Specialized’s Soil Searching aims to support trail builders and advocates around the World while telling their stories.
Pete sat down for a chat with Soil Searching main man Fanie Kok to see where Soil Searching came from, the ethos behind it and what the master plan is.
How did Soil Searching come about?
I used to work for Specialized South Africa, managing ambassadors, handling the local retailer education programme SBCU and running the demo bike programme, and we started supporting two local trail builders as ambassadors. This was unheard of in South Africa.
South Africa was, and still is, a very race-centric country, so it was already a very fresh idea for us to support trailbuilders as ambassadors. Then there were discussions somewhere, probably over beers, a campfire or at an event somewhere, where the guys from head office in Morgan Hill, California asked, “why do people think we’re a bunch of dicks?”
It boiled down to a conversation about connecting back to riding communities and why people ride. We needed to connect back with what is actually happening on the ground. I always had a good relationship with the team in California, Joe Buckley and Sam Benedict specifically. One thing led to another and my name got put forward, as I was a guy who can make things up as I go along – the subtle art of winging it. Maybe it was just that the US team found my name very interesting, and intriguing to the American ear, anyways… I started working for Specialized global out of California, in what was an experimental market research project.
I was tasked with a product and market research excursion, going out and learning what was happening in mountain bike communities, establish connection were there was none, and reporting back on my findings. I proposed that we should centre the project on trail builders and trail advocates within those communities, more so than the bike shops. We connected with many shops as well. In some places shop staff actually had it written into their job description to do X amount of hours community trail work per month. but then there are local shops who don’t know what’s happening in their own communities, which is kind of alarming.
The first meeting I had was in Marin County, the birthplace of mountain biking. This meeting set the course for what would eventually become Soil Searching. Marin County is one of the most contested places on Earth to build new trails or open up existing trails. I thought that if this is happening in the birthplace of mountain biking, how much more of this is happening around the World…?
The bones of Soil Searching was us, as Specialized, realising that there’s a disconnect between the industry, the people riding the bikes and the people in between who make this entire connection possible. They are the trail builders and trail advocates, the backbone. We realised that we can and should do something about that.
It goes without saying that the name Soil Searching was a play on soul searching, and the soul of mountain biking, which is the trail. If the trail is the soul of mountain biking, how does it actually get there? Then you start to learn about the souls behind the trails. You know as well as I do that anyone who builds trails or advocates for trails has a pretty fascinating story.
Once you’d made that decision, what happened next?
It was never really a thing that had been done before, so it was difficult to benchmark and find an approach to take. It seemed there was this subliminal expectation that if you’re a big company that’s made it in the industry, that you have to write big cheques to trail advocacy organisations. I mean, we’ve done those things, but that just seems like a somewhat absent, almost ignorant, approach to the whole thing. You write the cheque, and you hope something good comes of it, and you hope that the wheels keep on turning.
I wanted to learn the stories and about the people, people like Vernon Huffman who is the president of Access for Bikes in Marin County. Vernon has been standing in the gap for mountain bikers in Marin for over 20 years. Sitting down with him over dinner made me realise that there are so many of these stories out there, before going for a ride with him the next day and seeing that his shoes are coming apart at the seams, his helmet has got a crack in it, his bike is creaking… It made me realise that something wasn’t right here.
It made me think about the ways we could get involved without getting into the weeds of legislation and city council meetings… There’s no better person to know what’s happening in Marin County, he’s the man on the front lines, fighting the good fight. As a brand, we can get him some new shoes, a new helmet and then even take it to the next level by making him a brand ambassador and get him a bike too.
That was the route, unconventional as it was, that we took into what would ultimately become Soil Searching. We would make trail builders and advocates brand ambassadors. This would create stoke and motivation in them to keep charging.
Everyone knows these grafters who need a bit of product support to help keep their stoke levels high. That’s when we decided to formalise it.
I certainly don’t think we were the first brand to support trail builders, but what we did was not just support the trail builders with product, but also to tell their stories. The follow through of that is the dig days and fundraising events, so there is a boots-on-the-ground element to it too.
