The history of mountain biking is closely linked to its specialist media. As soon as the first studded tires rolled through the terrain in the 1980s, the right magazines were already rolling through the printing presses. Due to the high demand for information, but also due to the extraordinary identification with the sport, the magazines became very important for mountain bikers worldwide. It was no different in Switzerland, and over the past thirty years, three people in particular have made their mark on the media world in this country.

First and foremost Bendicht "Bene" Luginbühl, who took on a pioneering role when he founded the magazine "go Dirt!" in 1986. Martin Platter has been involved for almost as long. While Luginbühl later made a career in the traditional media world and became program director of DRS3, the pop radio station with the widest reach, Platter is still active today as a specialist journalist and writes as a freelancer for numerous titles. The third in the group is Thomas Giger, who joined as a latecomer in 2002 and brought new perspectives with the takeover of the magazine "Move", later renamed "Ride". What all three have in common is that they turned all their heart and soul into printing ink and now also into screen pixels.

Bendicht, how did you come up with the idea of launching a mountain bike magazine thirty years ago?

Luginbühl Coincidence and passion. At the time, I received a scholarship through a journalism prize and invested the earmarked funds in training to get to know the Anglo-Saxon media business. Then came the assignment to research who all was involved in the development of a completely new type of bicycle - a journalist named Charles Kelly finally called the unknown type of bicycle a mountain bike. I subsequently got to know the legendary mountain bike pioneers. The conversation with Charlie Cunningham captivated me at the time and put me on the bike trail. Cunningham said that the protagonists around Mt. Tamalpàis in Marin County wanted to develop a vehicle to escape the avalanche of traffic down to San Francisco. They called the new thing a mountain bike. The bike with which you could cycle off the highway. Back in Switzerland, chance played its part. We had one of the first Internet connections from ETH Zurich to the University of California in Los Angeles. This internet line spit out mountain bike news from California at regular intervals. Back then, we set up what is now considered a prehistoric bike information network. We published this bike news under the title "Go Dirt! We attracted a lot of interest and the beginnings of Swiss bike journalism were born. We worked editorially at night and went about our jobs during the day. We financed our journalistic trips to the USA with the same old scam: we brought our Swiss friends their dream mountain bikes for good money.

Platter One thing led to another for me too. I trained as a bicycle and motorcycle mechanic. Back then, however, we mainly worked on the very popular mopeds. It wasn't until I was preparing for the master bike and motorcycle mechanic exam with frame builder Fredy Rüegg that the first mountain bikes appeared. That was around 1985 and it was at Rüegg that I met Silvio Seiler, the editor-in-chief of Velo magazine at the time. He gave me the opportunity to publish my first technical articles in "Velo" magazine. This in turn was the platform for my first articles in daily newspapers. After passing my master craftsman's examination, I moved to Scott, where I gained an insight into the large bicycle production facilities in China and continued to write technical articles on the side. Eventually I got a job at the magazine "Velo" and later an offer to take over the editorial work of "Move News", at that time under the management of Bene Luginbühl and Heinrich Gasser. I had learned the craft of journalism during a stage at Velo and the Aargauer Zeitung, as well as photography. Back then, a lot of things were still based on the principle of "learning by doing".

Giger Against this background, Martin was a symbolic reason why I then also entered the world of mountain bike media. I always asked myself why magazines primarily write about technology when mountain biking is all about the experience. I studied journalism and business administration, and that's when the magazine "Move" was discontinued. That was in 2001 and I approached the publisher because I wanted the website, because I saw the Internet wave coming. But then overnight I suddenly had a whole magazine, so I seized the opportunity and jumped in at the deep end.

Luginbühl With the leap from our Move magazine to Ride, you brought in the next journalistic dimension. Ride not only writes about how the device works, but also what you can do with it, where you can get on trails and where to find the cool descents. You've also developed a new photographic language in Ride, which I see as a remarkable new dimension and a unique selling point for Ride.

Giger This approach wasn't just a calculation. I had to take a completely different approach to be able to hold my own against the big German titles. I came up with the credo: We want to create the "Geo" of mountain bikers. I was ridiculed for this, but I believed in this vision. In the meantime, I would say that we have overtaken the "Geo" in terms of quality.

