Santa Cruz is launching something new today. No, it's not a bike. It's a fund to support trail development, advocacy or anything that improves rider's access to off-road biking experiences. The California-based company is calling it the PayDirt fund. Starting today, organizations and individuals can apply for a grant at
. With this fund, Santa Cruz Bicycles is pledging to give $1 million of cold hard cash to people, organizations and projects over the next three years.
In 2018, the company donated $175,000 cash, while fundraising efforts helped raise $225,000 for trail development and advocacy, and employees volunteered 1,411 hours for advocacy efforts. From now on that cash contribution will be almost doubled.
"We've been doing this kind of stuff for a while and PayDirt is an additional commitment. We've got long-standing partnerships and relationships with some organizations (like the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship, MBoSC, etc) that will continue on," said Santa Cruz Bicycles Brand Manager Seb Kemp. "PayDirt is about casting our net wider and helping more. More people and more organizations all across the world."
I asked Kemp what prompted Santa Cruz Bicycles to make the pledge to donate $1 million to trail development and advocacy over the next three years.
and Santa Cruz Bicycles will reward funds to the best proposals. I asked Kemp how they'll sort through the applications and choose the organizations and individuals that will be awarded the PayDirt funds.
For Santa Cruz Bicycles, it's about more than just donating money though.
You can read the company's full press release below.
PRESS RELEASE: Santa Cruz BicyclesSanta Cruz Bicycles commits to giving away $1 million to projects that increase access to trailsThis is our commitment to increasing access to quality trails. We’re pledging to give $1 million over the next three years to trail development projects, local and national advocacy organizations, events, and programs geared toward creating and strengthening access to trails.
Santa Cruz wants to support activities that benefit riders and their local communities. And, we want to inspire others to do the same.
PayDirt is about supporting grassroots organizations to do the silent work of advocacy to build or maintain the trails we all enjoy. Any group who has an idea or running project that increases access or improves the experience of mountain biking can apply to the PayDirt fund. Starting today.
Apply today!...
www.santacruzbicycles.com/paydirtStarting November 19th we’re opening up the application process for local organizations and projects to apply for funding.
More information about PayDirt and information on how to apply can be found
here.
We will consider any project that increases access for mountain bikes will be considered; whether that’s building trails, supporting local trail and MTB organizations with their advocacy efforts, trail builders or providing opportunities to get more riders on bikes more often.
Long-time supporters of good causesSCB has long supported people and groups that provide greater trail access. We've partnered with groups like Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship since their inception on the quest to create sustainable recreation-based communities in California’s Lost Sierras region through trail stewardship, job creation and world-class events. We started by supplying Greg Williams with bikes for his rental/shuttle business back in 1994 and we’ve supported the Downieville Classic since the beginning. We’ve been supplying SBTS with bikes for their annual $5 Per Foot campaign, which to this day has raised over $400,000 thanks to riders everywhere. We continue to offer our financial support to SBTS each year and want to continue that relationship long into the future because they’ve got a lot of big plans for that area…
Locally, in Santa Cruz, we are big supporters of Mountain Bikers Of Santa Cruz (MBoSC). Despite the origin stories from Marin County, mountain bike trail access in California does not come easy. Despite being the home to a lot of mountain bike companies and a lot of mountain bikers the number of legal and non-threatened trails isn’t that great. Of the 220 miles of official trail in the county, less than 40 are open to mountain bikes. MBoSC works to support, preserve, and expand trail access and responsible mountain biking in Santa Cruz County. Every employee of Santa Cruz Bicycles is a member of MBoSC, we attempt to encourage as many of our staff to go out and dig alongside MBoSC, we’ve partnered on several fundraising programs in the past and we’re increasing our commitment to them for the future through event partnership of the Surf City Cyclocross series (the USA’s longest running CX race series) and the Old Cabin Classic in Wilder Ranch State Park. Both events are held a stone’s throw away from our bike factory in Santa Cruz.
The San Vicente Redwoods trails project is something that’s been brewing for a while. When a large area of wild space on the coast just north of town became potentially accessible by the public Santa Cruz Bicycles led a local industry syndicate to fundraise for the property’s recreational trail plan. This collaboration meant we were able to raise the funds necessary to get through the project planning stage (which was executed by MBoSC and SBTS), and we want to see it happen so we threw in an additional $500,000 in the campaign to raise the $7m the project will cost (it’s not just trails, but also infrastructure, maintenance and wildlife conservancy). Any day now, after a long bureaucratic process, the first shovels will start turning over dirt to create 38-miles of new multi-use trails - something quite rare in Northern California.
