Let’s be blunt—2016 was not a banner year for the International Mountain Bicycling Association (or IMBA). Mountain biking’s pre-eminent trail-access organization lost its 19-year sponsor, Subaru. In the wake of that announcement, IMBA laid-off several staff members and were forced to mothball the very popular and successful Trail Care Crew program. What’s more, the trail advocacy organization continued to take its lumps over its refusal to advocate for mountain biking in Wilderness areas.
It’s impossible to say whether all of this played into Mike Van Abel’s decision to resign after 12 years of leading IMBA. This much is clear, however: While IMBA never stopped doing important work on behalf of all mountain bikers, the organization now faces some hard questions.
For the first time in decades, even longtime members are asking:
Does IMBA deserve our support?Has IMBA outlived its usefulness?And, most importantly,
Can this organization turn its own ship around?The answer may rest with Dave Wiens, the man IMBA recently named its new Executive Director.
Unlike some of IMBA’s past leaders, Dave Wiens is not a polished figurehead with years of experience running major non-profits. Wiens is, first and foremost, a rider and trail builder—that makes him an interesting choice to lead an organization that has been characterized as being too detached from the day-to-day realities of digging in the dirt and advocating for trails on the local level.
Wiens, however, might be just the leader this organization needs.
In addition to carving a long and impressive racing career that includes World Cup wins and six dominating victories in the Leadville 100, Wiens is the founder and Executive Director of Gunnison Trails, a grassroots, trail-access organization in Gunnison, Colorado.
In short, Dave Wiens, a Mountain Bike Hall of Famer with dirt under his fingernails, isn’t your typical suit-and-tie executive and that might be a good thing. But can he actually change things at IMBA? And what would he change? And why is he willing to take the hot seat at this difficult point in IMBA’s history?
To his credit, Wiens answered all these questions (and more) during this interview.
If I were to sum up a lot of people's reaction to your taking the lead at IMBA, it’d go something like this: “It’s cool that Wiens is leading IMBA…but why the hell is he doing it?”
You’ll never please everyone in a job like this. On top of that, the challenges of keeping IMBA relevant and successful have to be immense. So, why are you taking on the mantle?
IMBA has been there for mountain bikers from nearly the beginning, trying to give us mountain bikers more trails to ride. So for me, taking this job was…well, I don’t want to say it was a “no brainer”, because it really was a big decision—it’s a big job with a lot of responsibility—but it felt necessary. For a lot of us, mountain biking isn’t just a sport—it’s a part of our lives. It’s who we are. If you take mountain biking away from us, it’s like you're tearing our hearts out.
Photo by Angel King / RTI Sports
Knowing, as I’m sure you do, that many riders feel that IMBA could be a better organization, what made you willing to take the lead at this point? A lot of people would shy away from it.
Well, for a couple reasons. IMBA has been going through a transition lately. That’s true. Losing Subaru as a sponsor was a big deal. It’s in a tough spot right now. But look, mountain biking has been very good to me. I met my wife through mountain biking. Heck, everything good in my life has resulted from or somehow been connected to mountain biking. So it’d be hard for me to see an organization in need—an organization that has had such a positive impact on mountain biking—and not try to help. I can’t do that.
It’s going to be a challenge.
Yeah, it’s not going to be the easiest road. And I fully didn’t sleep a couple nights knowing that some people would probably say, ‘Oh, Wiens, he’s not a real mountain biker because we don’t agree on this issue or that issue.’
I’m not really a controversial guy. I’m not that outspoken. And now I’m going to step out of that comfort zone and it probably won’t be the most pleasant thing to have criticism aimed at me, but I know it’s going to happen and I believe I’m going to do the best thing I can for the sport.
It’s not as if I’m going to be some autocratic leader who’ll be making all these decisions in a bubble about mountain biking. I have an amazing staff and board of directors around me and I’ve got an amazing support network of mountain bikers. I think there are good ideas everywhere and I want to hear them.
Look, I know I’m not the guy with all the answers. I don’t even know if that person actually exists. I mean, IMBA could find a person who knows the non-profit world inside and out, but then perhaps they’re not a mountain biker. So I think I come to this job fairly qualified and I’m going to come in and put my head down and work and get better. We might make mistakes along the way, but we are also going to keep going because we’re trying to help make mountain biking as good as it can be and we’ll try and give as many mountain bikers as we can a voice so that this sport can continue to progress.
