The COVID-19 pandemic has hit the world hard. All of us have gone or are going through intense times. Life as we knew it stopped in an instant and in my opinion it seems everything has restarted again with a similar push of a button.

After more then three months the Spanish state of alarm was lifted on June 21 and most of the European borders opened again. Which meant that I was allowed to guide again. But I’m not at the moment. When I look at my Instagram feed, I constantly see happy messages of other guides and bikers in Spain and Europe that they can guide & bike again. Not me, I am not ready to guide again, although I do ride occasionally. There are a few reasons for this I tell them more in detail below.

Practical

Unbeaten Adventures is organised in such a way that the peak points of the business are from late spring to early summer and from late summer to early autumn. The rest of the year I also guide but way less, then my focus goes into working in the design studio I run with my wife. When all the guiding fell away in spring and without support of the Spanish government we had to put all our effort on our design work to make a living, which we managed quite ok.

We are a little family living in the Spanish Pyrenees. This means we don’t have any family near by to help us with our baby. Grandparents, aunts and uncles are in The Netherlands or in Costa Rica. Daycares open until at least September. We lovingly take care of our little son together next to doing our design work. It is gratifying to be working parents but a true handful as well. This lead me to had no time to become fit for summer guiding or to create a COVID-19 protocol. Things are slowly improving and iI am creating time to get fit again and getting my biking mojo back. Definitely looking forward to explore new trails over the next months.

Mentally

While I see tourists coming to Ainsa with their masks, acting as if everything else is back to (the new) normal, I am mentally not ready for business as usual. Maybe I will never be ready for business as usual again. The COVID-19 crisis made one thing clear to me. Mountain biking and mountain bike travel is a bonus privilege activity. Very far from essential, yes it is good for your mental health, a quite luxurious way to work on your mental health. 

These times offer a chance to change mountain biking and the mountain bike industry. Making it more sustainable & inclusive. Yet when I look at the different platforms and the racing organisations, everyone is eager to go back to normal as if nothing has changed. Indeed not much seems to have changed here either as I constantly find face-masks and trash in the trails since the mountain bike tourists returned. 

If we need to change the climate to preserve mountain biking and nature for our kids and all the future generations to come, then we need to re-think mountain biking among other things. My mind is very busy figuring out how to continue with the guiding business while keeping an eye on those things.

For the next months I want to think about these topics, talk with people inside and outside the industry and invite you to ride along with me to talk about these things (you pay with your point of view). I don’t want to go back to normal, I want to move to a world that is inclusive & sustainable. I just don’t know how yet.

Take care and I hope to see you somewhere in September. 

For now I leave you with this little documentary about inclusion in Mountain Biking from Patagonia with artist and biker Brooklyn Bell.

Author: Jeroen Spoelstra
Images: Harm Spoelstra

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