>He then throws in salacious and irrelevant intimations about race and class

He's not totally wrong about those things (though I think it's class that matters orders of magnitude more than race). In enthusiast communities where the bar to entry is low (most outdoor recreation is cheap to do at a basic level) there's a class segregation effect. I can't quite put my finger on it or describe the details but there's definitely community/social pressure to make things needlessly expensive and develop an attitude of "if your wallet can't support going all out don't go at all" as a bar to entry.