How many members does IMBA currently have?
Around thirty thousand dues-paying members. There are shops and clubs and chapters... we have just over 700 corporate partners right now. But really, you’re still talking about 30,000 individual mountain bikers.
How do those membership numbers compare to IMBA enrollment numbers of the past? Is it level (constant), higher, lower?
Membership has been at that level for quite a while. There are fluctuations from time to time, but it’s been pretty constant for a while now.
And how many employees are there at IMBA?
There are 42. We’re split about half and half between Trail Solutions (
Ed. IMBA’s trail-building operation) and everybody else—the Boulder staff and the regional programs.
How international, actually, is IMBA? The word “International” is in the title, but the sense I get is often that the bulk of the organization’s work is centered in the United States….but that may be simply my perception as an American.
Today, IMBA is not very international. There are three licensing agreements that we have today with IMBA Canada, IMBA Argentina and IMBA Europe. Our Trail Solutions also does international trail work projects. But today and moving forward, we are very much focused on the USA because we have to be.
What are IMBA’s strengths?
The IMBA brand, while not universally popular, is fairly strong with land managers and folks in agencies who often actually refer to a top-level trail as being built to “IMBA standards”. In short, we’ve created a huge bank of knowledge about how to create trail systems that work—about trail construction and design techniques as well as the bigger-picture planning process.
Then the other strength we are always going to have is that no one else is trying to speak specifically to improving mountain biking access and government relations on a local, regional and national level.
What are IMBA’s weaknesses?
Well, the one that jumps right out at me is just that our average member is 45 years old and male. It’s certainly a demographic profile that we’d like to diversify. We’d like to see younger riders, more women and more kids. We need to start speaking to and resonating with a wider variety of riders, so that we’re representing a wider range of riders and even viewpoints. We’d like to reach more mountain bikers and particularly more with younger riders.
IMBA has always attempted to bring different types of riders together. I guarantee you, there’s never been a time when that wasn’t IMBA’s goal, but in the past IMBA’s been hyperfocused, with their head down, on their mission and maybe hasn’t told that story or shown the world what it has accomplished as well as it could have.
We need to be more relevant to younger riders and progressive riders. It’s not that we’ve ignored that in the past, we have plenty of those kinds of riders on our own staff, but, moving forward, we have to do a better job of extending that.
| One thing that we need...is to get mountain bikers to identify, first and foremost, as mountain bikers instead of just pigeonholing themselves or one another as an XC racer or freerider or whatever. We're all riders and if we remember that common point, we can achieve so much more together.—Dave Wiens, IMBA Executive Director |
IMBA is criticized at times for two things:
Criticism #1: IMBA is detached, out there in Boulder.
Criticism #2: IMBA, some argue, actively promotes the sanitation—the dumbing down—of trails.
How do you respond to those kinds of criticisms?
I’m just going to say that some of that impression of being detached is legitimate. No matter where IMBA is located, they are going to have a little bit of that effect from that geography. But we also have a lot of staff members in different parts of the country, so we do get a sense of what’s happening outside the Boulder Bubble.
I know IMBA gets criticized for sanitizing trails. Some it may be deserved and some of it isn’t. Speaking from personal experience now, at Gunnison Trails we’ve been accused of sanitizing trails too because we’ll have a trail that has eroded badly and we’ll fill it back up with dirt and add some waterbars or other water-diversion on it and suddenly a trail that was kind of hard to ride becomes easier. And you’ll see people on the forums saying, ‘Hey, man. I like those old-school, gnarly, steep and tough trails!’
Part of me gets it. You and I and a lot of your readers out there cut our teeth on trails like that. But we also know that those trails aren’t sustainable. A small rut becomes a big rut and pretty soon no one is riding that trail anymore or it gets closed completely. So part of it is that.
And then other part of it is that any time you are in a position of telling people, ‘Hey guys, this is how a trail should be built.’ You’re going to get slapped with that trail sanitizer label.
