BOULDER, Colo. (BRAIN) — Retired racer Dave Wiens has quickly moved from the board chair of the International Mountain Bicycling Association to becoming its executive director. He replaces Mike Van Abel who resigned as executive director last summer.
Wiens joined IMBA's board in January 2016 and was elected chairman in November.
Besides his offroad racing career, Wiens is the founder and executive director of Gunnison Trails, a non-profit organization based in Gunnison, Colorado. He is a member of the Mountain Bike Hall of Fame and also is an ambassador for the accessories brand Ergon.
Wiens plans to remain living in Gunnison and make fairly frequent trips to IMBA's headquarters in Boulder, he told BRAIN on Wednesday.
He said his priorities as executive director include reaching out to younger riders, who tend as a group not to be joiners, he noted.
"It's no secret that IMBA has had its challenges. IMBA's membership, while strong, hasn't grown a lot. We know there are way more mountain bikers than there are IMBA members. And the landscape is changing as my demographic group is getting older and we approach advocacy and joining groups in a different way than younger folks do," he said.
