Mountain biking and environmental justice: What can “the bike boom” teach us about recreation equity?

Participation in mountain biking has grown dramatically since the Covid-19 pandemic, leading to an increase in ridership, bike sales, and the creation of new trail networks and trail infrastructure. Many rural communities across the United States and Canada have embraced this growth in mountain biking as an opportunity for rural economic development and have strategically invested in building and maintaining trails specifically for mountain biking. Although outdoor recreation, such as mountain biking, may be a strategy to help rural communities diversify their economies under climate change, the social impacts of those decisions are underexplored. In particular, more work is needed to examine environmental justice implications of the growth of mountain biking. This paper sought to address that need by qualitatively analyzing interview transcripts from 12 rural communities across the United States and Canada, using an environmental justice framework. Our results show evidence of both environmental justice and environmental injustice. We conclude with recommendations for scholars and planners.