Last month we asked you for your opinion on the state of mountain biking in the Peak District. The results of this survey are below, but first a reminder of what prompted us to ask the question in the first place.
Industry veteran Guy Kesteven wrote an interesting article in the Summer, making some bold statements about mountain biking in the UK. We at Peak District MTB were keen to know if those statements rang true for us in the Peak District. You can read more about Guy’s original article here.
We asked the survey respondents if agreed or disagreed with these statements in the context of the Peak District. We gave respondents a 4 point scale from Strongly agree to Strongly disagree Here are the results:
STATEMENT 1: I am regularly involved in building new MTB trails in/near the Peak District
Of the 319 people who responded to this statement, 95.6% disagreed. The assumption is that the other 4.4% of respondents are involved in building new trails. Does this surprise you? If so, why?
STATEMENT 2: I am regularly involved in maintaining purpose-built MTB trails in/near the Peak District
92.5% of the 319 respondents disagreed with this statement, which probably aligns with the previous statement. No huge surprises so far?
STATEMENT 3: I am regularly involved in maintaining the rights of way network in/near the Peak District
89.4% disagreed with this statement, and of those 75.3% strongly disagreed. That implies more than 10% have some involvement with rights of way maintenance, which seems pretty good, even if it’s just quick and easy “kick a drain” style maintenance on a ride.
STATEMENT 4: The Peak District rights of way network for cycling (excluding footpaths) is in good condition
The 320 respondents were much more even in their agreement (or not) with this statement, with just under half (46%) agreeing. In other words, more than half of respondents think the rights of way network is not in good condition. Can this problem be solved by getting more mountain bikers involved in trail maintenance, or do mountain bikers differ in their impression of what “good condition” means? Would you say a rocky and challenging – but in some eyes dilapidated – trail was in good condition or bad condition?
STATEMENT 5: In the Peak District I ride where I like, whether I have a right of way or not
32.2% agreed. Does that surprise you? See our thoughts on “cheeky riding”.
STATEMENT 6: Riding and building trails that are not rights of way does a lot of reputational damage for our sport with landowners and other countryside users in the Peak District
Of 320 respondents, 81% agreed or strongly agreed with this statement. Based on the results from the statement about “riding where I like”, this implies that many Peak District mountain bikers are not concerned enough about reputational damage to change their behaviour.
STATEMENT 7: Local authorities and national stakeholders like parks and forestry are often fundamentally hostile to bikers in the Peak District
Nearly two thirds of the respondents – 64.3% – agreed with this. Of those, how many have experienced any direct or indirect hostility?
STATEMENT 8: Mountain biking needs a national body to successfully represent our needs and wants
61.2% strongly agreed with this and 28% somewhat agree. In total 89.2% of you agree with this statement.
STATEMENT 9: The issues facing mountain biking is that too many of us are expecting too much for ‘free’
Let’s have a bar chart for this one:
Conclusions?
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the feedback from Peak District mountain bikers largely reflects what Guy Kesteven claimed in his attention-grabbing article. Whilst we may not be surprised, should we be more concerned?
Statisticians may challenge some of the implications and assumptions drawn from these results, but there are some interesting observations. If a large proportion of Peak District mountain bikers think the rights of way network is not in good condition, how can more of them get involved in trail maintenance to help improve this? If a large number of riders think ‘cheeky riding’ does reputational damage, why do they carry on doing it?
What’s also interesting is the response rate, which – at 323 total respondents – is nearly half of our newsletter-subscribed Peak District MTB members. However – since the survey was anonymous – we can’t validate how many respondents were from our member’s email campaign versus our promotion of the survey on Facebook. What we can say is that 323 respondents is a very small proportion of our Facebook followers, currently at over 11,600. Does that sadly reflect the story Guy Kesteven started telling…?
You can view the full results in chart form here.
Get involved
Do these results change what we at Peak District MTB should be doing? Based on our Aims and Objectives, we don’t feel we need to change direction. We always need more people involved though.
We’re always looking for more people to get involved in trail maintenance. Bookmark our Trail Maintenance Events page, and follow us on Facebook for news on upcoming dig days. For other ideas on how to get more involved, click here.
