Is It Time For A Shakeup In The MTB World?

@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.

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

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

What I meant was there’s a need to fly and drive less overall and at the same time perhaps some of us need to take more of the hit on reducing it if we’ve been flying about for a long time already. Travel credits or quota ideas maybe.

 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.

What I meant was there’s a need to fly and drive less overall and at the same time perhaps some of us need to take more of the hit on reducing it if we’ve been flying about for a long time already. Travel credits or quota ideas maybe.

Fair enough. I would strongly oppose any form of quota on a specific single activity. If that was a solution then it would have to be looked at in the round. For example I work from home so have no carbon emissions travelling to work, can I use them for flights and those who have to commute not because they have spent their allowances. I would much rather live where we ride but reality is it’s better to live close to my wife’s workplace and drive to play at the weekend than to drive the same journey 5 days a week to work and not have to drive to play.  Where would you factor in children? From an environmental perspective they are a disaster, all those emissions for circa 70-80 years of life plus any children they then have.

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.

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. What I think we’ll end up with is carbon credits / taxes that’ll penalize the “wrong” choices until we reach a sustainable equilibrium. e.g. it might add £100 to a new bike (fairly inconsequential) but also add £100 to a tank of fuel (fairly consequential) and £700 on a flight to the Alps / Spain (probably past the tipping point for most).

n.b. that’s roughly in proportion to their carbon footprint, I just scaled it up/down based on roughly doubling the cost of Diesel as a decent incentive to stop driving.

The issue is that things like heating your house are an actual necessity, and a family home produces as much emissions a family car, so even if we tax optional things like consumerism and transport down to a sustainable level we’ve still got to make houses carbon neutral.

*i.e. Murdoch and Rishi won’t give up their private jets and take the bus rather than drive, but could probably stomach paying a few grand a year to make no changes to their lifestyles and just price everyone else out of it.

“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.

…. destination sports Vs an activity/sport/product that makes you realise you live in a destination.

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

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.

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

No-one said policy making was an easy job : )

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

Interesting thread, and something that’s worth discussing.

I prefer to use public transport if possible to get to my biking because most of the time it’s more fun.

Every time I fly, I’m reminded how much I dislike it, and prefer the process of going by train.

So far I’ve never had a serious problem with a bike on a train. 🤞🏻

I actually think that bike provision on trains in the UK is slightly unfairly maligned, especially on here. Yes it could be much better, but at least you’re able to put a fully assembled bike on a long distance high speed train, which certainly isn’t the case in all European countries, including France.

In terms of riding from my door, buying and riding a hardtail frame (and building it up from the left over parts from my knackered old full suspension bike) has really opened up new (old) opportunities for me. As @jameso mentioned, there’s something to be said for having more fun on a less capable bike. This was reinforced for me today at Gisburn, features that are nothing on my Stumpjumper Evo, take some thinking about on the Marley.

At the same time it’s got me thinking more about lower impact adventures, and riding from the door using bikepacking gear so that I can ride to better places, stay overnight and then either ride or train back.

I live in an area that isn’t great for mountain biking (South Cheshire), but there is stuff to be found within viable riding distance, it just took a bit of searching to find it.

Personally, it seems to me that a lot of my riding buddies jump into a car because they don’t even consider any other options.

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!