Want to help the MTB Community? Ride more

[MTB Census]

Mountain biking suffers from a lack of good data to support our validity as trail users.

This is a survey that will track a number of riders over 6 months to see what sort of accidents, mechanicals and other riding behaviours we have. Please email me if you would like to be involved at mtb.census@gmail.com

Often it seems that many councils, national parks and other land managers are hesitant to allow mountain biking because it is seen as too risky and they are worried about litigation.

There are a number of studies that look at injuries in mountain biking. Quite a few of them only look at people who have been admitted to hospital – and both you and I know that it is many, many rides before someone ends up in hospital

A lot of the studies are around 10 years old or older. Think of all the changes that have happened in MTB over the past 10 years! Also a lot of the studies are for overseas places – are Australian conditions different? Are Aussie riders different in the way they ride?

My survey is designed to track a number of riders over 6 months, who ride a number of styles. From this data I’d like to be able to present the following:
• What sorts of accidents are common and how common?
• How risky is a particular style of riding?
• What should you include in a first aid kit?
• What types of mechanicals are common?
• What should you include in a bike kit?
• How often to people ride?
• How far they go for a ride?
• Who they see/meet along the way

I’m sure I’ll be proving much the same thing as the other studies done 10 years ago, but at least the data will be fresh. This data will be publicly available so that anyone wanting to put a submission for trail access can do so using this data to help them.

You can find the survey here: https://sites.google.com/site/mtbcensus/survey

If you want to contribute you will need to register first, so I can share the site with you. Then you can add data

Remember your information will be public. Please email me if you would like to be involved at mtb.census@gmail.com

Note: This is similar to what UNSW are trying to do this year with commuter bike riding - but this is MTB centric)

[Jean]

Love to ride more, but my local trails are closed or quagmires

Good luck with the survey though.

[MTB Census]

The survey will be going for 6 months, so there is ample time to get out for a ride. Canberra wont be wet forever.

So please join in!

It is important to get a range of people's ride data: women/men, young/old, fit/not so fit, extraordinarily skilled/total gumbies