Some of you regular site users may remember that once upon a time many many moons ago we ran a Big Questionnaire Survey on the site, to find out about you, our users, and how we can make the site better for you. We also ran the survey to find out about website wish lists, and also to compile lists of you interested in group rides, helping with the site and so on. Well I know its been along time, but we finally now have the the final published data and results of the survey...

Some of the data we obviously cant publish on a public site, but some of it we can, and some of it might be interesting to some of you, and maybe not to others (apologies if you fall under that category!). With the information we have collected we will adjusting the website and altering new features requested by you guys and gals that we reckon would benefit the site. Some of the alterations you guys requested have since been installed whilst the survey has been running over the past two years.

Those of you interested in Group Rides will be hearing from us again soon, and all you should have been added to our newsletter listing (if you requested to be). If you don't receive a newsletter sometime soon drop us an email and I will make sure your added to the list...

Anyway enough of my ramblings, the results listed in order as the questions were asked.... (drum roll please...)

What's your style?

Always helpful for us to know what MTB disciplines were needing to cater for. A lot of people would argue our site is XC and/or DH biased, but they are the main disciplines, as backed up by the survey results. For other disciplines we need help covering them, such as 4x, DJ etc as none of us here at Bmtb ride those styles... get in touch if you wish to help with content...

How Many bikes owned per rider?

Pretty self explanatory this one. It seems the majority of you own 2 bikes, and that most of you who do ride two different MTB disciplines, the common ones being XC and DH.

Top 10 Bike Brands?

Here, we worked out what the top 10 most common/popular Bike Brands owned were amongst you...

The Top 10 bike brands as owned by YOU, the local riders, in order most popular/common first:

Other Bike brands?

Now, we cleverly (not) worked out the top 10 bike brands of the bikes owned by you guys and gals out there. However many of you own other brands other than those above. Other Bike Brands owned by you, the LOCAL riders included;

Orange, Dawes, Balfa, Cannondale, Mountain Cycle, Intense, Mongoose, Diamond back, Iron Horse, Raleigh, BMX (Various), Merlin, Carrera, Revell, 24Seven, Banshee, Zona, Norco, Devinci, Santa Cruz, On-One, Avent, Gary Fisher, Schwinn, Dirty Jo, Yeti, Brodie and Foes.

You and your bike?

An interesting one we found here was the the majority of you had enough spare cash to buy your bikes new - always nice to be able to do! A couple of you lucky people even managed to win you bikes in competitions!

A useful one for us to feed onto our local shop contacts etc is how many of you are leaving bikes as stock of upgrading them. Many of you did the normal thing of buying it and leaving it as is or upgrading it as you went along.

How much of your hard earnt cash do you spend a year of MTB gear?

We asked the dreaded question you rather hadn't been asked! How much money a year do you reckon you spend on MTB stuff (bikes/kit/gear etc). The results are shown below in a bar chart. Its quite obvious that there's quite a lot of spending going on, especially in the £500+ bracket a year...

How did you get into MTB Riding?

This I think is always a nice result to see. Its good to see how many of us were born into MTB by the simple tools of friends or from riding as kids, we after all none of us ever really grow up...

MTB Club?

We asked you if you were a member of a MTB club. 36% of you said you were a member of a MTB club, the most common of which was Aston Hill MTB. 40% of you said you weren't members of clubs and 24% of you were looking to join a club.

Website Improvements and additions?

Well it was nice to see a varied list from you all regarding what you would like to see added to or improved on the website.

A large number of you (39%) were craving Group Rides. What can we say, were trying. Keep an eye on the homepage, forum and newsletters for news on trail group rides coming soon.

A reasonably large majority of of you (14%) asked for more Trail Guides to be added to the site - this is always top of our agenda, but one of the most difficult and time consuming tasks to do! Watch this space though for new trail guides heading your way soon..

We had various other requests including more interviews, more race results and race blurb, more UK wide and Global MTB News. Other requests included items such as Tech Tips and reviews, which we are always trying to add to constantly. A handful of requests asked for the reviews section to be rebuilt which it since has been!

The hardest job for us is balancing the content of the site between all the different MTB disciplines. We had comments about the site being to Downhill orientated, and others saying its too XC orientated. We apologise if at times one riding style out ways another in website content, but its all a juggling act and depends what events are on, and what events we can cover etc. Requests for Dirt Jump and Street MTB coverage were welcomed, however as none of us here on the bmtb team do either discipline we will need some help from fellow riders to bring DJ and street coverage through to the site...

