Trail building is the heart and soul of mountain biking. We owe a lot to those dedicated to creating trails that inspire us, connect us to the land, and teach us something about ourselves whether it’s our ability to meet new challenges or conquer our fears. For many of us, trails have become a necessity for our well-being and provide a respite from the demands and stress of our turbulent world.
Mountain Biking BC is proud to present a series of short films by Ryan Flett featuring the work done by trail builders in the Kootenay region of British Columbia. For some, trail building is a job, but for most, it is a passion and for many, it is what they do in their free time with the only compensation being the satisfaction of giving back to their communities and making them better places to live. Similar stories play out across British Columbia and have made the province one of the most unique places on the planet for mountain biking.
Please support the trails by joining your local mountain bike club or donating to the organizations that build and maintain the trails where you ride.
its 2022.....if it werent for the illegal/unsanctioned/lone wolf trail builders and pioneers from 30 years ago..... (thats a whole generation of riders we are bridging !) .....There would be no northshore scene, kamloops freeride scene, there would be no euro alpine trail scene, there would be no "insert any local name" scene. DH racing would probably be dead in the water due to no forced development from trashed bikes in their thousands falling out the woods on a late 1990's Mt Seymour.
Would we have had disc brakes? dropper posts? 180mm travel bikes that can pedal up hill? 130mm travel bikes that can smash dh's? hardtails that are literally nukeproof? Young kids from Richie Schley to Matt Hunter, to Jackson Goldstone
would never have been inspired to then be the inspiration for you and me.
In Scotland, there would be have been no local scenes - falkland bike park, cambu trails, braefoot bay, innerleithen dh tracks, leading to the 7 stanes project and all the add on trail centres like Laggan, Goslpie, Learnie etc, which led to all the off piste trails which the global collective of, led to Enduro racing and "Enduro" as a thing that we trail riders call our weekend activites. Which just in Scotland alone, has led to literally hundreds of natural secret and not so secret riding venues like the tweed valley scene and the A9 corridor venues - imagine factoring that across the world from iceland, to malaysia from tasmania to madeira - which has led to a whole new income for strava and then the advent of Trail forks.
Of course none of this is possible with out millions of riders buying bikes to ride on these magnificent trails built by only a few thousand folk gobally. The MTB companies profit enormously from the lone wolf builder and the bike industry as a whole needs to step up to the plate and pay back into the communities that have single handedly built their profit margins up. They are starting too, with many funding projects available, hopefully like the trail building scenes this will snowball in to something far bigger than the sum of its parts and hopefully it will be a beautiful thing.
but please dont simply lay the reponsibility of trail building with the big dogs - if you are reading this folks and you have a local trail association or even if you don't , you can be part of the answer rather than part of the problem. create, join or donate to a local trail association.... we are here for everyones benefit. If thats not possible then go build a trail thats nothing like youve ever ridden before.
That's what my trail org does. I spend the vast majority of my time fixing drainages, cutting out fallen trees, patching braking bumps. I spend some time flagging new trail and building, but most of my shovel time is repair work.
shout out to backroads brewing!
Married a Canadian woman for citizenship 5+ years ago and pulled off the dream...turns out Canada is the most tyrannical country on earth. You can’t leave if you’re not vaccinated. No one else is like this
Respectfully..f*ck Canada