WORDS CHIPPS
Regardless of where you’ve been hiding recently during the assorted political goings-on in the world, one thing has become clear. That is the self-fulfilling echo chamber in which we all live, thanks to social media.
It’s made for a lot of shocked people in the world of politics recently. Even when you’re voting one way and everyone you know is voting the same way, and every meme and cat video you see online is saying the same message, it can be disappointing to find out that perhaps you were the only ones thinking that and a whole ’nother world of folks thought differently.
And so it can be with the (friendlier) world of mountain biking. While we all ride knobbly-tyred bikes, the various different factions and disciplines have their own echo chambers, blissfully unaware of the disparate mountain biking world going on just over the virtual hill.
I was talking recently to an endurance cycling fan; someone who regularly gets on his bike and rides for 200 miles before tea. He was raving about how the whole world had caught the adventure racing bug and he was expecting events like the Highland Trail 550 to soon be overrun with bar-bagged adventurers, ready for their challenge in the wilds of Scotland.