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I reckon most of us would be out in the hills anyway if bikes hadn't been thought of.
And MTB'ing from home must be more realistic than hillwalking from home?
[quote=Rusty Spanner ]Crikey, I suspect that most of us would be out in the hills anyway if bikes hadn't been thought of.
Not sure I'd agree with that. At one end of the spectrum you have the 2-wheeled ramblers like myself - at the other end there are folk who are primarily in it for the adrenaline and would be doing some other activity altogether.
There is a false assumption that people driving to trail centres wouldn't instead be driving somewhere else. If 'somewhere else' was less healthy than cycling then it's still a net health benefit.
Also, someone interested in cycling is far more likely to watch what they eat, exercise in other ways and generally look after themselves to enhance their cycling experience.
I haven't read all of this so forgive me if the point has been made already;
I used to ride MX, for that you needed a bike, car+trailer or van, a lot of kit, practice track/race fees, etc etc. The average (median) punter was a (dons flameproof suit) working class white scrote. It's not that they couldn't afford a nice MTB and the means to get to good places to ride it, it's that they didn't aspire to do so. Similar to the idea that ethnic minorities don't aspire to mountain biking and therefore don't participate.
So not so much inaccessible as undesirable.