involved cheap beer, living away from home for the first time, members of the opposite sex and no really worries apart from not being too broke by the end of term and getting some coursework done.

The Uni I went to most of the Halls were a bus ride away from the actual campus

 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 don’t think that’s what was happening on top of Snowdon. Most people there didn’t look like regulars. I think it was just more people who would otherwise have been sitting on their arses getting out into the outdoors.  This is the dichotomy – a lot of the things we value are actually damaging.

Don’t be worrying about bike purchases. They’re pretty small really. Our problem is baked in to our whole society and culture from top to bottom.  If you weren’t buying bikes you’d be buying something else.

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.

This is much less efficient per mile but because the distance is so short it’s trivial.  If you’ve ever found yourself doing only short trips a tank lasts for months, as opposed to hours on a motorway.

I would strongly oppose any form of quota on a specific single activity.

In principle I’d agree but in practice it might be almost impossible to have a full lifestyle impact quota so it could start in one area, fair or not, in order to make a start or some impact. But I’m not even sure if a quota is x good solution, just thinking aloud / half a plan half thought through kind of things.

“A quota won’t work, it would affect the well off* who can currently afford to do regular road trips, fly away, etc, to much”

Maybe I’m misreading you but isn’t that the general point, reduce the use of those who use the most or use a disproportionate amount? ‘Quota’ might be the wrong term or way to describe it but I had limits per person in mind rather than a pay-to-fly. Perhaps start with capping the use of the top (?)50% of fuel users so in reality that’s not going to stop you driving to BPW but it would affect private jets and excessive business travel. Perhaps a secondary level nudge that makes driving less appealing combined with better rail links/cost/etc – lower impact overall but positive habit change in more people.
A tax on activities can make it something for the rich only or or for businesses to fund and pass the cost on, so on the surface a hard limit (with exemptions available but hard to get) may have more effect.

Anyway.. I’m a bit off the MTB world’s part in all that there. I started out thinking, in the way many believe the world is a better place simply if each of us look after our neighbours well, the world is a cleaner place if each of us travel with less impact. And what’s better than a bike for low impact travel? MTB can feel like it’s about big destinations and big bikes but imho it’s equally about all terrain exploration and touring.

Perhaps start with capping the use of the top (?)50% of fuel users so in reality that’s not going to stop you driving to BPW

That will all be commercial then, thousand so HGVs running up and down the country 24/7. Delivery drivers, people who have to travel for work. It wont change any social use of anything

I was thinking personal fuel use here, expect we’d need other incentives to change commercial transport use/trends.

im sure all those you would want to limit the travel will be able to clim most of thier travel is business related and thus exempt from your quota

Great event, glad to have been able to attend. Great to meet Hannah 🙂

lots to think about, no easy swaps or changes we need a big shift at the top by the brands and organisations

After riding various MTBs for around four hours a week all year round, for over ten years, I effectively gave up mountain biking around 18 months ago. In fact my FlareMax hasn’t been out of the shed since.

eMTBs were the final straw for me, but really I had long felt disconnected with the mainstream of mountain biking  and increasingly felt that I just didn’t want to be associated with the sport/activity anymore.

The wallpaper image on the monitor next to me still shows a picture of my 2013 Orange Five in the wild. A simple, fun bike that you could ride up and down mountains all day. Before the industry ate itself in an orgy of changing standards, endless trends and ever increasing complexity and cost along with an obsession with downhill speed over all else.

I know there are still people riding bikes in the mountains who share my views on many things, but these days, when I head for the hills I tend to reach for my running shoes rather than my bike. Let’s see them try to stuff an engine on those!