Owning Adventure

Which brings me to adventure. There are parallels here. Adventure is back in fashion. Adventure film festivals are more popular than ever, social media is overflowing with #adventure, and high street billboards use adventure to sell anything from bank accounts to train tickets. Adventure can be found everywhere it seems, but is that a healthy place to be? I’ve long argued that the mountain bike is the perfect tool for adventure, opening up new places and immersing you deeper into the wild. But whether you’re riding singletrack in Sudan or in Sweden, there’s an important distinction between mountain biking as a recreation and the potential for adventure it offers. They are not the same.

So what is adventure? Adventure is usually defined as an unusual, exciting, or daring experience, underlined by an uncertain outcome. Of course what makes something ‘daring’ or ‘exciting’ will depend on our own personal experiences, social background, and outlook on life. No, there is no single, pre-set threshold for adventure, but today we have a world that has run riot with the misuse of the word. Relatively predictable, safe, daily-life decisions—deciding what to eat on a restaurant menu or buying