The campaign now has a name…Mountain Bike Atlantic, and will begin using #mtbatlantic in all social media posts. Feel free to use this hashtag too.
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I was rooting for that one! And #shredlantic.
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Sounds great! #mtbatlantic
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Side bar… @rideeast is hosting a course on MTB instruction:
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An update on the Mountain Bike Atlantic project…
Mountain Bike Atlantic Briefing Notes.pdf (448.3 KB)
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Hi Folks,
May I respectfully suggest the project adopt a bilingual identity (Website, Hashtags, etc.) to be as inclusive as possible within the Atlantic provinces (NB is officially bilingual) and also to attract francophone riders from all over?
Cyrille
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Hi @cyrille welcome. The Mountain Bike Atlantic concept originated with a group in NB and also the steering committee is heavily weighted with folks from NB, so the bilingual aspect has certainly not been overlooked. The website that is currently being designed and built does have one-click access to French/English translation. The official hashtag is #mtbatlantic, but #mtbatlantique and #vdmatlantique are acceptable variations that you may see on social media.
Stay tuned, hoping to share some news about our progress and the logo/branding soon.
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When this was discussed the topic it got me curious enough to search some Quebec mtb groups to see what tags they were using. I did not find any #vdm. It was mostly #mtb variants.
Kinda defeats the point of a hashtag if you are the only one using it.
It definitely is a consideration. The rep from Sugarloaf (Dion?) was saying a lot of their riders are bilingual and they cater to Quebec tourists as well. So it is definitely important to the group.
What is your experience, @cyrille?
How do you search trails and MTB resources in francophone areas?
What tags are they using?
What can Mountain Bike Atlantic do to ensure the francophone riders feel welcome?
I think a bilingual site is one thing they will be doing but also marketing to the francophone tourism channels will happen I suspect.
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Bilingual person here.
I dont see the draw to use bilingual hashtags.
Website, and post captions on official social media accounts yes. (Also all of them offer a pretty understandable translation most of the time)
Hashtags not so much.
Lots of (all) French people I know call it MTB and not VDM in short form. A singular hashtag allows for more of the same posts to be posted under the same hashtag. That is what makes a hashtag successful.
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I have a lot of friends from QC who mountain bike and are very involved with the community there - they all hashtag bike stuff in english. It’s rare to see french hashtags.
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Hi all,
Thanks for the warm welcome 
Glad to hear that the francophone aspect of the initiative has been part of the discussions. I didn’t see that in prior messages so I just wanted to make sure it was. I offer my support to help in the process if needed.
I agree that there is probably no need for a francophone and an anglophone hashtag since most use the acronym MTB these days (#VDM is definitely not used anywhere). I was wondering if a hashtag like #MTBAtlantica wouldn’t serve us well since it is neither french nor english and we see the concept of “Atlantica” used more and more in reference to our region. If we push the reflexion a bit…maybe the whole initiative could even be called “Mountain Bike ATLANTICA Vélo de Montagne”. My view is that Atlantica brings an interesting marketing twist to the project… it’s a suggestion.
Cyrille
@cyrille that’s a really good idea, unfortunately the name and hashtag had to be settled weeks ago in order to meet the branding design deadlines and have the full campaign ready for rollout in September.
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Thanks Derek. I get that.
Anyway, the project is a great idea and hopefully all our MTB regions will be able to benefit from it. I’ve been advocating for a comprehensive approach like that for a while and I’m glad some of those pieces are finally coming together.
Cyrille
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If you’re on instagram you may have gotten a sneek peak at the Mountain Bike Atlantic logo/branding. It’s pretty slick, thanks to @timber and his team at Dose Media. Watch for the website and full marketing campaign to launch soon.
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