Wherever a mountain biker with a locked rear wheel can be seen in a picture. Or riding across a meadow. Or a cattle gets nervous on the trail. And woe betide you if a tour suggestion rides through a supposedly sensitive area. Then there's a thundering in the comment columns. And the self-proclaimed trail policemen have a fit. They have a precise idea of how mountain bikers should behave. But above all, they also have the ambition to rigorously enforce their code.

Mass regulation by tourism experts and journalists

The tourism industry is loudly joining in the canon of discipline. They are launching campaigns with illustrious names such as "FairTrail" or "Ride Fair". The aim is not to attract guests but to divide them into good and bad. The campaigns define and communicate acceptable and reprehensible behavior. It's not about advertising, it's about moderation.

Even more grotesque is the role of the specialist media, above all Pinkbike. While freeride videos, enduro action and "aggressive trail riding" generate plenty of hits, journalists act like teachers. Time and again, trail builders are elevated to an almost religious status. They are the ones who decide what is good and bad. Their assessment defines exemplary and reprehensible behavior. With all due respect to the work of the trail builders, they are being elevated by random journalists to a role that they do not deserve.

Mountain bikers as model students

However, the position of trail policeman is not reserved for tourists, journalists and trail builders. Many mountain bikers have this role. The suspicious observation of others and the judgment of their seemingly harmful riding style or foul behavior. We all know this. And woe betide you if the other person is motorized, then one leg is already in the sinner's corner anyway. Mountain bikers are great when it comes to self-destruction! But there's no real reason for this, as their everyday experience is quite different: Amidst the noise of the trail policemen, the fact that mountain bikers are almost like model students is lost. Considerate and prudent. Often almost submissive and over-friendly. That may sound naive, but it's not. If a relevant proportion of the more than five million mountain bikers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland had a behavioral problem, things would look very different on the trails. But it doesn't.

The image created is fatal

The problem in this context, however, is a completely different one. Namely, the management and scandalization of the issue by tourism professionals, the media, trail builders and all of us. We are conjuring up a conflict that is not a conflict at all. When we mountain bikers accuse each other of being disrespectful nature hooligans, this creates a fatal image to the outside world. We unnecessarily create a negative and false image of mountain biking because we feel good in the role of trail policemen. That is the real problem and not the trail misconduct of a marginal minority.

More blog posts by Thomas Giger

ride.ch/blog/giger

How Pinkbike acts like a trail cop: