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?
I wonder if there is a skewing of this data in that people in IT who work on computers daily are more apt to sign up and complete a survey… Good cross section of the active member base online vs. actual riders, Just a thought,
Sorry, no plans to send surveys in the mail or conduct phone interviews in the near future. 🙂
Attach the survey to a 2016 yeti SB66c and mail it to Car Talk Plaza, Cambridge, MA (Our fair city)….
Retail running specialty store. Had to do something when I couldn’t run anymore. 🙂 Best decision I ever made.
I was surprised to see that there were no other pilots out there doing this. Of course I missed the survey as well.
There were 7 pilots who answered the survey, making it the 38th most common occupation. Not high enough to make the top 20 but definitely up there!
Student was third on the list..!
Hopefully they are not using their student loans to pay for cycling… I fall into the second group – Facilities Manager.
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Auto mechanic,
Mountain bike mechanic
Enduro, DH racing.
My local casino contributes to my racing each year.