"Sustainability is the capacity to endure. For humans, sustainability is the long-term maintenance of responsibility, which has environmental, economic, and social dimensions, and encompasses the concept of stewardship, the responsible management of resource use." - Wiki … Little do people know, this definition of "sustainability" was developed and conceived of by the forestry industry in Sweden way way way back before Green Peace and Leaf licking hippies.
so, for me there a number of things that balance this concept of sustainability. I've boiled them down to four,
1. permission: this is from the land managers, non-biking community, governing bodies
- we need them to be satisfied with what we do in the back yard they are responsible for. This encompasses the building practice aspects of it. It's easy to focus on the more tangible aspects of a problem such as, we can solve this by building better, but often times there's more to it. it will take time for them to understand the level of risk aversion necessary to manage our sport. when anyone is presented with something new, the first reaction is to be extra cautious … this is where they are now. This is where TAP is now, I think both sides and the riding community need to recognize this. The extra cautious stage is NOT sustainable and takes more effort and resources than necessary, so give it time, feed them the right message and progress one step at a time toward what all of the riding community wants.
2. new numbers: trails and aspects of the sport that will attract new riders (from both sexes!)
- without new riders, we hit a demographic gap (in the economic world, this is called a recession), not just in sexes but also in age and numbers. For point number 4 below to be healthy, you need a representative demographic distribution in your sport/activity. Luckily, our world is not mostly made up of only dudes in their late 20's, early 30's. I think there is a definite need for trails in the north shore that also reach for riders of other demographics that want to go for long rides deep into the woods for hours. That is something that would be attractive to the "masses" that fill the gap between those that are already in or are drawn to the sport for the adrenaline huck, drop and roll aspects.
3. higher goals: trails and "features" that progressing and advanced riders can be challenged by and aspire to master
- part of what every rider wants to do is get better. There are natural features on trails that meet some of those challenges and then … when that isn't enough, we sometimes go to man-made ones. For a sport to be alluring, there needs to be an "untouchable" top. Our sport naturally attracts people that strive for challenges as well as the desire to be outdoors (rain or shine). But to augment my second point, no one would want to get into a new sport if there was no higher level to work towards. Take for example martial arts, you don't start at level easy and stop at level medium, part of the appeal is that there are higher and higher distinctions as you progress up which inherently include greater risk as you build upon skills you achieved in the lower levels. Skinnies, wood structures etc are an aspect of challenge in our sport (yeah, they're hard they scare you)… this also includes steeps, roots, rock rolls, hucks, drops, etc etc. Bringing the trail back to the "natural" state that it was when it was built, i.e. dirt strip through the woods, isn't necessarily recognizing the evolution that the sport took on the north shore over the past 20 years to achieve this upper limit. The "avant garde" of anything, including our sport, will be the ones to push the limits to stupid as a sport develops and matures. Once that end-member is created the natural progression is to retract slightly from that limit and fill in the "back-draft" behind with the masses. But that upper end-member is important for identity of whatever is created. I think a lot of the "backlash" from the riding community is relating to an identity crisis of sorts. So, back to the "sustainability" theme, the next and new generation of riders will need and want to have those challenges whatever form it takes. Some of the "take it down" sentiment may be expressed by riders that have "been there, done that" and may be fatigued by the burden of "upkeep" that has been thrust upon them, but the next and new generation riders need those same challenges to work towards.
4. community: the mass that will make any goal for this sport possible
- I write this as the last point, because I think that this is the most important one and want it to be the last thing that people read, so that even if you forget 1 to 3, you remember this. Leave no one out. This includes the newbies and the old school "grump" hard cores. We only have influence with numbers, and as a cross-section of the GVRD we are a small minority. So comments like, "they're just a vocal minority" and "get with the program or get out" tend to divide and tear our little, sometimes anonymous community adrift.
For food for though sake, the "vocal minority" may be not be a good representative sample of the "non-vocal mass" that shares their sentiment.
So … the trail, I like what 'Shirk' had to say about this,
Keep the good, fix the best of the bits that connect to the goods, reroute the worst bits, and remove the rotting crap.
so would it be of use to have a good ol' NSMB poll to determine which "gems" are the ones people are most passionate about and really really want to keep around the way they are, so that the rest can be left to the creative, inventive efforts of the assigned TAP trail builders. Yeah, No? Do you guys and gals think this is worth doing? Cambo … can this be done?
"You know what's wrong with Vancouver? You can't pee off of your own balcony without getting in trouble"
- Phil Gordon