the fat bike is increasingly popular, but a big issue could lead to the closure or slow down the development of trails: network managers are having difficulty finding insurance that would protect them against lawsuits in the event of an accident. And this, even if it is not a particularly dangerous activity.
Posted at 11:30 a.m.
The season of fat bike opened with a little delay this year at the Outdoor Club of Saint-Donat, while it finds insurance that covers both this activity and mountain biking. We had to pay the price and make immense efforts to meet the requirements of insurers, in particular with irreproachable signage.
“It’s funny to say that it ends well when it costs 10 times more than before,” says Francis Tétrault, head of mountain biking at Vélo Québec. There is an insurance issue. We see it in mountain biking, but it exists for the rest of outdoor activities, to varying degrees. »
The lack of insurance or exorbitant premiums can jeopardize the survival of certain networks, in addition to slowing down the development of new trails. For small municipalities and clubs, it’s complicated.
A lot is asked of clubs that are run by volunteers and have few resources.
Francis Tétrault, head of mountain biking at Vélo Québec
Risk management
“Insurers have trouble understanding the risks involved in the practice,” says Francis Tétrault. For it to be better evaluated, it is necessary to professionalize this practice. »
This is the arduous — and necessary — path that the Club de plein air de Saint-Donat embarked on last summer, when it realized that its insurer would stop covering mountain biking and fat bike from November 30. “We started the exercise of looking for a new insurer in the fall, says Jean-Pierre Gingras, one of the members of the club’s board of directors. I understood that if we wanted to put the insurer at ease, we had to demonstrate that we had a risk management program. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Mountain biking is more risky than fat bike. But even there, Francis Tétrault, of Vélo Québec, estimates that the accident rate per number of participants is lower than what we see in snowmobiling and alpine skiing.
Already, the club had spent the summer installing signage on the trails, in particular to identify challenges and avoidance routes.
“We set up an intervention program with the firefighters, with beacons in the network, says Jean-Pierre Gingras. We put up posters at the different entrances to give the levels of difficulty and give warnings. We tried to do our best to show that we were managing the risk. »
The broker went to market with a solid case… only to come back with a $25,000 bounty proposal, 10 times what the club was paying before. “I told the broker that with everything we had done, I couldn’t believe we had a bonus of that level,” recalls Mr. Gingras. He replied that if I had not presented this program, the insurer would not even have wanted to insure me. »
The club got other offers, but went back to the first one and managed to bring the premium down slightly by adding a trail inspection and maintenance program and finding an innovative way to get a form signed. of risk recognition to practitioners who present themselves at different access points: a QR code which allows them to register and sign the online form.
The bill remains salty. Jean-Pierre Gingras hopes that it will decrease over the years, as insurers have more tools to assess the risk of mountain biking.
Build a case
PHOTO PATRICK SANFAÇON, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Insurers put the fat bike (or fat tire bike) in the same category as mountain biking when it comes to risk.
For its part, Vélo Québec is developing tools that could facilitate dialogue, such as standardized accident forms that would finally make it possible to have Québec statistics to present to insurers.
It is said that mountain biking is dangerous, but in terms of accidents by number of practitioners, one would be at the bottom of snowmobiling and downhill skiing. But we don’t have the data to prove it.
Francis Tétrault, head of mountain biking at Vélo Québec
the fat bike got involved in all this debate even if the risk is even lower for this activity. “If you fall, you fall in the snow”, observes Jean-Pierre Gingras. The elevation of the trails of fat bike is also much lower than what is found in mountain biking.
The Saint-Donat Outdoor Club was finally able to open its hiking trails fat bike in mid-December. And in fact, the little delay was a good thing. “We had rain, snow, rain,” says Jean-Pierre Gingras. If we had hit immediately, it would have become hard, icy. The delay allowed us to make a nice surface. You have to see the good sides. »
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