pburns

Not very good at this social media thing… From my perspective - got my first mountain bike in 1997, took an 8-10 year break in there to focus on other interests - the mountain bike industry currently makes me think of the ouroboros metaphor. Don’t sweat it, I had to look up the name of a snake eating its own tail too. I am very likely completely wrong on this one; at 46 I find myself generally less convicted by my beliefs with each passing year. But I am not completely convinced that the industry’s ticket to a larger economic market is necessarily via increasingly larger motors and ever more manicured trails. Mountain biking is hard, and it’s kind of dangerous. I am not sure you can engineer those variables completely out of the equation, without shedding participants at the other end of the spectrum and also creating all kinds of conflict with other outdoor user groups. Skiing has the benefit of density; you can pack a lot of revenue onto a piste. Climbing has the gym environment where you can control most of the risks traditionally associated with mountaineering. But you can still fuck yourself up on a pumptrack. Hopefully I am just a wrong old man, and we can all get along pursuing our own preferred forms of outdoor experiences. And hopefully everyone who wants to work in the industry can afford to make it financially worthwhile. But one thing I personally know, is that after a spring of -finally- learning how to use a splitboard, I have felt a little flat about contemporary mountain biking, and have spent most of the season ragging around a hardtail, seeking out old non-bike specific trails that seem out of fashion, or traipsing through the woods trying to sniff out steep unsanctioned lines.

Also from the Front Range, and when I hear this topic come up, I can’t help but think about the economics of the trails that have been going in. If you look at the money being spent around here, and break down the cost per foot of heavily built trial, it can be a bit eye watering. I am a carpenter by trade and builder by accident, so I understand that making anything now a days costs a fortune, but I can’t help thinking when riding some of the newer stuff that we could get a bit more volume for the dollar if the legal stuff was narrower and a little more raw.