“Bikes are for kids.” “You paid how much for that pushbike?” I’m sure anyone who hangs out on this site or on any of other myriad of mountain bike enthusiast sites that have spread like disease in the past while has heard this before, and probably had the same shaking-head reaction. But we’re “enthusiasts”; bike geeks. Some would say blinkered addicts, addicted to mountain biking, trail building, riding, and hanging out with other mountain bikers. Often caught up in an ecosystem of bike nerdery without much insight into the relative smallness of the mountain biking industry and its relative insignificance in the grand scheme of a global economy.
Times are a-changing though. The people who started riding in the 80’s and 90’s are now older. Often they have kids. They’re still riding; and they’re travelling to ride. Sometimes they travel with … More