There have been quite a few shake ups at the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) in recent years, including the departure of IMBA's former leader, Mike Van Abel, who served in that position for 12 years. Today, however, the organization named its new Executive Director, Dave Wiens.
Dave Wiens, aka The Vanilla Gorilla (he didn't shave his legs back in the day), is a racing legend--one of the true strongmen from NORBA's heyday. That description, however, fails to capture just how monstrous of a badass Wiens truly is. This is the guy who utterly dominated the Leadville 100 from 2003 to 2008: a period that most people would characterize as his "retirement" from racing. And, yes, Wiens even put the smack down on Lance Armstrong at Leadville in '08. Armstrong came back and narrowly beat Wiens the following year, but you get the idea--IMBA's new leader is fast and good at suffering.
None of this, of course, explains why IMBA made this guy its new Executive Director. Well, the other side of the Dave Wiens coin is that the guy is also an ardent trail advocate. Wiens is the founder and executive director of Gunnison Trails, a non-profit organization dedicated to enhancing singletrack bike trails on public lands adjacent to Gunnison, Colorado.
For IMBA, an organization that has (fairly or unfairly) faced criticism of being detached from the mountain bike community, the move to place Wiens atop the org chart seems a wise one. Wiens knows what it's like to build trail and build alliances with different trail user groups. It could be a good match. Time will tell.
"As a mountain biker I share a passion for trails and riding with this entire community," says Wiens. "IMBA has been an important part of mountain biking getting better and better over the past 30 years and I'm looking forward to working with mountain bikers from all over, as well as other stakeholders, while IMBA continues to help provide great places to ride."
Unless you find a way to be rich enough to become a technological minion (if this will get invented soon enough for you) and then a good enough technological minion to evolove into something that can survive into times where you can do a successful interstellar travel and populate galaxies (if that will ever be possible by creatures coming out from Earth, we may simply not have enough energy and we may be bound to the Sun which will swallow the Earth. We may be able to change the orbit of the Earth or suck energy out of the sun and turn it into a red dwarf, which will prolong it's life hell of a lot, but that means we would possibly be able to travel to other stars). Off course then you wouldn't give a flying fk about MTB so you'd be dead for us on Pinkbike.
Fermi paradox works against you.
People: yes
Sierra club: people are now banned from breathing... it's too hard on the earth
-Not much in the way of transparency or communication that the voices of those they seek to represent are even being heard.
-Their trail guidelines are a one-size-fits-all approach and often (not always) produce bland dirt sidewalks in the woods--yet if you want the grant money, you have to do it their way.
-Appear to cower to the Sierra Club and other anti-biker organizations instead of being assertive, leading to organizations like WTC being formed to pick up the slack.
-Seem pretty darned receptive to E-bikes on singletrack, even though some forests and counties have already banned them. see: Colorado.
The faith that myself, and others, once had in IMBA seems to be rapidly fading. Of course I welcome some new leadership and hope for the best for Dave Wiens! But honestly, I set the bar pretty low for IMBA these days..
That being said, the I of IMBA is still their biggest struggle. There's nothing international in IMBA if you don't want to collaborate with the rest of the worlld. IMBA Canada website was down a good part of the week because IMBA USA didn't want to renew the DNS record. Still some major management issues to address on that part.
I'd agree that the "I" is a problem. The fact that the Canadian operation isn't in control of its own domain is quite telling. Has there been any interest in creating a new Canadian association entirely separate from the US?
Im glad you feel like you need to throw names (Suzie) around. I understand it makes some small minded people important. Also I'm glad you feel like you need to resort to calling me obscenities to make yourself appear somehow better than me. And even though a persons comment can be mistaken as conveying something else, yours tells me how stupid you are.
Im not discounting this guys achievements, he was and is an elite level athlete. He beat Lance, but Lance came back and destroyed him the next year. And when i say he is a lycra freak, it was in response to someone asking if he's pro e-bike, so i mean that in the best way. He's a freak of an athlete, why would he be pro-ebike?