We wanted to take the stories of people like Vernon, bring it in house, and get involved before simply writing a cheque. I honestly feel that should be the last resort. Before you write the cheque, first do some work and get your hands dirty. Building solid and sincere relationships.
How did you go about finding the trail builders/advocates?
That’s a whole book in and of itself…
Going to Marin County to meet Vernon was the key. I thought I was going to see bikes everywhere, but it was the exact opposite. Vernon would then connect me to other people doing the same kind of work. We’d follow up on those leads and we’d have a similar chat with them, and they would then suggest more people to speak to.
Not all of the stories are those of an uphill battle like Vernon’s, some of them are happier tales of success. One of those visits that stands out is to the Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship in Downieville. I’d say they’re one of, if not the, most successful trail advocacy groups in the World. They have turned an old mining town into a global mountain bike destination, employing full time trail builders, and turning dig days into celebrations and parties.
A lot of it is word of mouth. Georgia (Specialized UK) told me about this mythical guy called Tattoo Dave. Georgia and the Specialized UK team have already hooked Dave up previously with a bike that wasn’t falling to pieces, but the time came for a replacement, so we got Dave one of the custom Soil Searching Kenevos.
It’s a very intuitive process. We don’t want to go down the route of having every trail builder send in an application. I still get those applications, but that’s not really the way we go about it. We were very aware that it needed to be a global setup and inclusive, it can’t just be a group of middle-aged, privileged white dudes. We want it to be a conglomerate of people, from all backgrounds, genders, ethnicities and cultures. I have twenty global ambassadors, on every continent. It’s grown arms and legs from there and markets like Specialized UK are supporting local trail heroes. Hopefully that will trickle down to the bike shops, where trail builders in the community will receive some support from their local bike shop, be it a free bike service or some trailside beers after a hard day’s graft.
Is there a standard format that Soil Searching follows?
I guess some people would say there’s a “winging it” element to it, but buzzwords like “spontaneous” and “organic” are how I would describe it. Fixing yourself to one way of thinking means you’re not going to grow. We’re walking the line between focus and flexibility.
It has become a lot more formalised in the sense that we’ve got globally supported trail builders as brand ambassadors, we’ve dig days happening all over the world, all of which have a similar look and feel to them, alongside fundraisers happening globally.
The fourth element that got introduced recently under the Soil Searching umbrella is product. We’ve just made the new Specialized trail tyres, and added the Soil Searching logo, proceeds of which will go to trail development around the world. This was the next step in the Soil Searching story. We’re no longer doing the right thing, just because it’s the right thing to do, but we can now actually use our product to do it and truly make it a tangible part of our company’s DNA.
How does Spesh HQ support their regional HQs in rolling out Soil Searching?
There’s the supporting the regional HQs and managing the global ambassadors, so there’s a lot to do. I am a team manager of sorts. Managing this global team of builders and advocates is one side of what I do, getting them product and making sure their contracts are dialled in, so that goes back to the formalising of the programme. I should add that one of the terms in the contract is to “keep digging and share the stoke”, which is arguably the most important part of that piece of paper.
The product element has been hard work. As you know we’re experiencing a global shortage, and I have been planning two years ahead. I have not long been off the phone to earmark Soil Searching ambassador bikes for 2023.
Supporting the local markets is another thing. We have a document called the Trail Map, most would call it a white paper, which is a step-by-step breakdown of how Soil Searching can be implemented at the local level. This allows the local markets to support ambassadors, organise dig days, host fundraisers and everything else that Soil Searching is.
A key component of the Soil Searching setup is the storytelling element. We’re not telling these stories to blow our own proverbial trumpets. We are using our platform to not just tell a story of our product, which we’ve been good at doing in the past, but to shine a spotlight on the trail legends in the shadow of our sport in an inspirational and engaging way.