Creative ways of raising funds and awarenessWe’ve helped raise a lot of cash and awareness for projects close to our heart. For example, 2017 was one of the worst wildfire seasons on record for California. Homes were lost, lives changed and singletrack went up in flames. “We talked to our shops, reps and customers in the areas affected by the fires and above all they expressed a real desire for a return to normalcy,” said Santa Cruz CEO Joe Graney. “We all know how a good bike ride makes you feel, and we want to help people get back to that.” In order to help with trail reconstruction efforts in Santa Rosa and Santa Barbara, we partnered with other California-based bike brands to make two custom bikes for raffling off. The total raised was $128,249.
Long-time friend of Santa Cruz, mountain bike guide and MS sufferer, Andy McKenna, has been doing the good work to raise awareness of how people with MS can still lead happy, healthy lives. He does this through his organization, STOKED ON MS. To help keep the fundraising momentum going we produced a one-of-a-kind, unique, custom-painted, fully-specced Santa Cruz Bicycles Bronson bike. Each raffle ticket cost just £5, and ultimately raised£28,319.
There was also the time when Oregon introduced a new tax on bicycles (specifically mountain bikes), which we thought was kinda wack. “The whole thing seemed like a bad deal for Oregon cyclists in general and mountain bikers in particular,” said Joe Graney. “It doesn’t look like any of the money collected from the sale of mountain bikes will actually benefit mountain bikers, so we thought we’d try and do something to ease the pain of our northern neighbors.” Which is why we launched the “The Oregon Trail Tax” where we matched the $15 per bike excise tax customers pay on every new Santa Cruz or Juliana bike sold in Oregon with an equal donation to three Oregonian trail building organizations – the Northwest Trail Alliance (NWTA), the Central Oregon Trail Alliance (COTA), and Team Dirt.
Advocacy in Oregon is nothing new for Santa Cruz; as part of the company’s sponsorship of the Trans-Cascadia enduro race (which goes towards the Ten For Trails program, event funding and bike raffle fundraising), our employee-based Factory Racing Team has logged more than 500 hours of trail work in the state over the last two years on trails near the towns of Oakridge and Ashland.
Generally all the events we support have a significant trail stewardship and fundraising element to them: this includes Downieville Classic, NZ Enduro, Trans-Cascadia, Ard Rock Enduro, Old Cabin Classic and Trans-Provence.
Mobilizing human-powerBut our work doesn’t stop at writing checks. Whenever we can we’re side-by-side with these organizations at meetings, and mobilizing our employees to write letters of support en masse and turning up at trail days. In 2018 1,411 employee hours were provided to voluntary advocacy efforts - sometimes that was us paying for our employees hours to skip work and turn up to dig days, other times it’s our employees going above and beyond to make tool noises in their own time (which we don’t count in our total). But we know that sometimes it’s cold hard cash that really helps these grassroots organizations to do the silent work of advocacy so that others can make tool noises that build new or maintain existing trail networks.
In 2018 we donated approximately $175,000 of cold hard cash, and we helped raise around $225,000 to support new trails and maintenance. But starting in November 2019, we're going bigger. We're committing $1 million dollars in cash over the next three years. That's our solid commitment. How that money is best used is what we need help from the community to determine.
An even bigger commitmentWe want to share our support further than the core groups and places we already support. We want to make sure they're rad projects put together by trail advocacy pros that will lead to better access to mountain biking. It doesn't even have to be for building or maintaining trails, it could be about getting some people on bikes or giving them a trail experience. Who knows, we're open to ideas.
We recognize that every mountain bike rider (many Santa Cruz Bicycles employees identify as riders above all) has a duty to put into the pot because at the moment it's a lot of volunteers and committed professionals doing all the hard work so riders can just enjoy their riding. We don't believe in No Dig, No Ride, not exactly, but we do think if we don't contribute in some ways then what's our worth to the world? This is why we’re supporting the silent work and tool noises that provide us all with great mountain bike experiences.
1) Use shitty pastel colors that look better in a baby nursery than they do on a bicycle
2) Overprice your goods to cover the cost of your replacement program
3) Grow a fan boy base who isn't smart enough to see through the BS
4) Put a meager $333,333k toward trail development a year and watch the internet dub you a saint.
1) Appreciation
2) Respect
3) How to not be an a*shole
1) I don't need to appreciate a brand I have no affiliation with or appreciation for.