All other requests, comments and ideas were all hugely welcomed. There were certainly some fantastic ideas out there, which we shall try to incorporate into the site over the next few months.

Bucksmtb Merchandise?

There was a fantastic interest shown for Bucksmtb Merchandise including items such as Stickers, Sweat bands, race tops, jerseys, t-shirts, car graphics, banners, and multi tools.

Our original stocks of t-shirts, jerseys and stickers are sadly well gone - collectors items now, get on ebay! ;-)

We are still working through different ideas for merchandise and an online store. It costs a lot of money to keep large stocks of gear, which is a problem. However the site needs to move forward, and we now know the most common merchandise that you are after, so watch this space and we will update you to any news on a shop and stock as we get there...

Do you ride all year round?

We were pleased to see that the vast majority of you ride all year round - good to hear!!! All year riding keeps you out riding and hones those skills on different trail conditions. Keep it up...

Do you use local shops or online stores?

This result is an interesting one to feed back to our supporting shops and companies. There wasn't much in it but slightly more of you are using your local bike shops - this we feel is good, its always good to support the small shops. Online stores are obviously proving popular with cheaper discounted prices and prompt delivery, but websites (except ours ;-) ) don't give you that nice one to one customer satisfaction like your local shop does...

How far do you travel to ride?

This little question is most useful for us to know how many of you might be willing to travel to meet for group rides. the majority of you travel more than 10 miles to ride spots, with many of you answering that you travel long distances to races too. Group rides wise, as we are covering the vast county of Buckinghamshire along with users in Oxon, Herts, Berks, London etc its good to know some of you aren't scared of a wee ride or drive...

How many times a week do you ride?

This was a nice result. We have a nice variation across the board showing there's almost as many of us riding several times a week as  there are of us riding just once or twice a week.

Contributing to the website content?

It was good to see a large portion of you (79%), the users, said you were interest in contributing to website content. If you are then please just send it in! We have always welcomed any content (whatever it is) with open arms; trail guides, tech tips, photos, news, stories etc. Whatever the score send it in and we will get it up online, and of course credit the work to your good self!

Bucksmtb is only run us a part time venture by 3 guys, sadly as always time is the major problem with building site content, so if you have anything you would like to see online, or you see something we need why not write it up and send it in! Race reports and event reviews are always greatly received too, as our scope for visiting events is restricted by our everyday jobs.

Have something you would like to see on the site? Yes? Send it in - bucks_mtb@hotmail.com

Interest in Group Rides?

I know, I know - before you start saying we promised group rides years ago, we do know! We apologies immensely for the lack of any group rides so far.

The problem is actually made worse now we have processed the big questionnaire info, as we have so many riders of different disciplines and different fitness levels spread out over such a large area of Bucks, Herts, London, Oxon, Berks etc etc. We are still trying to get rides organised, and I suspect they will end up Forum organised, for ease of use and to help riders meet others in their locations and to get regular rides organised faster than we can!

Our HQ here is based perfectly near the Chiltern Hills for rides, but we do seem to be serving an area much vaster than just Buckinghamshire. This means rides wont be so regular as we will need to go research rides and areas before we can hold events. For this reason those of you listed as interested in helping out, if you would like to help organise rides (with or without us via the Forum) feel free and please get in touch with us via phone or email. It would be a great bonus if some of you could help us find locations to stage events, and help out on the day if you can, and then hopefully we can start to head out further a field and organise rides to suit all...

Watch this space. Group rides are coming, soon...

The Results, what do they mean?

The main reason for our little Questionnaire survey was just to find out about you, the riders and users of Bucksmtb. From the results we can see what we need to add to and improve on the existing website.

We also found out about the number of you interested in group rides and merchandise.

Even though your survey results are purely 100% confidential, and they will stay that way I promise, we do have a few interesting results that we can forward onto our local shops about shops used (local or online) and so on.

Thank you all for taking part in the survey, and we will endeavour to add as many of the requested items as possible, and as always we are always looking for ways to improve the website for you the users.

Watch this space for new additions and improvements coming soon...

Kindest Regards

The Bucksmtb.co.uk Team

If you don't get our Email Newsletters register in the control box below to receive our regular email newsletter keeping you up to date on events, new additions to the site and upcoming news on our Group Rides for 2008/2009

Sign up to our regular email newsletter