In many outdoor sports, such as rock climbing or whitewater sports, difficulty ratings are mandatory when describing trips and routes. They allow athletes to assess their own skills against the natural conditions while planning an activity. This minimizes the risk of overestimating one’s abilities due to poor planning. Although a wide variety of difficulty scales exist in climbing across different countries and continents, they are harmonized in detail and are therefore comparable for athletes (see UIIA Guidebook).
In mountain biking, too, there are different scales for rating routes. However, even experts agree that the existing systems and descriptions are hardly comparable with one another, as objective standards for assessing mountain bike routes have largely been lacking to date (Böhler et al., 2006, p. 53). Another point of criticism is that some scales evaluate only the technical difficulty of a route or trail without taking into account the potential hazards that may arise from a wide variety of factors in the immediate vicinity of the trail (e.g., drop-offs, sharp rocks, etc.). It seems reasonable, however, that beginners in particular are influenced by such hazard parameters when deciding: “Should I ride, or would it be better to get off and walk?”
In a study on ski mountaineering, Ellert et al. (2011) found that, especially for beginners, assessing hazardous areas is a key component in evaluating athletic challenges. Professional athletes, on the other hand, perceive hazardous sections but pay them far less attention (ELLERT et al., 2011).
The goal of this study is therefore to investigate the relationship between technical difficulty and potential risk in the subjective assessment of mountain bike trails. Particular attention is paid to possible differences between beginner and advanced mountain bikers.
The following studies have been conducted for this thesis to date: