June 23, 2003 – We'd like to invite you to join us in taking mountain bike advocacy to the next level. After much discussion, a group of mountain bike advocates from around the country and Canada decided that our sport needs a more aggressive — yet respectful and professional — advocacy effort.
Our mission is simple: to protect and ensure fair and reasonable trail access for mountain bicyclists. Within the framework of that simple sentence, our goals are to:
–Ensure that all decisions regarding mountain bike access on public lands are fair, equitable and based on rigorous impartial analysis.
–Provide resources and assistance for local mountain bike advocates in their access efforts.
–Lead efforts ensuring fair and equitable treatment of mountain bicycling in federal, state and local legislatures and agency rule and decision-making processes.
–Work with all other user groups when we share the same objectives, and to establish relationships with recreational trail advocacy organizations in order to promote mutual interests.
–Provide support and assistance for national programs and initiatives that promote bicycling.
–Promote protection of natural and cultural resources by all recreational trail users.
–Encourage responsible riding that minimizes impacts on resources and on other trail users.
Why a new organization? Why not work with IMBA to achieve these goals? This was a decision that took a long time and a lot of soul searching.
We've tried working with IMBA, but IMBA's primary thrust is outreach and education, and our efforts from within the organization — efforts that for some of us been ongoing for nearly a decade — have been fruitless. IMBA 's passive response to threats has left many of us frustrated, particularly as we watch opportunities to save or add trails slip away. We intend to do what IMBA will not, which is to fight hard to make sure there will be places to ride for us, our children and our children's children.
MTBAccess won't try to do what IMBA does well. We won't duplicate the good work of the youth programs, Mountain Bike Patrol and Trail Care Crews. We'll focus all our energy and resources into protecting trails and trail opportunities.
We believe that it is a tactical error to portray mountain bicyclists as environmentalists. Some of us are, and some of us aren't. We would hope that all mountain bicyclists respect the land and support conservation of re sources. But beyond that, environmentalism becomes difficult to quantify. “Environmentalism” is an emotionally-charged word. There is vast disagreement as to how or how much to conserve, and the arguments can get very passionate. They are arguments we don't need, as an advocacy organization, to get drawn into, except when trails are affected. Then we look at the individual cases and let science and historical use help us take a position.
We also believe that it is important that mountain bicyclists become better connected with other recreational trail groups. In many cases, equestrians and motorized trail users are fighting the same battle. By joining forces in those situations we can all benefit.
We'd like to give you an opportunity to join MTBAccess in advance of our “launch” date of July 15. We've come up with a nice reward for the first 100 individual and family memberships, a ball cap with our logo and “Founder s Circle Top 100” embroidered on it.
You can join online by going to