It’s tempting to think that the environmental friendliness of not driving a car is a given. Our laps of the woods don’t involve chugging out exhaust fumes or chewing through electricity. Mountain biking is about exploring the countryside and escaping the city and its damaging cycle of blind overconsumption. Isn’t it? But how ‘green’ is mountain biking really and what is the environmental impact of mountain biking?
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There isn’t any proper research about the environmental impact of mountain biking so we have to make a few leaps. A British research study from 2008 attempted to compare public transport, car usage and cycling in terms of the total C02 emissions from direct and indirect causes. Including the exhalations of exhausted commuter cyclists and the manufacturing emissions of creating bicycles, cycling is about as environmentally friendly as “an electrically propelled train at full occupancy during peak service times”. So pretty good.
A similar US study (from MIT) in 2010 also looked at greenhouse gas emissions “per passenger mile travelled, factoring in the CO2 from heavier respiration by cyclists and walkers”. The author found that bicycles and ebikes were the clear winners at 20 and 21 grams each. This compares with pickup trucks at a whopping 549. However, both sets of figures are for commuter cycling, described as ‘standard bikes’ and not mountain biking. But even factoring in non-standard levels of panting and non-standard (more complicated) manufacturing, things don’t look too bad for us in the environmental impact stakes.
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Trail of destruction
Ask some other users of trails and tracks whether mountain biking is environmentally friendly and they’ll argue (loudly) that it chews up the landscape and damages the environment in a very direct, tyre-slicing-through-mud kind of way. Ruts and exposed tree roots left by mountain bikers are a very obvious by-product of our sport and one we can’t shrug off, particularly now that the numbers heading out into the hills has boomed.
“Strava has a lot to answer for,” explains Jim from One Planet Adventure at Llandegla, “and so do the trail centres. Riders have increased in confidence on the man-made stuff and are seeking new challenges, so they download other people’s routes, organise large group rides and off they go.” The boom is great for the sport, but can cause damage to the land.
Bike provenance
A global industry: Where does your bike come from?
- Components: Some, like Superstar and Hope, are manufactured in the UK (Lincoln and Barnoldswick respectively). Shimano has factories across China and Taiwan. SRAM, which also owns Avid, RockShox, Truvativ, Quarq and Zipp, manufactures in Portugal, Taiwan, China and the US.
- Tyres: For 20 years Schwalbe has made its tyres in Indonesia, while Continental makes a big noise about its German technology centre. Actually, some Conti tyres are outsourced but others are ‘handmade’ in Korbach. Maxxis is actually a subsidiary of Cheng Shin Rubber Industry Co and manufactures in China, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam before shipping its wares to 170 countries.
- Frames: As a rule of thumb, most low- to mid-level bikes are made in China and mid- to high-level bikes in Taiwan. More recently, Vietnam and Thailand also acquired a stake in the industry. Most top brands design at their HQ but manufacture elsewhere. Some companies make their own carbon frames (like Trek in Wisconsin, along with its high-end Bontrager wheelsets), but many are made by OEM’s (original equipment manufacturers) in the Far East in accordance with the designers’ specifications.
A bike's life cycle
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