2) I don't need to respect any brand if they haven't given me a reason to (and no, allocating a tax-deductible amount of money doesn't make up for the gross amount of carbon by-product they produce, or the business model they employ that encourages unsustainability from their consumers).
3) Sure, maybe I woke up on the wrong side of the internet today and drank some troll juice with breakfast. I'll give you that much.
As a mtb'er, I think appreciation and respect should be given to actions that support trail building, trail maintenance, and trail advocacy. That being irregardless of the source. No one cares if you dislike Santa Cruz, but my original third point stands if you are against supporting trail networks (which is how your points read).
@skycripp: It's kind of pointless to get fired up on it. It is ALWAYS that way... always. Hear about some Hollywood actor dropping millions on a charity... well guess what... more than likely they made too much money that year and their tax guy is trying to save them some money. Reality is... who cares. They could just keep it but at least they're helping. Sure it helps them with their taxes and makes them look like nice people which helps their image... etc. Full circle. But the money is still going somewhere it's needed.
You giving a milly to local trails? I know I'm not. Would if I could. But I can't.
Reality is... Santa Cruz county trails need as much help as they can. Whether it's building, repairing trails or getting legal access trails increased... it needs it all. Most of the trails are illegal. So every new legal trail added or illegal trail opened by legislative action is awesome.
None of the other local mtb companies are doing this.
This ain't the first time SC has done something good for the community. It's not even the first time in the last 6 months.
@skycripp is of course right to say it's rare for companies to do this sort of thing if there's not something in it for them, but the reason there's something in it for them is that enough of us in the MTB community value this contribution and are willing to pay a higher sticker price for a bike from a company that supports the trails. Well done us!
Same goes for SC's warranty and customer support, they do it well, that costs money so their bikes cost more.
Maybe rather than berating SC for charging more for bikes, there's a question to be asked about what we expect of bike companies and then we should consider our choices? If we want trail advocacy, strong support of local bike shops (by offering easy warranty replacement and product support to those bike shops) and bike manufacturers that generally 'do the right thing' then maybe we should vote with our wallets, pay a bit more and buy our bikes from those manufacturers, rather than going to the direct-to-market companies whose lower pricing modes don't allow for that sort of thing?
In other words, the bike market is not something done to us, we play a part in the behaviour of the bike manufacturers, we create the demand they fill.
Thank you again hopefully other mtb companies will follow your lead
Regards from Sydney Australia Mill creek trail maintenance crew
What they SHOULD be doing is pouring that money into developing an e-bike to REALLY improve trail access!l for EVERYONE!
This is STUPID and I HATE them!
*seriously though.... THIS is what it looks like when a company that really actually, genuinely, in real life, not just marketing BS, cares about trail access and the true soul of the sport.
If Santa Cruz ever releases an e-MTB, then I’ll have to eat my words. But until then, pull your heads out of your a**es people, and support a company that REALLY supports mountain biking, and not just their bottom line.
However this is still marketing!!
It's not like Giant, Trek, Spec Etc don't spend hundreds of thousands or millions on trail development, maintenance and other cycling charities like, Bikes Belong and World Bike Relief and many other Youth activities.
Also, a good amount will go to build trails for their new ebike to be ridden on.
Win, win!
Remember if you can drive a truck along it, it is not a trail it is a road!
It is no excuses to build bad trail now is just sad & stupid!
If you need any advice let me know?
www.pinkbike.com/video/508849
Also need trail to fit in with environment, my trails are build on flat ground but is not flat bits of trail
But is also much harder lines up & over trees, often wonder how well they could be ridden by a good rider
I do think I need better camera to show off these trails properly though?
Wise consumers: "I would rather have a company that builds bikes on thin margins and makes them affordable, than one who upcharges aggressively and puts a fraction of profits toward a sustainable cause."
They could very well do these things already and I could be barking up the wrong tree..
I feel pretty privileged to be able to ride my bike down a trail on my bike .. so many others could use the help and use to get out onto the trails.
I think if we all either volunteered or contributed a little to trail karma things would be better. Hell, I wouldn’t care about a few bucks a ride. Or, take ownership of the trails we ride instead of being reliant on the municipality or letting things go into disrepair.
Hell you can get a pretty sick carbon SC bike for $4k.
Step #2 In the time you've just spared read Secrets of The Millionaire Mind by Harv Eker
Step #3 Within a year you'll be able to buy a dentist bike regardless of your salary