:An ageing demographic?

June 25th, 2008 | No Comments » |

I was thinking about the post “Mountain Bikers Care About Wild Places” in conjunction with the recent “….tap, tap, tap …..” forum post regarding the aging mountain biking demographics as I rode along yesterday.

I mountain bike because its fun, challenging and it puts me out in the bush in differing conditions regularly (and my family like me better if I have got out and thought and spun).

My appreciation of the sport grows as I get older. I think it is one of the few sports that a person can do for life and that the people who enjoy mountain biking average in their 30’s is not surprising as to enjoy the sport is not generally a cheap one nor is it one that can be learned overnight.

I then got to thinking that I read the other day that the average age in Sydney is 37 for males; I thought about the faces in the last Highland Fling where everyone seemed about my age and concluded that for the sport, the manufacturers and the retailers an aging demographic is not necessarily a bad thing.

For the sport, the older demographic should have more persuasive power with both their societal standing and experience to work to influence the release and improvement of riding areas (an area where I add none of my time or effort apart from the odd e-mail he says guiltily). Collectively this needs to be leveraged and currently depends on the energies of small groups of exceptional people. I think most of us treat our trails as the commons and take a free rider principle, figuring someone else would do something to improve them or secure access.

For the manufacturers and retailers it is the older biker who will have (eventually) the free cash to invest in nice bikes and parts they need and for the event organisers with great, distinctive events people will travel, fill beds and restaurants and pay fees for a great day.

Mountain biking is a slow sport, like slow food. Some people will come and go into downhilling, the few will continue to push the limits beyond mortal expectations. The rest of us will watch in awe. The great majority of riders will continue to ride up hill and down dale, find a few local trails and ride them daily or weekly and put their bikes on the car or plane from time to time for some grander epic adventures, Moab, Whistler, the Chilcotins or the Blue Mountains. Most of us pedal along enjoying the scenery, the company, the seasons in the places we love to go. Mountain Biking takes time and effort to get to great places.

Event organisers need to be able to conjure gatherings of these like minded but eclectic souls.

We need investment in trails both in areas of population and destination. The investment should be in parks with loops and challenges, but also importantly it should also pay attention to the harder to reach places. Areas where large point to point rides or loops can be completed which take people out of their everyday to appreciate what wilderness means and the challenges that it can present. For it is with people exerting themselves to access the places that they get them in their soul and learn more about the places and themselves and put a value on the wilder world.

All of us riders need to find and foster converts (our non-riding mates if there is such a thing) and introduce our children to the cause.

We need not to worry about younger converts but to ensure that each of us continues to ride as often as we can and commit time to developing and preserving places to ride as with these new riders will come.

I dream daily of sweet singletrack and the long fireroads to nowhere special and look for the perfect place to retire so that daily riding is possible( as long as I can still turn a pedal) and hope that if more people do the same the sport will continue to grow organically as it will have a place to exist and loyal participants..

 

Tags:access,bike,downhill,mountain,Singletrack,sydney

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