Risk ... the aims of mountain biking, the purpose, the vibe ...

[2manyoranges]

Well the latest video out of the Rampage judging fiasco has tried to justify the mess which the event has become. I was always very sceptical of Rampage since although it was a showcase of extraordinary skills and deep commitment of the diggers, it seemed to be pushing elite athletes into crazy levels of personal risk - and communicating that mountain biking was about speed, amplitude and edging into danger. Rampage now is mutating, is it Big Mountain Freeride on natural ground? Is it trick-laden Slopestyle with heavily manicured features? It's suffering from an identity crisis...but then so does mountain-biking more widely....

With bike parks gaining bigger features, magazines promoting development in slopestyle skills, and dug trails being the apparent gold standard, mountain biking seems to have seriously diverged from the activity I knew when I started.

Digging is interesting. I like bridleway riding, and it was great living in Brighton with the multitude of legal trails stretching hither and thither along the length of the South Downs. But then I moved to London for work, and found complete restriction in what I could do. A move to Cambridge opened things up a tiny bit, with Thetford Forest just up the road, but boy do a still miss the hundreds of miles of trail in Sussex. Digging, bike parks and pump tracks have opening up more local riding - both for me and for people trapped in trail-barren areas. That's a good thing. But digging also has created jump lines which terrify me in terms of consequences...and push more towards slopestyle than the endurance 'leave no trace' riding which I felt was the beating soul of mountain biking.

Bike parks have the same assets - and relieve the pressure on the natural environment. They create a concentrated, all day experience which contributes to the economy. And in bridle-barren areas, young up and comers have a place to play and learn. Good things. But now they are becoming dominated by a 'Whistler A Line' mentality - big features, increased risk. Not sure I like that.

When I propose a ride to young ones, they want risk. They want amplitude. And they can readily get pretty injured as well as thrilled. That's not mountain biking as I used to recognise it. Yes there are risks - wet roots. downhill falls, anything that can happen usually does; but the ethos of the sport does seem to have switched to pushing boundaries and courting injuries rather than avoiding risk and injury.

I always have had fun. Always.

And 'leave no trace' seems to be an ethos which is now entirely antiquated. I have been into woods pretty much trashed by digging. Quiet areas of brush, previously a haven for badgers, deer and other fauna now all gone, and the wood criss-crossed with dug trails. In the face of complaints from walkers and horse riders, I could in the past argue that mountain-biking was really easy on the environment....not so now.

The Vibe hasn't gone. But it sure has changed.

 

[benjabbi]

People have been pushing the boundaries since the very beginning, the bikes have developed accordingly. From the Repack days onward. For every person chasing the thrill of the big stuff there's another content with bridleway bashing. The media latches on to the bigger stuff because it's 'more exciting' but just getting out in the country on your bike hasn't and won't go anywhere. Just do it how you want to do it. Whatever brings that joy, each to their own.

 

[greencat]

Exactly this. You'll rarely find big manmade mountain biking features in the middle of nowhere. They tend to be close to where people live and work. A lot of the land people build trails on is of marginal wildlife benefit when taken in the round (although it can vary a lot - depending on location. It can be valuable as urban wildlife corridors).

People have always tried to push the limits and today's bikes are capable of more. I didn't overlap with the jumping big features crowd growing up so it doesn't come natural. Some of my 30-50+ year old riding buddies like to do them, and ride bike parks as well as "natural" routes.

But mountain biking isn't my only physical hobby, and so I pull it back a bit. It's more important to me that I'm doing as many as of my physical hobbies as possible in my 70s than it is to jump a big feature in my 50s. I'm not into high consequences stuff. It's partly why I moved back to a hardtail from full sus.

 

[Twozaskars]

I haven't bought a magazine for over 20 years. What even is Slopestyle exactly? The local woods near me has some trails dug into it, but they're unused now and fading away. Shame really, as the kids that dug 'em also had to cut up and shift fallen trees from the paths benefitting everyone that goes there. Kept them off the streets, off their phones, fit not fat, which is what the older generation want. When I go there for a bit of fun on an odd Sunday afternoon the increasingly tame grey squirrels that seem to have taken over just sit and watch. I mostly ride late evenings when it's dark, I love it. It's risky though, because the badgers and deer are still about - Shipley country park and the surrounding area where I live has its fair share of wildlife despite people's beliefs.
I think that if kids simply walked around the streets in simple giggling conversation about innocent topics akin to what kids did 'back in my day' a certain generation would probably still complain that they were wearing the pavements out and triggering the energy-saving street lights.