How well can you make a living from mountain bike journalism?

Giger I'm still regularly asked about this today. The discussion is always quickly ended with the comment that I have six employees and generate seven-figure sales. But the question is not entirely unjustified. Because to get rich, you have to choose a different business field.

Platter I've been making a good living from mountain bike journalism for almost thirty years now, but I've always had several mainstays. Early on, I was able to write regularly for the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, I was the specialist for bike events at the national photo agency Keystone for a long time and I also worked with the sports information service. That helped to ensure that the sport, and therefore my work, was taken seriously.

Luginbühl Still has to accept a loss of income today, bike journalism is hard work. A passion for bikes has its price. I didn't leave the bike media world back then because of the modest fees, we weren't doing badly, we had a publishing house with 22 employees and were so profitable that we were finally able to sell the company to a publishing house for a decent price. I went to Swisscontent as managing director because there was a great inability to cooperate in the cycling world and a pronounced culture of jealousy among manufacturers, officials, association bosses and importers. Even today, in the age of the changing importance of the bicycle, in the age of sharing communities, new, congenial approaches in the bicycle industry are barely recognizable.

Giger I see precisely this culture of envy within the mountain bike trade media to this day. At the same time, we are facing enormous challenges with complete digitalization, which we can hardly solve with our limited resources.

Will there still be any mountain bike media at all in the future or will they be eaten up by the enormous development costs?

Luginbühl There are two development paths. Either you join forces with other media companies that have similar core zones, which would be the concentration of forces path. Or you push the experience area. With increasing digitalization, more and more bikers are looking for the physical element, sweating, breathing, discovering, being on the road with themselves or with friends. Creating a community of readers and users on the adventure trail is the second, truly forward-looking approach. Ride, for example, publishes unique content. That counts for much more than technology reports and embellished tests.

Giger And yet we ask ourselves whether we are not being overtaken left and right. Are Trailforks from Canada, for example, outstripping us? Do we still need our trail expertise at all? These are questions that concern us today and also have a lot to do with financial opportunities.

Platter I'm particularly sceptical about this unreflective churning out of online content. There are these self-proclaimed influencers who get paid for content but are then taken seriously by readers.Giger At the same time, I see a huge opportunity here for printed magazines. A unique magazine with a clear positioning and clear differentiation from internet content has great potential for me. Because that's exactly what Pinkbike or the many influencers, for example, will never be able to do.Luginbühl The intelligent combination of virtual and real is becoming more important. As a special interest magazine with relevant digital content, you need to be predictable, reliable and easy to reach. At the same time, you need the combination with a unique physical product. Today, we see that digitally successful companies are pushing more strongly into the physical market and are starting to look for distinctive stories and products that their competitors don't have, don't publish and don't sell. Digital means being distinctive. The physical dimension is becoming more important, the feel of the magazine, the unique photography that awakens fantasies and dreams, that promotes the possibility of riding dream tours. In future, in the content business, those titles that offer distinctive content will get the money from readers and users.

Platter I think we also need to take a stand again, have an opinion, bring back original and quirky elements. The spirit, the funny, the cheeky, maybe even something malicious - we need more of this kind of content, alongside professional expertise. If we smooth ourselves out too much, we're no longer needed, then we're part of a trivial uniformity.

In your opinion, what influence do mountain biking and the mountain bike media have on society?

Luginbühl In my opinion, mountain biking and the bike movement have had a lasting impact on society. Mountain biking has given bikes and the cycling movement a high level of visibility. The mountain bike has given many people access to cycling, the bike is attractive, a real friend, it does a lot and carries us far. The mountain bike has contributed significantly to the enormous importance of the bicycle in society today. Technologically, philosophically, physically.

Platter I agree. Electrification is now the next step. The bicycle is an object that can solve or at least alleviate many of our problems. For example, the space problems in cities and climate change. Electrification democratizes cycling. Bicycles can thus become an important mode of transport for everyone and fulfill a major social function. We need to promote these ideas free of political dogma and convince those who are critical of cycling that the bicycle is an ingenious and enormously enjoyable means of transportation. I consider this to be the task of bike and cycling journalism in the future.

