IMBA and Shimano are presenting a joint study titled “The Economics and Benefits of Mountain Biking ” at the National Bike Summit in Washington D.C. this week and one of the study’s main findings is pretty shocking: More than 1 in 5 Americans age 16 and over ride a mountain bike. Now at first I thought that was a typo but then I saw a quote from Kozo Shimano saying, “50 million Americans ride a mountain bike.” 50 million, eh? And by “Americans” do you mean people who live in North and South America? Also the last I heard the US population was over 300 million so it’s really like 1 in 6 Americans ride mountain bikes (or 60 million ride, depending on how you look at it).
The numbers from other groups, however, tend to paint a different picture of the mountain biking scene. The National Sporting Goods Association (NSGA) says that in 2006 only 8.5 million Americans age 7 and over rode a mountain bike at least once during the year. Despite the lower age cutoff and the fact that once a year is a bit different than saying a person “rides a mountain bike” the study still came out much, much lower.
Unfortunately I think the NSGA is much closer to the mark on this one and it’s kinda disappointing that IMBA and Shimano feel to need to inflate participation numbers to get the attention they deserve in D.C. I’m all for demonstrating the importance of mountain biking in the US but if we’re not completely honest how can anyone take us seriously? Whatever the actual number is, mountain biking is definitely important and the sport’s credibility seems to be on the increase (doesn’t hurt that the prez is a rider) which is great for all of us.
One final note: I wasn’t able to find a copy of the actual report being circulated and the numbers I used in this post came from an article on velonews.com. However, these numbers were found in other summaries of the same report. Once the report is released I’ll try to post a link here.
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