The Parks Victoria Program that this project has been developed under is called ‘Healthy Parks, Healthy People’ and the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination among the six objectives advanced as reasons for its development is to:
“Enhance the health and wellbeing of the community – The trails will benefit riders who use the trail by providing an enjoyable experience, as well as exercise and associated health and well-being benefits. Members of the local and broader community can be expected to exercise more and become healthier as a result of the construction of the trails. Assuming that the average cycle period is 2.5 hours, the present value of indirect health benefits is estimated to be $47.1 million over a 10-year period for Victorian users.”
However, not all these projected benefits stack up due to:
- Impact on other sports and recreations in the area
- Injuries vs Health benefits
- The unattractiveness of an extreme sport to many users
- That the $47.1 million savings over a 10 year period is based on a study that is 80% walkers, 10% cyclists and no mountain bikers – none
- That the low injury rate used by the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination is based on a study with no mountain biking and no extreme sports.
Impact on Other Sports and Recreations
Walking, running, hiking, horse and pony clubs, offlead dog park, golf, tennis, football and netball
The illegally built trails on Mt Tugwell have already been built on walking trails rendering them inaccessible to those who previously walked them. These trails are planned to be incorporated into the Warburton mountain Bike trails and popular walking trails have also been used by mountain bikers on Mt. Little Joe causing walkers to abandon them as well. Many more will lose their amenity due to intersecting mountain bike trails. Walking is the number one sport for participation (53% of Victorians walk for recreation while 2.2% mountain bike), it is gender neutral with a near 50/50 participation in all studies and is suitable for the elderly and children. It is precisely these categories who need exercise the most. Woman get less exercise than men so it is a government priority to offer more opportunities for women to exercise – so they support a 90% male dominated sport over female and 50/50 participation sports.
Wesburn Park is being developed as the main trailhead for the Warburton Mountain Bike Destination. This is impacting the Horse and Pony Clubs and the Offlead Dog Park that operate there – both forms of exercise. The building of the Wesburn Pump Track has placed an advanced rider head to head racetrack within metres of a young children’s playground without any fencing. This is impacting the use of these recreational facilities.
The Warburton Golf Club is planned to be the major hub for the Warburton section of the Mountain Bike Destination. The bikes are planned to have trails enter the Golf Course at the top and ride all the way to the bottom to reach the clubhouse and car parking. This will compromise the amenity of the golfers.
In the Warburton Urban Design Framework, (which is a requirement for the Mountain Bike Destination to make Warburton better able to accommodate tourists) the Tennis courts will be removed for a road extension and the courts relocated to Warburton Recreation Reserve, their 120 year old Clubhouse will be requisitioned for other purposes while in the reserve the football clubhouse and the netball clubrooms will be demolished. A new single pavilion will be built to house all sports together (including tennis players). This will decrease the amenity of all these sports including the loss of space to display their awards and other memorabilia.
Injuries
Mountain Biking is considered an ‘extreme’ or ‘xtreme’ sport. The definition of an extreme sport is one where the participant risks serious injury. These injuries are simply ignored when these sports are promoted as ‘healthy’. The health of a sport should be decided not simply on an analysis of fitness benefits, but should always be balanced by an analysis of injuries as well. This is something that Medical Researchers and Medical Insurers are trying there best to convey to government with little success. It is Medical Researchers who should be deciding what is a ‘healthy’ sport – supported by good statistical analysis. The government has refused to direct hospitals to collect information on sporting injuries and supply them to the Australian Bureau of Statistics to make these vital statistics available to researchers. Most studies have to be based on more limited data from individual hospitals, insurance companies or self reporting from Mountain Bikers interviewed at events or in magazines.
The Warburton Mountain Bike Destination EES documentation on health makes claims that Mountain Biking is a low injury sport based on a study that has no mountain biking in it – it is predominantly based on bipedal sports with recreational walking being the biggest category. The health savings touted of $47.1 million is based on a study that is 80% walking with no mountain biking component.
Warburton Mountain Bike Health Submission and PowerPoint Presentation
Mountain_Biking_Injuries (In detail)
Osteoarthritis from old sports injuries is another cause for concern:
Osteoarthritis from sports injuries – cycling
Then there are the costs of injuries. The average cost of a broken arm is $5,800. It is estimated that the average spend of each mountain biker day tripper to Warburton will be $80. No one on either side of the divide believes this to be likely. Many mountain bikers pack their own lunch, others will buy a pie and a coke or share a pizza. Some will go to a cafe and have a nice meal. None of these things will cost $80 a head. But taking this over inflated number it would take only one broken arm to wipe off the advantage of 72.5 day trippers to Warburton and that doesn’t include time off work or any future problems with arthritis that is so prevalent in old injury sites. It also doesn’t count ambulance fees. There are more serious injuries than broken arms and one really serious injury could cost a lifetime of care and millions of dollars.
The real costs of sports injuries (Economic)
Andrew Swan, President of the Yarra Ranges Mountain Biking Association and Councillor Jim Childs of the Shire of Yarra Ranges, both promote that we will produce champions. Champions are not healthy. Read the injury costs to the health of any champion athlete to find out.
Here an excerpt from an article about Casey Brown, one of the sports top female athlete:
“Brown had her breakout year in 2011 when she placed second at the Canadian Championships and 16th overall in the world-and after years of hard work, she was crowned the Queen of Crankworx, dominating all 15 events in 2014. She placed second in 2015 and 2016.
“It might seem crazy, but that’s quite a long time for someone to stay up on top in the brutal, injury-prone world of mountain biking. Her secret? Never giving up. “I’ve broken my pelvis, lost teeth, split open my liver, broken my ribs and collarbone, and have knocked myself out,” she says. “But injuries are just a part of the sport. When you’re going full speed down a mountain, you’re bound to slip up every once in a while. If I got hurt and just gave up, I would never know what I could accomplish in the future.”
Casey Brown, mountain biker, inspires to test the limits
‘It’s their choice’ – it is not simply about choice if the government supports, funds and promotes these sports. Then it becomes a deliberate influence. The Project not only talks about bringing mountain biking to school children but the Yarra Ranges Mountain Biking Association is already teaching school children.
Acquired Brain Injuries
The most common mountain bike accident is when the rider falls over the handle bars. This can quite commonly cause head injuries and unfortunately that can sometimes mean brain damage. One of the recent discoveries in regard to brain injury is Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy. Caused by accumulated knocks to the head symptoms, can include increasing mood swings, memory loss, headaches, insomnia, fatigue, confusion, depression and suicidal ideation.
Highly under- diagnosed, deaths to this condition are often written off as suicide, or other causes. CTE can only be diagnosed after death and only if the relatives chose to donate the brain to a CTE brain bank. This rarely happens, however, the first diagnosis of CTE in a cyclist has been a BMX Champion called Dave Mirra:
theguardian.com/2016/may/24/bmx-dave-mirra-brain-trauma-disease-cte
theguardian.com/2016/feb/10/concussion-questions-haunt-bmx-riders-after-dave-mirras-death
Discussions about CTE are arising in Mountain Biking circles:
pinkbike.com/news/brain-injuries-in-mountain-biking-are-we-doing-enough-2016
Rethink Warburton Mountain Bike Destination 