Marketing
Among all the activities performed by organizations such as companies, this is a concept defined as "creating the products or services that customers truly desire, delivering information about them, and ensuring that customers can effectively obtain that value." It also refers to the management philosophies, strategies, mechanisms, and processes for uncovering customer needs and creating customer value.
I used to be a mountain biker. Past tense.
Whenever I could find the time with my friends back then, we would freely ride through the mountains near Nagoya on routes known only to us, sometimes carrying our bikes to explore new territory, and I even had a history of quite seriously participating in cross-country races and events like Otaki.
However, a slump for the hobby of mountain biking itself arrived; one by one, the number of people heading into the mountains dwindled. In the end, due to selfish desires, self-serving interpretations, and a lack of proper educational outreach, trails where mountain biking was officially prohibited began to increase rapidly. Even in such times, my few remaining friends and I would slip hatchets into our backpacks and, under the guise of "patrolling," hustle around, doing our best to ensure the small mountain playgrounds that remained could be enjoyed by everyone. But we were still young and socially immature, and between the ever-worsening state of the trails, incompetent bikers and runners, and mountain village communism, I grew weary of the fact that this was, after all, a gray-zone activity that I couldn't quite be proud of, and I shifted the work I needed to do into a different vector.
By the time I started my own bike shop, that vector was aimed at having people perceive the tool known as a bicycle as an essential piece of infrastructure for everyone. I wanted to establish it as a convenient mode of transport for those living in the city and use every means available to make Nagoya proud as the strongest cycling town—not just as a buzzword, but to realize it in a genuinely essential sense.
Yet, deep in my heart, I always held the expectation that "if more people could have their hearts captured by this tool, they would surely start to want to purely enjoy going off-grid with a bicycle, just like I did." So, like Yoda, believing that if you want to take a shortcut, you must take the long way around, I orchestrated various events. Sometimes in the city, sometimes on tracks, sometimes on riverbeds, at a very gentle pace. Slowly but surely, I felt I was confirming that our sights were gradually shifting from the asphalt to the dirt, and toward the mountains.
For several years, I was lucky enough to work desk-to-desk with a man known as Date from the Nagoya-based NPO "Charinko Katsuyo Suishin Kenkyukai" (Bicycle Utilization Promotion Research Group), or "Chari-Ken" for short.
Though two grown men full of dreams may have had different ways of thinking, it was very fortunate that our target goals were extremely similar. We launched a program called the Gourmet Century, co-sponsored by SimWorks and Chris King. In holding it in a mountain village called Asuke-cho in Toyota City, we gained the opportunity to speak with many people living in the mountain areas. And as the winds of the era began to blow, Date wrote up a project proposal under the name of regional revitalization.
As naturally as breathing.
What we always talked about was that mountain biking should be driven by the same behavioral principles as surfing or snowboarding. The inefficient action of loading equipment into a van and heading to a site as an occasional activity was one of the driving forces that moved me away from skiing and toward bicycles. Having lived at a ski resort in the past, to put it bluntly, the "Take Me to the Ski Resort" style of special atmosphere is very much valued from an advertising perspective. However, that is merely a trend; while it may lead to an explosive short-term increase in numbers, as you can see from the current state of winter mountains, it eventually withers away (this might also apply to the recent Yowamushi Pedal boom). As a result, the costs required to maintain that "specialness" become too high, and eventually, one grows tired, and it ends. Recognizing these facts as facts, we always talked about how, ideally, mountain biking should be a habitual act, as natural as breathing—much like a surfer watching the conditions of the sea—where the users themselves, rather than advertisers or manufacturers, begin to conceive and take action in managing and maintaining the site.
That is where a certain company president from a mountain village appeared; he was contracted to handle production for a major Aichi-based corporation. He was the same age as us, had experience with mountain biking in the UK, and possessed a very global sensibility, considering whether the labor shortages in mountainous areas could be solved through activities. Date combined these ideas into a project proposal, and in fact, it received official endorsement from the Cabinet Office. Given our current need for a playground and our love for changing society through design, it led naturally to this trail construction project.
This time, we worked on creating a 3km trail leading from the summit to a jeep road. Along with many volunteers who shared the value of this project, participants included the district mayor who manages the town’s communal property, municipal officials who want to work in forestry in the future, and of course, mountain bikers and hikers. In about four hours of work, we created a trail that many people can enjoy with a nearly 100% rideability rate in this section.
Playing and Living
To digress a little here, the origin of Chris King's Gourmet Century was actually trail cutting. In an era when many cyclists were seeking freedom and places to play, and in California where the rules are strict, people gathered in forests endorsed by the government, called upon by Chris King to sweat and help build trails. Participating in this work made me feel even more strongly that the reward of a fantastic meal, camping, and a first ride on a freshly cut trail must have been the ultimate activity for them.
There is a public ride event scheduled for next March, and since there are two more construction events planned before then, why don't you self-proclaimed cyclists living near Aichi consider registering and participating in the work through the link below? By facing the trails being built little by little, I’m sure something will be born within you.
And please, don't ever misunderstand: this trail belongs to the people of the town; it is not just for cyclists. And I would like the general public to know that the bicycle is the ultimate means of transportation not just in the city, but in the mountains as well. My personal wish is that, beyond this, the phrase "Share the Trail"—carrying the same meaning as "Share the Road"—will permeate society. I hope for more "rich lives" to be created, where people with different hobbies understand the word "diversity," and just like breathing, those who want to be close to and face the mountains can beautifully layer their hobbies and lives like a mille-feuille.
Charinko Katsuyo Suishin Kenkyukai
After long years of marketing, it seems I’m finally ready to return to the mountains.
Text by Shinya Tanaka
Photo by Rie Sawada