I’ve met a lot of mountain bikers over the years and I’m always fascinated to meet people with diverse occupations out on the trail. So as a part of our enduro survey, we asked our readers: “What do you do for a living?” We did our best to crunch the numbers and group job titles into broad buckets like “IT / Technology” and “Construction,” and these are the results!
Among mountain bikers, by far the biggest job category is IT / Technology, and while this probably mirrors the US economy as a whole, it also makes sense that folks with a technical background can appreciate how bikes work. Students also make up a large portion of the mountain bikers we surveyed, which speaks to the fact that an active sport like mountain biking is popular among younger individuals.
According to our survey data (1,861 responses), only about 3.9% of mountain bikers are working in the cycling industry (this includes bike shop employees, trail builders, tour operators, etc.). We also categorized just over half of the occupations “white collar,” which actually mirrors the US economy as a whole. Of course it doesn’t hurt to have a white collar job if you’re a mountain biker–this sport can get expensive!
Finally, in going through the responses, I was personally struck by the number of interesting occupations mentioned. Sure, some were obviously meant in jest. (Porn star? Maybe in your dreams.) But others were genuinely unique. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a baseball scout or prop maker out on the trail, but apparently they are out there!
How does this chart fit the mountain bikers you know?