Really, a lot of this also comes down to having involvement in your local club from a wide range of different types of riders. If you feel like your trails are being sanitized, get involved. Get your friends involved. If you get involved in your local club, you can have some say in what your local trails will be like. If you learn to work with local land managers, you can truly have an impact. You can widen the spectrum of trails in your area. But it
does take being involved and doing the work. Criticizing from the sidelines? It’s an easy thing to do, but it doesn’t change anything. So, while I understand why people sometimes have that complaint, I don’t buy it entirely.
Why do you think IMBA has struggled for so long with the reputation as the fun police—the organization bent on making trails boring?
As discerning riders, we’re really quick to judge the trails we ride. The skill level of the average mountain biker is so high these days and we’re looking for top-shelf trails every time. And that’s generally a good thing because it pushes the envelope for everybody. It raises the bar. I’m all for that.
But we still have to recognize that we have to build trails for everybody. There’s a spectrum of riders out there and we need a variety of trails that address that range of rider styles and abilities. There’s no single style of trail that’s going to do it for everyone. We can’t just build cross-country trails or, on the other hand, super-gnar trails. IMBA sometimes puts some fairly vanilla trails on the ground, sure, but sometimes those vanilla trails are actually called for. And we also put some very progressive, technical trails in because they’re also called for. I think the
Devil's Race Track that our Trail Solutions team created is a good example of that.
There’s a full spectrum of riders out there and IMBA needs to be relevant to all of them. The caveat to that is that IMBA is also always going to speak to the need to ride your bike responsibly. I know that message has earned IMBA a reputation as “the trail cops”. Any time you talk about responsibility, a certain amount of people are always going to say, ‘Don’t tell me about being responsible!’ but in the mountain biking world, being responsible does not have to mean being boring. It just means being sensible about where and how you ride. How you ride on a one-way downhill trail, for example, is going to be different than how you ride on a busy, two-way trail with blind spots on a Saturday afternoon. Are you riding in a bike park? You can do things in a bike park that you can’t do in most state parks. Being responsible simply means knowing the difference between those kinds of situations and riding accordingly.
At the end of the day, we have to talk about being responsible because when you are a mountain biker, you never represent just yourself. You represent all of us. People judge other mountain bikers, for example, by what they experience when they meet me on the trail. Whether or not we want to represent one another isn’t the question. We just do. That’s just a fact. So, we have to talk about riding responsibly because each one of us can help or hurt the next rider’s ability to ride his or her local trails. But, again, riding responsibly doesn’t mean not having fun. It means being sensible.
How do you see IMBA evolving in the future?
I guess I’d sum it up as simplifying IMBA and what it does in terms of advocacy, policy and government relations.
You know, to me, it feels like IMBA has kind of gone off in a lot of different directions. We have a lot of programs and they are all worthy ones, but I feel like we are now at a point where we have to reel it in and focus on a few of those really big, critical pieces that we know we can do.
A lot of chapters are doing a very good job locally, but there’s still a critical need for mountain biking representation on a national level. That’s a world we are already in and it’s vital to mountain biking that someone is doing that, especially at the national level.
If you could focus on a few things and succeed in making them happen, what would they be?
Getting more trails on the ground is still IMBA’s top priority and while we riders often talk about great places to ride like Crested Butte or Moab, we can’t forget that the biggest need is making sure that you have a place to ride close to where we live. Most of us don’t get to go to Whistler all the time, but if we can create amazing trails that we can pedal to, or are just a short drive away from our jobs or homes, that’s a great, and necessary, thing.
Improving access to the sport for kids is also key. If you are my age or close to it, you probably remember your parents sending you out of the house and onto your bike to just…explore. That doesn’t happen as much anymore, for a lot of reasons. But that means that a lot of kids might never grow up to become riders. We need more and better trails near our communities. We need more programs like
NICA. So many towns I go to have a skate park somewhere. I’d like to see every town have a bike park and a trail system. Getting kids started young, getting them carving turns in dirt…those are good things and IMBA wants to be a part of that.
One thing that we need, in order to push things forward as a sport, is to get mountain bikers to identify—first and foremost—as mountain bikers instead of just pigeonholing themselves or one another as an XC racer or freerider or whatever. We’re all riders and if we remember that common point, we can achieve so much more together.
