Followup: Is Bicycle Touring in Decline?
More emails on this than any topic in a while. Some selected thoughts from listeners:
Regarding ACA
- Multiple listeners: Could ACA be losing older members in its attempts to expand into younger audiences, but worse… might not be succeeding on either front? It’s hard to do both, and that’s the challenge… you need to find what drives your constituencies and sometimes you swing and miss.
- @BounceBackWesterner”I subscribed to the ACA magazine for one year. I was happy with one edition, but then, it seemed like there was a trend to rides that were extremely challenging and demanding whether that be road or offroad. These folks predominantly seemed younger and maybe that’s where most of their subscriptions come from. “
- Another point: ACA was built on a need which may not exist anymore. Before they were the best and maybe only resource for routes and maps that had been vetted. Now there are way more resources.
- Listener Harry Hellerman was a great example of someone who’s let his ACA membership lapse after 20 years. The reason? Kind of what ACA was saying… he says he’s aging out and the roads are now occupied by larger and larger vehicles, so there’s a safety concern.
Regarding Touring being down
- Multiple listeners: Travel is down across the board, but travel to the US in particular has taken a huge hit. Lots of factors there, but you can’t ignore the current politics as a possible reason here.
- Listener Andrew Piper: “Data point: For a 2-year comparison, the overall demand for search terms around “bike touring” is infact down 25%-35% YoY. However, using the same comparison, the demand for terms around “bikepacking” is up about 40%. Which does lend itself to the change in nomenclature more than an actual decline in interest.”
- “I think I am maybe a couple years younger than yourself at best. Of the people I have seen doing this, I always feel I am on the younger side of the sport. Logistically it makes sense. Who has time to do this….older people.”
- Bicycling for older generations was a big part of freedom – it might not be that for younger generations?
- Listener Dr. G4 wrote a really thoughtful email from the perspective of a younger rider.
- Shorter touring is much more of a thing
- Some of the places where the routes go don’t feel welcoming (political, demographics)
- Real shift to urbanism amongst younger generation
- Poor infrastructure/safety
- perception: ACA represents an older version of bicycle travel (longer trips)
- “I think what the next generation wants is not road maps, but trail maps and advocacy for more trails and trail amenities (and, I might note, probably videos, how-tos, explainers, and meetups, not print versions of easily-googleable information).”
- “it’s clear from the overabundance of urbanist youth getting around by transit, bicycles, or even scooters that travel by bicycle isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. But turning them into bicycle tourers involves developing routes and programs that are closer to cities and farther from cars, marketing dedicated bicycle trails as one piece of an integrated solution for transit- and bicycle-accessible nature, specifically focussing on routes with many transit junctions to allow long routes to be chewed in smaller chunks, helping the rapidly-growing contingent of bicycle commuters to learn how to use their bicycles beyond weekdays to short or long weekends (with week-long or more tours being an eventual end goal, not the primary purpose), and politically advocating for car-displacing trains, trails, and cycle tracks that make all this possible.”
•Rails to Trails Conservancy may have the better model?
