Who else does this stuff?

This Twitter, this Facebook, this complete resignation to moving forward with making communication frequent, targeted, immediate and urgent? Not many in the off-road world I see. A few days ago, a good friend of mine convinced me to activate my Twitter account. The account's been active since Trek's Marketing Pow-Wow with Public Strategists.

But as I sat in the meeting, listening to how I needed to reach out more, to let my voice be heard more often, I couldn't help but deny it. Technology is invasive -- and Web 2.0 is even more invasive than the CrackBerry that already gets me in more trouble at home than I care to admit.

So what turned the tide? What made me embrace this new medium. Other people. Friends. Countless invites to join facebook (but I already have a MySpace page!). What changed it for me was People. People who exist outside of the computer screen. People who I can't always call, or see, or even email. It's the desire to maintain contact with an ever-expanding group of people that drove me to resign my fate to 2 primary venues: Twitter and Facebook.

So then I started.
I signed up for Facebook. Incredibly easy. I found friends fast, the uploads were easy, and the site didn't lag like MySpace. Then I Twittered. Even better than blogging. 2 seconds worth of thoughts, and I get current info from people I actually care about. I found Jeff Lockwood. I found my Mom. I found Lance Armstrong. But what I didn't find, were mountain bikers. Sure, I found the ubiquitous media guys like Bike and Dirt Rag, but I didn't find the Travis Browns of the world, or Sterling Lorence or Andrew Shandro. I didn't find my old trail riding friends from Pittsburgh.

Once the Punk Bike Enduro photos started coming in, then the mountain bikers started coming out of the woodwork, but I still haven't found the guys I thought would be there -- Mark Weir, Jeremiah Bishop, Adam Craig -- where are your Twitter posts? Where's Cam McCaul's update about heading up to BC with a wetsuit to ride Darren Barrecloth's ramp into the lake? And what about this new West Coast/ East Coast race series headed up by Scott Tedro? Shouldn't he be Twittering away too? I looked, but nothing.

That's when I started theorizing about why mountain bikers haven't fully adopted Social Media like the Roadie World has.

Theory #1: Fewer people are mountain biking
My fear is that the barriers to enter the sport have been raised: Expensive bikes, trail networks that require too much drive time to access, the image of Freeriding distorting user's perception of the sport, fixed gear fad -- all these things could possibly have raised the barriers to the point that fewer and fewer people are taking their bikes off road. I hope this is not the case, but only time will tell -- Outdoor Sports statistics come only once in a while, so it will take another 2 years to know if this is really the case. In the meantime, Trek's mountain bike sales do not support a decline in the user base, but that stat is most likely distorted by Trek's recent emergence as a major player in the mountain bike market just 2 years ago.

Theory #2: We value trail time more than digital interface time
Social media outlets like blogs, twitter and facebook require time. Certainly, they're efficient methods of staying in touch with more friends than phone and a personal meet-up would allow, but to the new user, Social Media appears to take a lot of time-- time that most mountain bikers would rather spend on the trail. Not in front of a computer or a Crackberry.

Theory #3: Social Media is considered geeky, and that means it's a Roadie Thing
The vast majority of people I find on Twitter or Facebook are roadies. They talk about relevant issues, like racing and high end componentry. To the majority of mountain bikers, there is no appeal to join -- our kind has stuck to mtbr.com and pinkbike.com, and that's where our comments and our "props" will remain. That is, until there's reason enough for mountain bikers to join. Perhaps trail bosses don't know how easy it would be to text message trail conditions to the State Park's website, or how a club's userbase could show their enthusiasm for trailbuilding, or how a racer could really develop his/her public personality through these outlets... Maybe it's geeky, maybe we don't know. Either way, mountain bikers are simply not present. If they are and I'm missing them -- show me the way.

Theory #4: Mountain Bikers will always be different; Social Media is not different
Mountain biking was founded by those who marched to the beat of a different drum. Gary Fisher was kicked out of road racing for having long hair. The Topanga Canyon riders had a leader (Victor Vincente of America) who turned roadkill into beef jerky. We came on the scene because what we were doing was different. Social Media is not different, it's the norm. Sure, the vast majority of the world still doesn't know and embrace the beauty of these outlets, but it's quite possible that web 2.0's popularity has made it that much more unattractive to the mountain bikers of today.

What about 2009?
Maybe I'm wrong. I hope I am. I want to see and hear from more people than I have email/phone time for. I want to have updates about sponsorships and races and injuries and happenings brought to my phone. I'm just a 21st century digital boy. I want it all, and I want it now... so mountain bikers, bring it on.