IMBA came at along at a time when the mountain biking world desperately needed a central organization that could speak for riders and serve as a clearinghouse for information and advice. But there are now several very strong regional organizations such as Evergreen in Washington State, COPMOBA in Colorado, NEMBA and SORBA back east, to name just a few. These regional groups do strong work in their own right.
Given that this is the case, some riders question whether we still need a large umbrella organization such as IMBA… Do we? Does the world still need IMBA the way it did, back when the organization was conceived?
Yeah, I think IMBA is still needed. Evergreen’s a great organization, for instance, but as powerful as it is, I don’t know if they are going to go to Washington DC to go to task for mountain bikers. I do believe we need that strong national voice politically. And then you also need that educational resource nationally. And that’s something I’d really like to see us develop more—both in print and online. That’s a huge opportunity for IMBA, to be a knowledge base for all organizations.
If a local or regional organization has it going on, that’s great. We’re here, however, to help out when they need it. If there’s a project that we can come in and help with at some point, we’d like to. We want to be at their service if a certain political issue or land management issue comes up that we’re experienced with. There are a lot of ways we can still help local trail access groups and we’re committed to that.
What we need to be focused on is being relevant and important to mountain biking nationally and I do believe there are still plenty of opportunities for IMBA to do that. Until we can cover this country with great mountain biking opportunities, from sea to sea, we’re not done.
that's the main reason I'm not a member of IMBA anymore, after being one for 20 years. Every time I've heard anyone from IMBA say that, it really meant "we're building another beginner trail." except they call them flow trails now.
It's true that beginner, I mean flow, trails are an easier sell to LMs on public lands, I've seen it first hand how nervous they get when you want to build a trail near a rocky area or leave a log down. But honestly 100% of the new trail on the ground in my area has been totally non-technical, and it's not because people weren't involved. Hell, the people that want the types of trails we're building don't advocate or build trail, they just ride what we build (and dumb down anything technical we manage to sneak in).
Whenever IMBA gets involved, they take a 'any trail is better than no trail' approach, decide that what we really wanted isn't worth the fight and build a begin--I mean flow trail. And put an IMBA sign at the trailhead even though we did 95% of the work.
Dave, I really do wish you the best, but be aware you're starting with a org that's 100% irrelevant to actual mountain biking. He keeps saying we need a national-level org; why? When that org refuses to even try on the one national-level issue that matters. Worse yet, issues press releases bashing STC for doing what IMBA refuses to.
The local IMBA chapter here sees it this way, and thats why I cant support them. We roll our own
You should get to know. They are affiliated with IMBA and they make great technical trail.
For all of the internet heroes out there, there is one organization working on a national level for mountain bike trail access.
IMBA is never going to please everyone, but there are 2 separate issues here:
1. Trail and Land Access.
I'm curious where do the anti IMBA bikers send their money to help tail access in this country? STC? OK if you only care about wilderness access.
2. Trail building. Pink Bikers favorite area to gripe about in-between A-Line sessions. No offense but if there was a shortage of gnar everywhere the lines for the Garbo zone would be the same as the lower mountain. Hint, they aint. Hell, Snowshoe's most popular trail is probably Skyline, a flow tail. Does the addition of Skyline ruin the bike park, no. There is still plenty of technical trial, and Skyline opens up riding the park to a lot of people that may not otherwise try.
I'm all about the pulaski=vote system; if there was a workable system where people weren't even allowed on the trail without putting some work in, I'd be all for it (no dig, no ride). Fact is building on land you don't own is more complicated than that.
You saying 'get involved in local advocacy' isn't an endorsement of IMBA at all; they don't to local advocacy. My experience with them (in 2+ decades) is they come in, pick low-hanging fruit (which is usually very low-risk projects that locals have started) take credit, then leave. Our big access issues? We couldn't pay them to touch - and it wasn't even wilderness, I think it was just too hard. And Trail Solutions... holy crap don't get me started.
look, it's a complex problem, and I don't really have an answer. I am sure, however, that doubling down on the same crap that got IMBA where it is now isn't going to fix things.
locally. East of the Rockies, almost all trail is on state, county, city or local land. Federal/national-level advocacy doesn't often help there (more CO bubble in IMBA's thinking), and the jurisdictions where most of the good trail is, they're too small for IMBA to have a relationship with, so they don't care.
