The biggest threats to maintaining fat bike trails: climate change and volunteer burnout

(Press-News.org) Outdoor recreation voluntary associations (ORVAs) play a crucial role in creating, maintaining and managing trail systems across North America. New research conducted by researchers from the University of Eastern Finland (Finland) and Lakehead University (Canada) highlights how climate disruption and volunteer burnout threaten the long-term sustainability of winter trail-based recreation, particularly fat biking.

Fat bikes are off-road bicycles with extra-wide tyres built for soft terrain like snow and sand. Fat biking lets riders enjoy trails year-round and is fast becoming a popular winter recreation and tourism activity both in North America and the Nordic countries.

Published in the Journal of Outdoor Recreation and Tourism, the new study explores how fat biking has unexpectedly emerged as a climate-adaptive strategy for year-round recreation and tourism engagement, and event hosting, in Northwestern Ontario (Canada) and Northeastern Minnesota (USA). The study surveyed and interviewed fat bikers and outdoor recreation volunteers in both regions.

“Although a relatively new sport, fat biking, like most winter recreational sports, now faces similar challenges associated with climate change-induced changes in seasonal weather patterns, like snow accumulation, and following increasingly frequent one-off severe weather events,” say Professor Harvey Lemelin of Lakehead University’s School of Outdoor Recreation, Parks and Tourism.

According to Professor Lemelin, these unpredictable events strain volunteer resources, and in the absence of effective management solutions to address increased demand, infrastructure growth, and trail maintenance and grooming pressure, they directly contribute to volunteer burnout.

Research shows that while fat biking participation is growing, volunteer support lags. In interviews, volunteers reported increasing strain during heavy snow years, citing higher demands on their time, pressure to maintain trails and a lack of effective recruitment and retention strategies. This is juxtaposed against the fact that, although fat bikers appreciate the work of volunteer trail groomers and event organisers, over 40% of those surveyed said they were unlikely to volunteer with local ORVAs. Volunteer burnout is therefore a growing risk, and without new management strategies, climate disruption and unpredictable weather events risk overwhelming the small pool of dedicated volunteers who sustain trail networks.

The study therefore calls for ORVAs to develop seasonal trail grooming and volunteer recruitment strategies, rotate co-hosting duties for fat bike events to distribute workload, create binational or biannual events to showcase trails while reducing local volunteer strain and to implement volunteer recognition programmes and succession planning to strengthen long-term sustainability.

These strategies, the authors argue, are vital to ensuring safe, well-maintained trails and the continued growth of fat biking in regions facing climate disruption.

“While based on research conducted in North America, our study’s findings have implications for regions with similar climates and comparable snowsport development and engagement histories, such as the Finnish Lakeland Region, Jämtland and Västerbotten in Sweden, and the Nordland and Troms regions of Norway,” says Postdoctoral Researcher Kelsey Johansen of the University of Eastern Finland.

“Implementing our recommendations, irrespective of where an ORVA operates will help ensure their ability to deliver high-quality winter recreational and tourism experiences, including safe, well-groomed trails and regularly occurring events”.

This research received financial support from the UEF Water research programme, which is jointly funded by the Saastamoinen Foundation, the Jenny and Antti Wihuri Foundation, and the Olvi Foundation.

END