Access to trails is not evenly distributed from community to community. In some places, your town is your trailhead. All you need to do is simply hop on your bike at home and pedal over to one of a myriad of trails nearby. One typically has to drive 45-60 minutes to get to a trail system in places like Portland. While that’s slowly changing with a few new little trail systems within the metro area, we’re definitely not a place where our city is the trailhead.
We know it’s not as simple as grabbing a shovel and digging trails wherever we want. Who owns the land? The Forest Service? Bureau of Land Management? The city? Is it private? How then do we get access? Is it as simple as sending an email? … “Dear [Whomever It May Concern}, I want to build a trail on your land. No, we don’t need to haggle about insurance or liability. We just want to shred.” If it only were that easy. Often, by the time dirt gets moved for the first time, that is the result of a process that began a decade ago.
While we can and do load up our bikes to ride on other trail systems traveling anywhere from 3 to 23 hours away, we ultimately want trails close to home. At the same time, we know it’s not always about us. In fact, it’s not. Like in anything, mountain bikers can be a bit narcissistic. We drop $6,000 on our bikes and then another $1,000 on accessories to color-match. We’re a bit obsessive.
Along with that can be an air of exclusivity. We’re not far off from other sports or hobbies that come across as exclusive (and expensive) … golf, equestrian, yacht clubs, etc. Sure, we bristle, but there’s an element of truth behind it. The cost for admission is usually a bike worth 1-2-3 months of rent, not including a helmet and other aspects of a kit. And don’t forget all of the gas money it takes to drive to some distant trailhead.
No, this is not a shame-on-you kind of article. It’s simply a reminder. Maybe also a question. How do we make mountain biking more accessible? Sure, many don’t want that. But we know how much we love it. Heck, we don’t even talk about it as a “sport.” Instead, we speak of mountain biking in terms of identity. It’s who we are. We’re mountain bikers. It’s an identity. A powerful one. It’s also a lifestyle. So how do we get others involved?
Truth be told, we ALL started off with suboptimal bikes. But we probably had places to ride. That combination of bike + place (or trail) made it possible. So how do we make mountain biking more accessible? To advocate for and participate in building trails close to home. No, it’s not glamorous. Volunteer work rarely is. Sitting in meetings is boring. Trail building is manual labor. But we do it because we care. Not only do we want more accessible trails for ourselves, but so others like us can be introduced to mountain biking and have opportunities, especially if they don’t even own a car.
Trails close to home matter. They matter to you. To me. To others. Let’s jump in and make them happen.