Then there's National Parks, which yeah IMBA made some slight inroads on, but still almost all are off limits, and as far as I know, IMBA not making much/any effort to change that.
Anti imba, yea I am. I don't send money. I throw rakes, mattocs, shovels, and Saws on my back and go cut in new trail or maintain the existing ones.
Sure there's a place for flow but don't ruin good techy trails with flow. Sure snowshoe has lots of gnar but even they started to sowshoeanitize their own trails at times with berms on trails that never existed before. But snowshoe is different. It's a business. Two opposite ends of the spectrum
We want something big, trails, even "flow trails" are a massive undertaking. Yet, it's that "flow trail" that gets the common and armature riders to the sport, with places they can enjoy at their skill level. We all start at the bottom of the skill tree when we are new to MTB and/or MTB-DJ.
So the land manager sees a rise in population of their land centered around the recently built MTB "flow trail", all the while parking permits have increased the income of the park. This has made the land manager take notice as the funds are now more prevalent for park maintenance, more so than before the "flow trail" build.
"All big things start small"... Once the land manager has become comfortable with the new "flow trail" and no one has been hurt since its build(6 months to a year), it's now time to ask the land manager if it is okay to build more advanced trails; volunteers only, no cost to the land manager. Work with the LM to make trail head signs for the newer sections with volunteer made signs to help people know the skill level of the trail, produce maps for visitors via paper at the LM office, or via download.
Being part of the Gateway Green Project of Portland, Oregon has been uplifting and informative. It has shown me what it takes to get people involved in a thing they are not familiar with and may have reservations about. I've noticed that once you start chipping away slowly and get a little ground, the process starts to move forward with more speed as LM's become comfortable with the idea of MTB trails on their land.
I helped with several skate parks in Portland. Those processes were also tedious, but they were built.
I like GOATS (which is an IMBA chapter at least for now, I believe they keep 100% of donations vs. the split with IMBA on membeship fees), FOCF and SWIMBA. Evergreen in WA is painfully silent on whether ebikes are motorized or not, so no $ to them until they see the light. On a national level, it's all STC, who has made more progress in a year then IMBA in 30 years. Despite IMBA working against them.
Wilderness Access Bill: www.sustainabletrailscoalition.org/press-releases/2017/congressman-mcclintock-introduces-bicycle-wilderness-travel-bill
Something tangible that isn't a flow trails and uses existing infrastructure!
But IMBA could be the clearing house - so if you're in an area that has potentially good riding, and you're trying to make the move from renegade trails that constantly get shut down to a legit local trails association, IMBA would be where you go to find out how all these other trails associations have done it. An organization that provides you with a blue print on how to approach land owners, how to organize trail building (not just now to put trail days together, but how to train your people to then train the volunteers, and how to build sustainable trails), how to get insurance coverage for your events, how to work with local schools to get youth programs going (both for riding and volunteering).
Lame is posting about that buckle, considering how well he's done at that event consecutively.....
Maybe for some IMBA has been a little slow or less aggressive, but as I stated before, we have to chip at our work slowly in order to provide the bigger picture to a larger community not involved in MTB.
IMBA has been really good around the nation at building MTB centers that were never present in the state. Then with enough time and respect to and from various LM's other communities step in and ask for more advanced tails.
So I support IMBA because it has got projects started in states were there were no legal MTB centers.
As far as Portland and IMBA. IMBA can only do so much with the far left Liberals of Portland. IMBA tried hard and spent a lot of money here to influence the larger Portland community to accept MTB in various places. However, the rich people of these areas, and their monies influence got the city of Portland to drag feet on all propsls from IMBA and like communities. So I don't blame IMBA for Portlands MTB mess. I blame the locals and the lack of participation from other Portland MTB enthusiast.
I've been to many of the meetings to get MTB recognized here. And what I keep noticing is that people with money who don't support MTB have networks they influence that battle our projects with more resources than we have. So at a point it's wasteful to spend on things the elitist of the city can overspend against to stall or completely shut down.
that's the main reason I'm not a member of IMBA anymore, after being one for 20 years. Every time I've heard anyone from IMBA say that, it really meant "we're building another beginner trail." except they call them flow trails now.
