It's a transformation from Saul to Paul: once many mountain farmers wished mountain bikers into pepper country, today some of them are suddenly fully committed to free single trails and are fighting back against bike bans. The change of heart is due to filthy lucre. Today, individual farmers earn a not insignificant extra income with their farm taverns and broom taverns, and a large proportion of their visitors are now mountain bikers. In order not to lose this attractive clientele, these farmers are now backing the mountain bikers like one. Because every bike ban and every negative headline could push down their pub sales.

Mountain bikers can continue to stand up for their cause with all their heart and soul, impress with their friendliness and convince officials with well-founded fact sheets. They are and remain irrelevant if they only eat power bars on the road, if they give mountain railroads a wide berth and ride home the same day after their tour. Mountain bikers only become interesting when they spend money. With this in mind, it is a taboo to spread sandwiches at the breakfast buffet because they replace a break at the inn. Some hotels even encourage such thrifty behavior by providing well-intentioned packed lunches. They are doing mountain bike tourism a disservice, depriving Alpine inns of important revenue and damaging the overall promotion of mountain bike tourism. Equally unhelpful is the view of many mountain bikers that they have to tackle every ascent under their own steam. Anyone who "buys" the vertical meters with a cable car ride fills the coffers of the mountain railroads and contributes to the fact that they are also interested in the needs of mountain bikers because of the new source of income.Mountain bikers' willingness to spend is the biggest and possibly only way for them to gain more weight in tourism. With this in mind, we don't need to fight for our interests in a nerve-wracking way. It would be enough to spend money regularly in the right places. That is worth more than every letter to the editor, every discussion round, every working group. Because money makes the world go round - and the trails. More blog posts by Thomas Giger at www.ride.ch/blog/giger