New Riders of the Purple Sage

IMBA Trail News
Volume 18, Number 3
Fall 2005

By Mike Van Able, IMBA Executive Director

Welcome to IMBA's third-annual Freeride Guide. Trail News first focused on freeriding in the Summer 2002, offering a five-page report that contained the prescient, if somewhat vague, observation that "whatever [freeride] is, it's getting bigger."

We devoted an entire issue to the topic last summer, including dozens of useful tips for building challenging trail features, a list of freeriding areas across the globe - the list has been updated for this year's guide - and a 15-step guide focused on risk management related to freeriding. (Back issues of Trail News are available online, free of charge, at imba.com.)

In this year's edition of the Freeride Guide you'll find new advice on trail design, advocacy, freeriding success stories and a host of other topics . New riders are joining the sport every day - it's vital that IMBA reaches out with advice tailored to the style of riding that gets them pumped.

If you've read the previous Freeride Guides, you may have noticed that our tone tends to be somewhat cautious. That seems entirely appropriate when discussing a riding style that sends riders across elevated boardwalks and over crazy drop-offs! While injuries incurred while attempting stunts and jumps are a real concern, we need to recognize that mountain biking has always been risky. It's ultimately up to individual riders to decide what level of risk is right for them.

Other concerns specific to freeriding are more communal in nature: unauthorized trailbuilding, user conflicts and lawsuit liability are real issues that need to be addressed if freeriding is going to flourish. IMBA is working proactively in these areas, striving to share viable solutions with riders and land managers alike.

The bike industry is putting its design and marketing muscle behind freeriding. Companies like Rocky Mountain Bicycles (who helps make IMBA's Freeride Guides possible) are great examples of private industry giving back to the public good. I applaud corporate leaders who sell freeride-oriented gear and take active roles in creating opportunities for sustainable freeriding.

Mountain biking offers tremendous challenges - no matter how you like to ride. From exploring new trails to repairing well-loved ones, and from racing down hills to climbing steadily back up them, you get back from this sport what you put into it.

Thanks for reading,

Mike Van Able