It's true that beginner, I mean flow, trails are an easier sell to LMs on public lands, I've seen it first hand how nervous they get when you want to build a trail near a rocky area or leave a log down. But honestly 100% of the new trail on the ground in my area has been totally non-technical, and it's not because people weren't involved. Hell, the people that want the types of trails we're building don't advocate or build trail, they just ride what we build (and dumb down anything technical we manage to sneak in).
Whenever IMBA gets involved, they take a 'any trail is better than no trail' approach, decide that what we really wanted isn't worth the fight and build a begin--I mean flow trail. And put an IMBA sign at the trailhead even though we did 95% of the work.
Dave, I really do wish you the best, but be aware you're starting with a org that's 100% irrelevant to actual mountain biking. He keeps saying we need a national-level org; why? When that org refuses to even try on the one national-level issue that matters. Worse yet, issues press releases bashing STC for doing what IMBA refuses to."
^amen.
We have the countries second largest inner-city park. It is 60 square miles. Out of 24 miles of trails-not counting fire roads-there is .8 miles of single track. Which IMBA asked the city about adding more, but "the city" will deny any extensive use of bicycles off the fire roads. They have been doing so since they kick bikes off the two main trails over a decade ago.
Now bring on the negative props...
Any sale of lands will be for areas typically not in heavy demand for recreational access.
I haven't been this thrilled by Fed Policy makers .....ever.
Trump and co actually probably will do a lot for MTB. But will probably do the same for OHV. pick your poison. I personally dont mind some OHV access if it means more trails and access for MTB
I have dealt with the EPA and CARB/ BAAQMD over the years for business reasons. A bigger bunch of bitter freaks and geeks cannot be found. They all have a god complex that they assume gives them license to save you from yourself. They expand their "rules" endlessly in order to insure their employment and expanded role in YOUR life. Not for any real need or reason . but for their own self serving interests. Scott Pruitt will cut them back to do just what is needed. Their is a real line between needed regulation and destruction of freedom and capital. I estimate the line is about 50% of the role they currently operate in.
I love it though vs the other guy who got his checks from Sierra Club. See how that works?
Carry on with the rhetoric guy! your kids will be proud when they cant breathe or drink the water!
Good talk.
I have nothing against oil. I have several motos and 3 cars. Nothing wrong with it. In case you forgot in the last 8 years, the world runs on oil not wind or solar or liberal tears.
We also likely have a difference of opinion about what role the federal govt should play and what should be up to the States.
Cool opinion though dude.
Heres one from a right leaning rag for ya.
www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-05-25/clean-energy-jobs-surpass-oil-drilling-for-first-time-in-u-s
But yeah dude, lets double down on antiquated technology. Sounds like a great business investment.
Just to take it one step further and drive this home...every single government dollar spent on clean energy is one LESS dollar spent on welfare, schools, roads, military, law enforcement, fire departments, and any other public service.
www.taxpayer.net/library/article/coal-a-long-history-of-subsidies
That said, I stopped my IMBA membership last year and shifted that money to my regional organization when IMBA began lobbying for electric mopeds on bicycle trails. They need to remember their mission and not support every goal of their corporate donors. We already have a group that favors big donors over the mass of participants; it's called Congress.
Heavenly Valley in South Tahoe is opening a MTB park this year.......they have been working on the trail approvals for many years and would have opened last year but didn't have all the approvals done.
A dirt bike weighs 250lbs, can be heard from miles away, can reach speeds of 100 mph. An e mtn bike weighs 50 lbs, doesn't make noise/ or emissions, tops out at 20 mph. Most people can't tell the difference when riding by. Not one trail has been shut down due to e bikes. NOT ONE!
But yeah, lets believe these alternative facts, that e bikes are the same as dirt bikes and will cause closures for mtn bike trails...Thats some Trump level bullshit right there!
E bikes are not same as dirt bikes but because they have power to the drivetrain they are in morortized class. Huge for lawsuits.
I think theyre cool where they belong. Amd i dont want to read about them on mtb sites.
Product reviews etc
IMBA's position on ebikes has been less than transparent and frankly the topic is front and center for many to determine if they still support the organization.
Wishing Dave all the best in his new role at IMBA as he has a mountain to climb (pun intended).
