The next is a industrial by Land Rover. Please watch it, as it’s crucial to understanding the remainder of this text.
The rationale I wished you to look at that video is as a result of after I take into consideration “bicycle touring” that industrial just about sums up how I think about my travels. After I watch that industrial, I see Land Rover not as a automotive maker, however because the creator of a way of life. To me, that industrial exhibits a automobile that not solely will get you from one place to the subsequent, however a automobile that stands as an emblem of journey, world journey, luxurious, fashion and respect.
The rationale I like that industrial (and Land Rovers) a lot is as a result of the picture the corporate tasks may be very a lot how I want to think about myself – adventuresome, worldly, fashionable, and hopefully… revered.
However as I shared in my earlier article on the notion of bicycle vacationers, this picture I so desperately need for myself is normally not the best way I (and different bicycle vacationers) come throughout to most people. As an alternative of being seen as fashionable and revered world vacationers, we are sometimes occasions seen by the general public in a way that’s lower than interesting.
However Think about This…
Think about for a second that the perceived picture of bicycle vacationers was immediately and without end modified. As an alternative of being seen as “loopy nuts” on bikes, think about what it could be like if we had been seen in an analogous gentle as Land Rover.
With this new picture, bicycle vacationers would now be seen as stylish world vacationers. We’d be revered and seemed as much as for our first-hand data of the world. And we’d be seen as fashionable and good trying members of our international society.
However most significantly, think about what it could be like if the picture we put out not solely made us look good, but in addition made folks so fascinated by what we had been doing that they’d really need to be part of our motion!
The Bicycle Touring Way of life
Should you watch any Land Rover industrial, you will notice that the themes of journey, world journey, fashion and luxurious are without end current. And whereas these themes are vital to Land Rover’s advertising and marketing message, it’s the life-style of the Land Rover proprietor that’s actually being offered right here.
Individuals who purchase a Land Rover are usually not simply shopping for a automotive. They’re shopping for a lifestyle!
Now think about for a second that bicycle touring was not simply an exercise you probably did on the weekends or a one time factor you do over your summer time break, however as a substitute, a way of life! Think about how bicycle touring, backed by a way of life model, may without end change the best way bicycle vacationers are perceived.
For the previous couple of months I’ve been discussing the bicycle touring life-style and I’ve been attempting to indicate how bicycle journey doesn’t simply should be a month-long cram session of day-long bike rides and fancy meals. What I’ve been attempting to indicate is that bicycle journey (for a few of us not less than) goes thus far past “touring” that there isn’t presently phrase to explain what we do.
Bicycle Touring And Past
Bicycle touring hasn’t modified a lot through the years and I imagine that is largely because of the truth that there isn’t any life-style behind the expertise. Most bicycle vacationers take a single journey after which return to their regular lives, forgetting about their tour only a few months later.
However what if there have been a way of life behind “bicycle touring”? What if a brand new technology of vacationers had been to emerge and break free from the standard bike touring world with a very new, life-style pushed type of bicycle journey?
Assume of the present fixie revolution. Single pace observe bikes are nothing new, however the younger, hip people who find themselves now driving fixies have introduced the bikes into their life-style. The bike was nothing new, however the twist that these younger riders have given the bike has introduced it again in a approach nobody may have ever imagined.
Now think about if one thing related had been to occur with bicycle touring?
What I’m speaking about here’s a new form of bicycle touring. A type of touring that’s so new and so fashionable, that we not name it “touring”, however one thing else completely.
With the economic system in a lurch, biking extra widespread than ever, and journey nonetheless extremely desired in our society, I imagine a brand new type of bicycle touring is sure to emerge within the years to come back that’s each fashionable and life-style pushed. In actual fact, I feel we have now an obligation to convey bicycle touring as much as present occasions… to reinvent the game… and to as soon as and for all, get the general public enthusiastic about touring by bike.
Over the subsequent few years, I predict {that a} new wave of bicycle vacationers goes to emerge and these folks will without end change the requirements of conventional bicycle touring. These folks will elevate the bar, play a special sport, and play it higher than anybody has any proper to imagine is feasible!
This new “way of life” won’t be for everybody… and that’s okay! However I feel that for a few of us, this new life-style pushed exercise will dramatically change the best way touring cyclists are perceived.
I plan to debate this extra in a future publish, as that is one thing that has obtained me extraordinarily excited for the time being. However within the meantime, I’d like to listen to your ideas.
Do you agree with my notion of Land Rovers? Is the model actually constructed behind a way of life as I assume? And do you assume it’s doable for a bicycle touring life-style to emerge from the standard bicycle touring world? Let me know your ideas by leaving a remark under.
However first, watch this one final industrial from Land Rover… and inform me you wouldn’t need to be part of that “Way of life”.
Vary Rover picture by Bbaunach. Fixie picture by Solo, With Others