Out of the woods - Bike Magic

Bike Magic - Mountain Bike News, Videos and Reviews. Keep up with the latest Biking Gear, Events and Trail Guides at BikeMagic.

Share

News

Out of the woods

U.S. Forest Service has signed a five-year agreement with the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) encouraging Forest Service staff at all levels to work with IMBA to advance low-impact mountain biking. This marks the first widespread official sign that mountain biking is being embraced as a healthy, non motorised and non damaging recreation, rather than a menace.

Forestry officials are being encouraged to use IMBA’s trail building and bike management expertise and is aiming to have IMBA’s trail etiquette guides distributed at car parks, visitor centres and campsites.

Over this side of the pond years of hard work by forest creatures such as Dafydd Davies and Mike Innerdale have already created a very pro mountain bike policy. Including dedicated trails in several forest areas – particularly Coed Y Brenin and other Welsh forests and Dalby forest in Yorkshire. These are all drawing in support from various mountain bike related companies such as Red Bull, Karrimor, 9Feet.com, MBR and Pace. They are also attracting huge visitor numbers to often previously deserted areas, with an overwhelmingly positive effect on the local economy. This “pro” attitude is gradually percolating upwards to the top branches of the Forest Enterprise tree and hopefully we’ll be seeing a similar announcement to the American one shortly.

In the meantime, check out the IMBA site to learn more about their pioneering trailbuilding and advocacy acivities, and get working on the pro message in your own area.

Share

Newsletter Terms & Conditions

Please enter your email so we can keep you updated with news, features and the latest offers. If you are not interested you can unsubscribe at any time. We will never sell your data and you'll only get messages from us and our partners whose products and services we think you'll enjoy.

Read our full Privacy Policy as well as Terms & Conditions.

production