Trying to not get political here , but the fact is the large base of Federal and State employees are all left/liberal leaning on policy. When you combine that with a left/liberal leaning admin at the federal level. You see wholesale destruction of access to public lands as they are hostile to entire voting blocks of people that live and survive off public lands. The ranchers,farmers, timber, resource extraction corporations, and lumped in are recreational users with them. The left's answer to all of it is create draconian labyrinth's of rules and protocols designed to keep the users out with a end game desire to drive them from these areas to enact more control over them. They will only throw out a bone to the approved Enviro groups desires occasionally to keep them voting and hoping. But it is all just a game to them. The people that decide if you get to ride trail in a particular area could give a shit about you, the sport and will NEVER step foot on any of the land in jeopardy.
Sounds a bit tin foil hat level. But it is obvious when you work on Land Use for 30 years.
....Thoughts?
Similiar but seperate. Diff websites, mags, events, and in many cases-riding areas.
Oh well. I have nothing but hope they will eventually see the light as I did. But it took me till I was in my 30's and married with kids and bad Moto habit that lead me to being active in Land use issues. Once you dive into that arena you will see the LIGHT. Most of these readers on here are young kids who are polluted with the MSM/Academia message
IMBA- 2017
If you are lucky enough to live somewhere where you have unlimited access to wild and unmanaged trail systems, you are very lucky.
Not ALL Kalifornians!
Some of us have been here since WAY before the hand-holders took control
Furthermore, some areas here have trail systems built and maintained by local government;
REAL TRAILS:
youtu.be/bqxsjAwov9M
But yes, s.oaks is awesome/rangers very cool there. Used to be good hunting out there
@jrocksdh:
f*ck dude, I'd KILL to be that good
Dude's name is Mike, and he works at a local Specialized dealer.
Plus, I don't know if you watched it or not, but they used some seriously professional equipment
Anyway, reason I provided the link was so you could see a trail system that provides excellent riding for even the most skillful riders, and most importantly, was built and is maintained by -a- local government.
Heck, a couple years ago erosion(lack of rain + plenty of wind) was seriously threatening a double-black-diamond section of trail(there's an 'intermediate' level bailout trail that goes around this section). It was a section located at the bottom of a 12-15ft rocky drop-chute, and was down to about only 12-18" wide at that point(wall on left/drop 'O death on right)
I emailed the ranger in charge, and literally he had a crew building a retaining wall to shore up the section in danger the fricken FOLLOWING WEEK!
I know they have done studies on how many mountain bikes are sold each year which includes everything with 26" wheels, but that is not their constituency. STC gets this and IMBA does not. There is a major movement right now for most of the IMBA affiliated groups in California to pull their support which will instantly kill IMBA. If they don't make a major directional change within the next 90 days it is going to die. I do not say this lightly because their organization is needed to give us a unified voice nationally and it would be a sad day for all of us.
1: Lobby in Washington for all types of trail access for MTB's throughout the USA.
2: Support the small local trail organizations that are actually doing the work and risking their necks by securing Insurance policies that are better options than what is currently on the market.
When IMBA's group insurance policy for the many clubs and orgs that utilized it was dropped, our small organization searched for five years to find coverage. We received no help whatsoever from IMBA. When we reached out for help, IMBA wanted us to become a chapter club and pay them 60% of our membership dues before they would give us access to their great wealth of information. Thankfully, the gods of mountain biking came through for us and we found an inside guy (a mountain biker) at a commercial insurance outfit here in the northwest.
Insurance for small clubs continues to be a huge hurdle in the fight to keep local sanctioned trails, and the topic needs more attention.
"I don’t know if they are going to go to Washington DC to go to task for mountain bikers"
So what's Wiens' stance on wilderness and STC going to be??
I mean, that's a big part of the reason why the e-bikes advocacy is so suspect, as it seems to be along the exact same lines.
As both a shooting & cycling enthusiast, I'd like my advocacy to be based on common sense, not profit maximization for the industries who receive my leisure budget.
If you're looking to protect gun rights, having your biggest advocate act so crazy about guns that anyone not wrapped up in their message thinks of gun owners as pistol waving lunatics isn't very effective.
You know how some people look at environmentalists as "tree hugging wackos" because of the antics of Green Peace or PETA? Same thing. Their message is lost in their actions.
