By now you all should have received your latest copy of IMBA Trail News. What you didn’t get yours? Perhaps you’re not an IMBA Canada member. Sign up today.

At any rate, I was reading through and the breakdown of support for IMBA’s special fund raising campaigns caught my eye. I see the Annual fund pulled in $54,000, that’s pretty good. The Trail Building Fund raised $273,000. Wow! It’s pretty clear that we mountain bikers want more trails and are putting our money where our mouths are. Thanks to all the supporters of these two funds.

But there is a sad part to this tale. The Legal Fund only raised a paltry (by comparison) $22,000. Ouch, boo, hiss. I know the Legal Fund sounds all stuffy and corporate, but it’s an important fund to support. A large portion of what IMBA does, and I do as your Ontario IMBA Rep is advocacy work. Yes I do lead more than a few trail construction projects each season. But just as much if not more of my time is spent advocating for mountain biking with land owners, conservation authorities, government officials, and government staff.

I’m not going to be able to say it better than the IMBA site.

Opposition to mountain biking remains fierce in certain communities across the nation. In Ontario, upcoming management plan reviews threaten to ban bikes from well-established riding areas. In other places, anti-bike groups are imploring land managers to lump bicycles with off-road vehicles in their management strategies.

Help define mountain biking as a low-impact activity by making your Legal Fund donation today. Your gift will provide IMBA Canada with the resources we need to educate trail users about the impact of bikes and argue against false claims used to exclude us from appropriate riding opportunities.

There is still a tremendous amount of misinformation about our sport out there. This is not simply a misunderstanding that can to be cleared up. Some groups are adamant that mountain biking be disallowed as a permitted activity. If these types of policies get written into management plans, not only do we lose a place to ride, but we don’t get a chance to make a change for 10, 15, possibly 20 years. When we do get a chance to influence change it will be very hard to do so since a multi-year precedent of “no mountain biking allowed” has been set. Plus if there has been no riding it is hard to muster grass roots support to get things changed. Much better to head these types of issues off at the pass, but we can’t do that without your support.