Some time ago, while thinking about everything wrong with mountain biking advocacy in Toronto, directly related to a dropmachine.com forum post about the name 'TORBA' (Toronto Off-Road Bicycling Association), I challenged myself to come up with a spectacular acronym for such a group that I felt would convey the scope and breadth required to amass enough political clout to achieve anything worth achieving in the city's ravines and valleys. It was my contention (well, I have the feeling that it may have been shared by a few others in that forum thread) that the name in itself was a limiting factor.
It is limited to:
Toronto off-road bicyclists. The ones serious enough to join an association.
Really, the name is fine. It is informative and accurate. There is nothing WRONG with it. But it really only describes the back end of the process which it is trying to promote. There is no inherent sense of fun. 'TORBA' equates to grown up territory. Meetings. Deadlines. Proposals. Negotiations. Politicking. Not to mention infinite forum-bickering (of which I have been a huge proponent).
SO anyway, I decided that I wanted to come up with something that was pretty much the complete opposite of that. I have long felt that a group of cyclists can not be nearly as powerfully politically as a random sampling of the population. Cycling needs advocates because it is such a marginalized demographic to begin with. (And let's face it, as dedicated cyclists we love being marginalized, and feeling like the motorized world is out to get us, but that rant can wait for another time) People smell the pathetic stench of this crazy obsession with acceptance and 'equality' and suddenly you are the political equivalent of the Cable Guy.
Can we just not be THAT guy for a little bit? Like, just leave Matthew Broderick alone for even a couple of days...maybe expand our horizons and not act like a complete sociopath? Realize that the law of diminishing returns kicks in when you try to be somebody's friend?
Be COOL.
Make people want to be friends of US.
A half-dozen (unpaid) guys dealing with official city types are NOT going to do that.
I desperately WANT to make it happen. I want to make mountain bikers the group that other user groups want to be like. I want us to all, ALL ride around and be such a tight-knit, polite, supportive, helpful and thoughtful family that it makes the Full House writers throw up in their mouths a little bit (but in a package disguised as the Fonz). I want us to have class on and off the bike, and always act with the highest level of consideration for others. Which is completely absurd, but I think a utopian vision is a pretty good starting point, especially when so many of our ranks already act with such consideration. But do we ALWAYS act with this level of consideration? To EVERYONE? Even people without bikes? Even those who are cold or hostile simply because we are on two wheels? Even those who themselves are commiting illicit acivity in the woods?
Can we be COOL with ALL of our peers in the forest?
The graffiti writers?
The gay cruisers?
The cricket players?
The pot smoking teenagers?
The dog walkers?
The bird watchers?
The shanty dwellers?
OUR conscientious objectors?
Even if our conscientious objectors are other mountain bikers?
No? Then we probably don't stand a chance. If we can't eliminate every reason that these people object to our presence, and are not willing to identify those factors and come to terms with some method of at least partially addressing them, then we can expect to meet resistance every step of the way. So why not reach out to these groups not as a political entity with something at stake, but instead as a group with only one end-goal in mind: harmony among forest-users leading to continued (greater?) access and preservation.
So there it is.
The logic behind the
Equitable
Fellowship
For
Urban
Singletrack
Exploration.
Many paths become one and one path becomes many.
Come one.
Come all.