Giger On the other hand, I see mountain biking as a reflection of our society. In the 90s, the idea of performance and mass racing was very important. Today, mountain biking stands for an experience of nature, for fun, for an attitude to life, for self-determination. In other words, similar trends that can be identified in society. For me, the sport is a reflection of society.

Is the sport of mountain biking moving in the right direction?

Luginbühl For me, mountain biking has a lot to do with adventure, with discovery, with being on the road silently. With this in mind, I view the development of mountain biking with cable car support with skepticism. The mountain railroads offer this in survival mode in order to rescue themselves from the self-inflicted grip. A flow trail that has been milled flat has very little to do with "free spirit".

Giger I keep thinking about this point with e-mountainbikes. If electrification happens to increase efficiency, i.e. even more trails in even less time, then I ask myself similar questions. What does this consumerist behavior have to do with my experience-oriented and nature-loving way of mountain biking? Here too, mountain biking is a reflection of our society, where everything has to be done just that little bit more efficiently. It is right and important that we take a critical look at e-mountain biking. On the other hand, the sport of mountain biking is undergoing one of the most important changes since its beginnings, partly due to electrification. Namely, tourism is beginning to take a serious look at the topic. That wasn't the case before, we were primarily focused on ourselves. We were never part of something bigger, mountain biking was always an end in itself. Now the sport is developing into a relevant economic factor in the Alps. Climate change, changes in society and the emergence of e-mountain bikes are all contributing to this. In my view, we are currently at the beginning of the era 2.0 of mountain biking.

Platter Every biker in the wild has that in their own hands. My concern is that overly reckless riding on trails with e-mountain bikes will mobilize political forces that will then close the trails to all mountain bikers. It is therefore important that bikers also organize themselves so that they are not simply ignored in the event of impending trail closures. Bicycles have also been given too little weight at federal level, compared to the car lobby, for example. Since the adoption of the "Federal Decree on Bicycles" at the end of September last year, there have been a lot of efforts to change this in the future. This will have an impact on tourism and the construction of trails and cycle paths. Cycling, and therefore also mountain biking, is finally being taken more seriously at the highest political level, which I think is a good development. At municipal level, every biker has the power to make a positive difference in their own environment.

Back to your work in the world of bike media: where have you left your mark on the sport through your work?

Giger With my training, I could have pursued a completely different career. However, I realized early on that I could make a difference this way. A formative experience for me was when I took the Postbus up the Val d'Anniviers some time ago and a mountain biker I didn't know said that he was riding the "Argentinian Trail" today. I once came up with this term and developed a route for it. So I knew in the Postbus that this guy had a hopefully positive experience ahead of him, partly because of me. This way of leaving my mark is more motivation for me than anything else. But there is another level on which we have left our mark with Ride. With its visual language, Ride has influenced the image of mountain biking to the outside world. We show the sport of mountain biking in a natural context. We have replaced the flashy action with staged landscapes in which the mountain biker is a part of it. For many people, this has given mountain biking a style that they understand and that has a positive connotation.

Luginbühl First of all, I am happy to have been part of the community that has invested in silent mobility for almost thirty years. We have made this form of transportation accessible and socially acceptable - as head of programming at DRS3 and as CEO of Swisscontent, I was the first person to raise bicycle reporting in general interest media to the level of car reporting, even in the face of resistance from the motoring factions. A little anecdote may illustrate the change: When I was asked in my 15 years as a management consultant: do you also play golf, my answer was: no, I'm a mountain biker. That was the end of the matter for managers for years and they turned their attention to their often miserable handicap. If I am asked the same question today, five managers immediately stand in a circle and talk about their biking and road biking experiences. "Cycling is the new golf" has become a fact. We have contributed to this, that's it.

Platter In addition to my work for various specialist magazines and our local newspaper, I was able to report on the successes of Swiss mountain bikers at world title competitions around the world for Sportinformation, NZZ and Keystone for many years, reaching an audience of millions. I still vividly remember the 2006 World Championships in New Zealand where, thanks to the time difference, I also conducted the interviews for Swiss television because I was the only Swiss bike journalist in New Zealand. It was always a good feeling when you opened a renowned newspaper on the plane or train on the way back and saw your own work in words and pictures. My doping discovery at the Tour de Suisse in 1999, which caused an international sensation, was also formative. But that's another story.