Before lockdown, I was away more than 200 days out of the year in different places supporting our ambassadors. That was pretty intense, but it’s now a case of being more involved and hands-on with Specialized markets around the world who are busy setting up Soil Searching at a local level.
In short – Specialized Soil Searching is not just a spotlight on trail building, rather, it’s building the mountain bike community, with trail building, storytelling, fundraising, ambassador support as the backdrop.
It’s not even a campaign at this stage anymore, because a campaign starts and it finishes. I’ll spare you contrived terms like “movement” or “revolution”, so let’s just say it’s a programme within Specialized that will be long-lasting. It’s the next level of empowering people on the ground.
Favourite moments?
You can’t ask that, that’s an unfair question… I reserve my right to decline to answer…
Any disasters?
At the very beginning, in its prototype, winging it, experimental phase back in 2015, I once ran out of petrol in the middle of the Nevada Desert with my wife. The road where we ran out of juice is quite spectacularly known as ‘America’s Loneliest Highway.’ I am not going to disclose the entirety of the story to you, because the kid we found that acquired us some unleaded 95 from a government institution may still be on the wanted list…
Needless to say, we got the petrol and got going. At that moment, my wife said she realised that no matter what situation we get into, I’ll have a plan to get us out of it, even if it means cutting myself open… The next day, the romantic notion had vanished and she also realised that it would probably be me that got us into that situation in the first place.
Honestly, the most memorable moments are the ones where someone’s life has been impacted by something we’ve done through Soil Searching. These are the moments that make us realise that this isn’t a fleeting, meaningless thing.
Plans going forward?
If this has to be effective and long lasting, and reach the goal we’ve set ourselves, there has to be a central place where all this lives. I have benchmarked a lot of this on what Patagonia are doing with Action Works, specifically.
Action Works was formalised as Patagonia gave away all their proceeds during Black Friday one year, and it turned into one of their best selling days ever. Action Works links people to activists who are passionate about their cause and helps amplify their voice.
My goal and vision is that everything is in a central, dynamic place with more transparency and engagement. Georgia and the team in the UK will be able to see what teams on the other side of the planet are doing and connect with them.
Bringing more structure to this and allowing people to more easily get involved to make sure that this isn’t going to disappear is the vision for the future. We want to incorporate Soil Searching into more of our products. Our fundraiser with Access for Bikes in Marin raised $60,000 on a single bike raffle. I can’t write them a cheque for that amount, but it’s about getting that ethos into what we do.
The more radical idea is how we make mountain biking a part of a healthier and happier Planet Earth. Specifically in the realms of conservation and activism. These are the things that really fire me up, and we have dabbled in things like social justice and equality, but things can get convoluted and confusing very quickly.
I was in Tanzania the other day riding in the K2N event to raise awareness and support for the critically endangered Eastern Black Rhino. The event itself is also the main fundraiser for the conservation agriculture work of Redknot Development in rural communities. We’re taking mountain biking from advocacy to activism!
We’re all very lucky to be doing what we love in the cycle industry and there should be overflow, things that affect others in a positive way, and if there isn’t, then you probably don’t love it enough. Mountain bikers as a user group have an opportunity, and I’d say even an obligation, to catch up with other industries in establishing something where we really give a shit about our environment.
As a result of this global pandemic, lockdowns, and social confinement, I think all of us, cyclists and non-cyclists, have come to realise and appreciate to never take the act of being outdoors for granted.
We all want peace on earth, equal rights, and opportunities for everyone, and a healthy, thriving natural environment. All this should be the overflow of doing what we love. We shouldn’t have to wait until disaster and tragedy strikes, or policies changed before we act. It should be something that is at the core of everything we do. The cycle industry as a whole needs to make a collective effort, i.e. wake the f*ck up, when it comes to conservation and activism. I feel proud to work for a company that takes this seriously.
Okay, enough preaching from my pulpit pile of dirt. I reckon you get the message – “BE NICE, SAY HI”, as the ol’ faithful bumper sticker reminds us. Or, put differently, SHARE THE STOKE AND DON’T BE AN ASS.