The NRA does what it does effectively because they whip their base up into such a huge frenzy over literally any regulation about guns, that any politician knows gun regulation is political suicide. & then the NRA gives them a nice big campaign contribution to seal the deal. I think it's important to understand that the NRA is not a gun rights advocate, they're the lobby for the gun industry.
However, when all is said and done, Dave sounds like he has a winning mindset for this, so I withhold final judgement for the time being.
great work as usual @vernonfelton
www.youtube.com/watch?v=uL2ouyqgHjY
Part of this is that I think the community isn't made up of the generation that you would see up north so all the trails are geared towards the 40+ age range. In doing this I think this pushes the younger generation even further away not offering anything remotely close to what they see on all these videos and pictures.
Even bmx was pushed out of the very nice local skatepark because the city and skaters thought they were too dangerous... A year or so ago the dirt jumpers tried to gather but were basically pushed away because there was no place to build or ride mainly for the same reason as the bmx scene. It would be nice to see some form of gnarly trails put in down here because the community would ride and help build if we had a place.
My main point is that where has any of these organizations been for us down here? When they say they are in touch with the community outside their area they really mean just the few main biking states I feel. I know some of ya'll are going to criticize me and tell me to go to Austin but some of us don't have the ability to drive 6+ hours to drive across Texas to spend a weekend biking. Also, despite it being Texas, there is some pretty great terrain here and could potentially be another great spot to ride given the chance.
This sport has its risks and I see no hesitation in them while they cheer on their favorite pro athletes in the WC's and such, so what gives them the right to tell me I can't build and ride the things those athletes do? This is what turns the younger generation away... there is your answer IMBA if you want to even know why younger riders aren't members. Give them the ability to build the trails they want, they aren't fragile little eggs else they wouldn't be riding. I've seen some amazing riding by kids on some pretty gnarly stuff so let them grow up and have fun.
Stopped reading, right there.
sdmba.com/site/will-the-international-mountain-bicycling-association-lose-california
While it's entirely sad and downright frustrating to see trails built to accommodate low-skill or beginning riders, beautifully technical trails reduced to a smooth, buffed out "flow trail," and to have large, intimidating, and challenge features removed outright, the reality is that focusing on the trails themselves blinds one to the fact that the TRAILS ARE DISAPPEARING.
The success of IMBA moving forward hinges on advocacy for new trails and the maintenance of current land usage. The IMBA has an opportunity, though it will take some time, to reinvent themselves as an entity that doesn't allow mountain bike usage to be decided by hikers, equestrians, and government bigwigs. Hopefully we as riders can identify that without a strong advocacy group, we will have fewer and fewer trails to ride and, thus, complain about.
I sincerely wish the best Dave the best in rebuilding the image and mission of the IMBA.
WTF - nobody else on a local or regional level? National maybe... plenty of local groups are doing good work right now without IMBA.
The problem I see (I don't know if this is accurate, however) is that IMBA is torn between its corporate masters and the most ardent mountain bikers. The big bike companies are intensively marketing e-bikes and I haven't heard them say they care about losses of trails to wilderness and recommended wilderness. You have to wonder if IMBA's ever-so-cautious positions on both burning issues (actually, opposition to STC) is a coincidence.
My suggestion to IMBA is to make up its mind. It can become a second People for Bikes, i.e., a trade association where advocacy matters only when aligned with bicycle and e-bike industry interests. Or it can take on e-bikes and wilderness in a way most of its supporters seem to want.
That would be a tough call, since people want their paychecks to show up regularly and $35 memberships probably don't cover them, and I wouldn't envy David Wiens and the IMBA board having to tackle it. Difficult times.
"our average member is 45 years old"
...!
Why? Because most in that age frame are going to see everything through glasses of a particular color. Most are riding XC! A good number don't have a life time screwing around on bikes and don't want to see roots and ruts.
Trail sanitization is the number 1 issue with a lot of peeps. Me included!!!!! But most that want to see this go away are younger and more focused on shovels and just having fun.
Two options here:
1) More young people get involved and crush this noobification of trails mentality.
2) Create a different organization.
Signed-
Someone who enjoys cleaning uphill singletrack just as much as cleaning it downhill...
And no brag either. I enjoy it because cleaning the uphill stuff happens rarely :-)
Yes
Whocares?