You can't ride down there, warns the sprightly hiker, it's far too dangerous on a mountain bike. She doesn't mean it in a nasty way, but with care. As mountain bikers, we know such scenes all too well, and we usually do it anyway: ride down. The hiker actually only means well. But why on earth does she - who can hardly ride straight for a meter on a bike - think she knows what a mountain biker is capable of and what is too dangerous? She has no idea, but forms an opinion from this.

A similar scene happened to me recently at the Almagellerhütte. A mountain guide told me with conviction that the descent down to Saas-Almagell was completely unrideable. The reality, however, was different: The descent is a real treat for experienced mountain bikers. When I arrived at the bottom of the valley, I wondered how the guy at the top of the hut had the right to judge the situation without having any idea about the sport, let alone my technical riding abilities.

Something similar can be found time and again in tourism organizations and municipal authorities. People prefer to sit in an office chair rather than on a bike saddle, but are responsible for the local mountain bike routes. The result is official route networks for mountain bikers with an asphalt content of 90 percent - as is sometimes the case in the Bernese Oberland. Here too: no idea but a concrete idea.

The whole thing becomes more relevant when the clueless are at the levers of power. As was the case in the Rundschau report in August 2016. On camera, the mayor and the hunting inspector wanted to ban mountain bikers from descending from Augstmatt to Lake Brienz - because it was too dangerous. They wanted to enforce this with a self-made prohibition sign. The two are clearly far removed from reality when it comes to mountain biking. Similar to the sprightly hiker from before, only now their intentions are not of a caring nature. The mayor and the hunting inspector have no idea about mountain biking - but they do have an opinion.

Mountaineering once underwent a similar development. In the early years of the sport, the local mountain population wanted to dictate to the pioneers from England what you could, could not and should do on the mountain. Back then, the locals had no idea about mountaineering. But they had an opinion. It took decades before the mountaineers were fully accepted. For me, mountaineers are still a bizarre people today. I can't understand why people climb the north face of the Eiger. Why people queue up on Mount Everest. Why people march across glaciers on ropes. I have no idea about mountaineering. But at least I don't have an opinion as well.

More blog posts by Thomas Giger

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