What is a Freerider?
Fully Rigid, 4/5/24
You know who they are. You might even be one. You know, the person who never shows up for trail work. The person who never volunteers for anything. The one who doesn’t have a single dollar in their pocket to support the local mountain biking organization.
Freerider.
Like a freeloader.
The one who always complains about seemingly everything, you know? There is not enough singletrack to please them. They can’t find the downhill they want and the jumps aren’t good enough. They want more cross-country miles. Yet, they don’t have any time or energy, or, and I’ll say it again, money to make those things happen.
Along for the ride but don’t pony up anything.
They might even show up and drink my/your beer and offer nothing in return. Not once. Not ever.
Freerider.
Like a freeloader.
The freerider has been around a while, but it seems like their kind is reproducing at a higher rate than usual. We need to do something about it. Here’s something to get it started:
When the freerider shows up on your trail and complains, tell ‘em: Hey, freerider, go ride the road since the town/city/county maintains it and I’m assuming you pay taxes of some kind.
To support independent writing about mountain biking and indie beer, as well as receive discounts to MTB-related businesses and breweries, use this link below to get the $10.20/year subscription rate. You’ll receive upwards of 75 newsletters in your email inbox throughout 2024, bringing it to about 14 cents for each email/musing/post:
https://mtbeer.substack.com/subscribe?coupon=0fd4133e
Fully Rigid is a monthly column by James Murren about Mountain Biking Issues within the Mountain Biking Community.
I think this group falls within what I like to call “the 10%rs”. The 10% of people who ruin it for the rest of us
I made a pilgrimage to Russian River brewing many years ago. I need to try that porter.