Environmental impact of mountain biking

bomberesque

far too long, sorry, but it' out now so I'm leaving it.

hmmm. Some of this has been banging around in my head for a while, didn't expect it to come out on a mtb forum but there you go.

as to the OP, I don't worry about lubricants on the trail. I do worry about trail erosion and think that I ride accordingly. ofc, yeehaamcgee is right, horses cause considerably more damage per pass than even the most idiotically ridden bike whereas the issue with walkers is sheer volume. All I can do is my part and for that I try to follow a couple of adages, one an MTB cliche "skids are for kids" and the other from the title to a magazine article on the subject I read many moons ago and have tried to ape ever since "Ride light ride hard". success varies, ofc :oops: Trail centres with managed hardened trails improve this situation, but for me the real joy has always been riding natural trails.

On the (rather) larger subject of climate change, are we causing it and what about the oil etc etc I think the following

The Oil (& gas etc)

there's a lot of gas and oil left, much more than governments admit. They use what's called the P90 figure for as yet untapped resources, which is the resources we're 90%+ certain are there. 50% of the P50 figure gives a much higher number but there's an awful lot of uncertainty there either way, which is why governments take the more conservative figure. There are also rumours of gas fields in Russia seemingly replenishing themselves, some are claiming this is some geological gas factory (yah right), but more likely it's gas leaching through from deeper deposits. Either way it adds to what is left.

But

there's no more being made on a time-scale that's useful to us so for certain we *will* run out. Alternatives need to be in place before this happens. Estimates of usable fusion range 10 - 30 years out and that's estimates being made by physicists who are not known for their connection to market solutions. The principles are sound and the potential is huge, so it will come and again I agree with yeehamcgee, more needs to go into this

Some applications of wind technology do have a good future, particularly feeding small isolated regions and conversely in large offshore facilities where the source is more reliable, however anecdotally I think solar has more potential, especially as so much of the world's most suitable solar farming areas are pretty inhospitable places. The challenge here is delivering the energy to the end user. Using electrical energy to crack water and CO2 into a synthetic liquid hydrocarbon (probably an alcohol) has enormous potential

btw, I owe my living to the oil industry, just in the interests of full disclosure wink:

Energy Demand

when worrying about using less energy, consider the proportion of the world's population that do not have proper access to power today. As they get access they will boost demand well beyond our capacity to reduce our use. Also the world is no fun if we all have to live in huts wearing hair shirts. The challenge then is to moderate energy use, without regressing our way of life, while boosting energy production to deal with rising demand from teh developing world. Just wearing a hair shirt will not solve the problem (but neither will saying "look the chinese have lots of underground fires, and people are really nasty to other people in some parts of the world .... fire up teh V8!")

Global Warming / Climate change . whatever they're calling it this week

My personal belief is that we are affecting our environment. Actually, we must be, we're part of it, we're in it, QED we have an effect on it. The trouble is even the biggest brains with the shiniest new computers can't tell us what the weather will be more than 5 days out so how the hell can they predict what will happen in 1, 20 or 50 years? It's all a lot of guesswork and modelling and they're making mistakes (sometimes very public ones) as they go. This does nothing to change the underlying facts, but it does colour our opinions of the principles and I'm afraid that our revered scientists have backed themselves into a corner with predictions sold as fact by politicians. Trust has been lost and we need to make our own minds up.

Leaving aside these ever changing predictions (notice they used to call it global warming, but since we really don't know which way it's shifting we now call it Climate change?) the bigger question is ; as a race, are our actions causing changes which will be to the detriment of our viability as a species? No-one has a definitive answer but the consensus is yes. Looking at (and reading about) these advances in understanding and the shortfalls in the same, it is my belief that as a species we are currently clever enough to deduce that we are an active part of a larger system, we are just about clever enough to gauge some of the effects we are having on that system, but thus far we are nowhere near having a full understanding of it or the capability to do anything really proactive about forming a new balance, thus most solutions are somewhat retrograde.

The most effective way through the inevitable end of oil, coal and gas, the increasing demand for power and also the need for fresh water (which can be solved with enough power) is the development of sustainable energy and fusion. Doing that also solves the (arguable) problem of emissions.

or we de-industrialise the world ... but then where would my next bike come from?

llamafarmer

Some great posts here guys, good reading! And now commences my brain fart:

I've never been 100% convinced by the climate change argument and I also don't understand why that and consequently, CO2 emissions are the main focus. If CO2 is such a major threat why is so little attention given to saving the rainforests? Because it doesn't make anyone any money. And even if Britian suddenly cut its carbon footprint to zero, it would barely scratch the surface considering what China alone is producing.

Surely the impending shortage of fossil fuels (especially oil) is of far greater concern - the countries controlling the supplies are going to be able to hold the world to ransom and we're probably going to have massive wars over the stuff.

