Biker Psychology
We often hear from those who ride mountain bikes that they are
on the trail for the same reasons that hikers, walkers and equestrians
are. Both formal studies and informal sources show that that is
not generally the case. Do this simple informal study yourself.
Go to a news stand and look at a copy of Sierra or Backpacker
magazine. You will find that there are photographs of nature that
are devoid of people. Now look at a copy of any of the top mountain
biking magazines. Almost every photograph will have at least one
mountain biker in it. In the five mountain bike magazines that
we looked at for the month of September 2002, we could find no
photographs without mountain bikers in them. That's probably because
hikers are on the trail to enjoy nature whereas mountain bikers
are on the trail to enjoy their sport. They are both enjoying
the outdoors but they are each there for different reasons. Neither
way is the only way and neither way is 'the' correct way but it
does help us to understand the source of some of the conflict.
As discussed elsewhere on this site off-road mountain biking
is a thrill sport comparable to downhill skiing, auto racing,
skydiving or skateboarding. There is a substantial literature
on the psychology of those who engage in such risky sports and
we will briefly examine those findings and how they apply to the
current problems of conflicts between mountain bikers and hikers
on Santa Barbara front country single-track trails.
Biochemical Differences Underlying
the Personality Differences
In general, practitioners of such thrill sports score much higher
on indices which measure such things as "sensation seeking"
or seeking of "arousal" as compared to control groups
which pursue less risky sports (1, 2, 7, 8, 11-14, 16-19, 22).
This difference is also found in mountain bikers, in particular
as compared to other groups (1). These "sensation seekers" as
a group have substantially higher rates of engagement in a whole
range of more risky activities than do individuals who are less
inclined to seek thrills. These activities include drug usage,
law breaking, risky driving, heavier alcohol usage and risky sex
(6, 10, 19, 23). Again downhill riders have these correlates as
well (1). This does not mean that all members of the group engage
in these activities but that as a group there is generally a higher
rate than other populations. There are also correlates of this
in differences in the amount of the enzyme Monoamine Oxidase in
blood and tissue of these two groups with the high sensation seekers
having lower amounts. The mechanism proposed has to do with the
role of dopamine in the central nervous system (3, 20, 21, 23).
There are also differences in the genes for dopamine receptors
between sensation seekers and others. Thus, there are biochemical
differences underlying the personality differences. Participants
in high risk sports also repress or underestimate the degree of
risk associated with their activities (17), clearly a serious
problem in shared use situations.
It may take a lot to get us
hikers going, but once we do....
On an experiential level, the sensation seekers can handle high
levels of sensation resulting in high levels of arousal from their
activities without reaching incapacitating levels of anxiety (1,
20, 23) and readily become bored in the absence of novelty and
sensation. The low sensation seekers, in contrast, much more readily
experience fear as a result of high levels of stimulation. Thus,
there are differences in the personalities of mountain bikers
and hikers that are at the root of their conflicts. That is these
very different personalities view the world differently and respond
to it differently. As a result, they seek very different experiences
in their recreation. This difference leads to the asymmetry
which is commonly observed that hikers are much more upset by
the presence of bikers than vice versa (4). It
is sometimes assumed that those who participate in both sports
can speak for hikers, however, this is not necessarily so because
these dual sports participants are almost certainly higher in
sensation seeking than are hikers. This personality difference
may also be related to the aggressiveness with which bikers seek
access to trails, construct illegal trails, and are unwilling
to give up trails (5, 15). Because of their temperament,
hikers are also much more reluctant to press their concerns.
The off-road mountain bikers are seeking a highly stimulating
experience in mountain biking on steep, narrow, rocky single-track
trails. This sort of thrilling and dangerous experience is exhilarating
to them and they can get a feeling of "flow" including
awareness of the natural world. To them, at most, hikers
are obstructions, like rocks in the trail, that must be avoided
and are sometimes in awkward places. They probably
do not experience high levels of additional arousal even from
almost hitting a hiker, because their level of arousal is already
so high. While they are riding, their level of arousal
is so high and their speed sufficient that detailed, fine-grained
examination and appreciation of the environment is impossible.
The feeling of connection and intense awareness, which some note,
is on a coarse-grained scale resulting from the thrill of traveling
fast and surviving. This level of awareness is so removed from
considered reflection upon their environment that they
may not even notice the trail destruction that they cause
on steep trails. Because of this personality orientation they
find it difficult to understand why their presence can be so upsetting
to hikers and equestrians.
Whatever the hikers are seeking
on the trails, it's certainly not thrills and danger.
They often are seeking the opposite in fact, an environment
with solitude, free of the arousing stimuli of our everyday world.
Because of their physiological difference, the hikers are typically
startled by the sudden appearance of a mountain bike and take
some time to recover a non-aroused state. This response is exacerbated
in those who have had narrow escapes with mountain bikes. This
asymmetry of responses means that the hikers are much more upset
with the presence of bicyclists than the bicyclists are with hikers
(4). The hikers also have good reason to be concerned
for their safety, because people have been killed by being hit
by mountain bikes at speeds less than 10 mph (9) and
yet 15mph is generally accepted as OK among the bikers and that
speed is often exceeded by the more skilled.
This conflict between cyclists and hikers is based not on a lack
of acceptance of differences between people (social values) but
rather upon actual interference (interpersonal conflict or goal
interference) with the desired recreational experiences(4). In
general separation of activities is appropriate to resolve interpersonal
conflict among users while education is less relevant than it
would be if the problem were social conflict (4).
Bibliography
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of multiple risk behaviours among a sample of New Zealand mountain
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