The term trailbuilders covers a massive range of people between professionals building trails to full IMBA spec to groups who just prune back the vegetation on local singletrack from time to time. There’s no doubt that there are more and more people becoming involved in maintaining or ‘improving’ their local trails though.
After the foot and mouth access crisis of last year, where forest trails were the only bikers’ refuges in some areas for several months, a lot of people also realised how valuable the right of ways network is to their enjoyment.
The Forestry Commission are already working with trailbuilders in several areas, and are moving towards a concordat with IMBA (www.imba.com) over increasing this co-operation. The CTC (www.ctc.org.uk) are also running their own “right to ride” campaign to organise trail recognition and research in advance of the publication of the ‘definitive map’. However many people are working outside these organisations, but all towards the same general aim of improving their riding quality.
We figured it would be worth starting some kind of campaign to bring together all the groups and individuals who are trailbuilding or map sleuthing. That way people who want to know how to help in their area, know who to get in touch with, and what exactly is going on.
So whether you trimmed a bit of holly off the trail just before Christmas, or are putting the finishing touches on a new World Cup standard dual course, let us know ([email protected]).
All we need to start with is an email address, the area you’re from and any particular projects you’re on with at the moment. Don’t worry we don’t expect all of them to be fully legal, and we definitely aren’t going to grass anyone up, but if we do this right then we could be getting a far more persuasive voice as a whole than we would as individuals.