Mass public transport is never going to get people willingly out of their cars, because for those that don't live right in the city, it's impractical and greatly reduces the freedom they've come to enjoy from their car. I do believe the future is hydrogen fuel cells, provided we can come up with the solution to the energy demands it will introduce. I'd agree with a previous poster that we should be pouring money into nuclear fusion research and the like.

bomberesque

CO2 is a label the press and politicians have latched onto. ofc the story is about the whole balance between our interaction with the planet as a whole, encompassing all emissions, chemical physical and biological. CO2 is the posterboy

.blitz

Zombie thread!

m_cozzy

Holy thread revival batman :shock:

Anyway, no, I couldnt give a hoot, as long as the world lasts another 40 years or so thats all it needs to do as far as I'm concerned.

stumpyjon

I agree with a lot of what llama farmer said. I'm not convinced we know how climate change is going to occur and for many developed countries it's too vague a threat to make people (and governments) change behaviour however valid the issue is. I think fuel security is a much pressing issue, it's not under dispute and it will be an issue. If sorting that out helps resolve some of the climate affect issues then it's a double win.

bomberesque, again with pretty much everything you say as well, the comment about the Chinese and the fires sort of echos your hair shirt comments, I'm personally not going to fundamentally change my life while that sort of thing is happening. It doesn't mean I don't think our government should be doing a lot more now, fuel security being a good starting point. In fact if we'd spent half of the money spent on the Iraq oil war on renewables research we'd probably be leading the world now.

clodhoppa74

i think we all should do what we can. i don't care if china is pumping out more than i ever will, that doesn't mean i have to follow a herd of sheep over a cliff, say. apart form anything else doing all the things like recycling etc saves resources, and saving resources is never a bad thing in my opinion.

maybe warming is cyclical, but that doesn't mean man's impact hasn't made it much worse. I heard someone say they didn't believe in recycling, which confused me (not on here, irl). i mean, what is not to get about recycling? less waste goes in holes in the ground, less resources are used... surely it's a no brainer?

as for being out and about, it's all been said, horses make more mess of the ground, walkers do a fair bit as well (especially when avoiding getting feet wet and tripling the width of a path, for instance.

until people start doing it themselves, governments won't see it as a priority, and until the government sets it as a proper priority, not paying lip service to get a green vote, then people won't take it seriously. unless they think they're the only people not recycling, then they'll do it, because we're sheep.

Northwind

clodhoppa74 wrote:

as for being out and about, it's all been said, horses make more mess of the ground, walkers do a fair bit as well (especially when avoiding getting feet wet and tripling the width of a path, for instance.

Lots more cyclists in most areas though- doesn't really matter which does the most damage by instance, you have to look at it by volume. A raindrop does practically no erosion but a rainstorm can destroy a trail overnight.

bomberesque

.blitz wrote:

Zombie thread!

hadn't noticed till just now, and I was wondering when yeehamcgee had come back too!

StumpyJon wrote:

I'm personally not going to fundamentally change my life while that sort of thing is happening

I'm afraid that there's always going to be someone burning trees / killing innocents / sh1tting on their own doorstep or someone else's somewhere in the world. A "me last approach" isn't going to work, I'm afraid. that said, given that our governments actually *are* us, then pushing them to invest in clean tech, to try to get the Indonesians to stop burning their forests and helping the chinese get their underground fires under control etc etc is actually changing the way we live our lives, just at a different level. Sadly our current attempts at "nation building" seem to be working the other way but hey, you can't get it right every time can you?

clodhoppa74

Northwind wrote:

clodhoppa74 wrote:

as for being out and about, it's all been said, horses make more mess of the ground, walkers do a fair bit as well (especially when avoiding getting feet wet and tripling the width of a path, for instance.

Lots more cyclists in most areas though- doesn't really matter which does the most damage by instance, you have to look at it by volume. A raindrop does practically no erosion but a rainstorm can destroy a trail overnight.

well yes, but i'd warrant that busy trails/tracks/bridelways are busy on all fronts, ie ones nearer towns may well be used by more of everything.

Radioactiveman

solsurf wrote:

.

If you don't believe me you only need to see the change in state of Garburn pass (the majority of users are mountain bikers) over the past 2 years.

More damage is done to Garburn by the weather than bikers.After the cumbrian floods it is pretty evident the force of water

Having ridden garburn plenty the only thing I can see bikers do is move the smaller rocks around unless I am missing something, stone is harder than rubber

passout

I blame nuclear power and people on hardtails, oh and the government.....

JamesBrckmn

where did yeehamgee go anyway?

TonyWard

There is also the indirect effect of increasing appetite given the environmental impact from food production and distribution of the typical western diet. I would guess that impact, the effect of production and distribution of bikes and parts and the impact of any travelling to and from the ride are all likely to be vastly more important than the choice of lubricant.

Which is not to say that you should not consider the environmental impact of your lubricant but, if you wish to be consistent in your approach, it probably should not be a high priority in any changes you want to make.

Radioactiveman

I use vegetable oil, its pretty good tbh

Briggo

Radioactiveman wrote:

I use vegetable oil, its pretty good tbh

Yeah but what do you use for cooking though....

bomberesque

Radioactiveman wrote:

I use vegetable oil, its pretty good tbh

so did I, until the police got that court order....