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TAKE CARE OF YOUR TRAILS - 2022

Raise the STOKE! Sign up today. Entries Open for Take Care of Your Trails 2022. The Campaign will run from April 22nd – June 4th. Time to get involved and lets get Scotland winning the title of the Best MTB Community in Europe!

Trail summit group shot Credit Innes Graham Photo

Background

An initiative that we started in 2015 here in Scotland, took on a pan European slant as in 2017 we worked with IMBA Europe to organise the largest ever concerted voluntary trail repair, maintenance, and build effort.

Over a weekend in April the first-ever pan European ‘Take Care of Your Trails’ weekend took place with trail repair groups from Scotland to Poland, Denmark to Czech Republic and Sweden to Spain, engaging in a friendly competition to see which country could get the most amount of volunteers to work on paths and trails per head of population.

Centrally co-ordinated by IMBA Europe, thousands of volunteers took part and this set the precedence for the initiative moving forward.

Every year we work closely with IMBA Europe to promote the campaign to trails associations and volunteer groups across Scotland.

This year the stoke is being raised and the campaign is going bigger and better!

Manon ruari trail summit dig Credit Innes Graham

Tell your friends, invite your neighbours, bring your partner, children and dogs along to your local #TCoYT trail maintenance and clean-up event.

The 2022 campaign will officially start on the 22nd of April (Earth day- “preserve and protect our health, our families, our livelihoods”) and finish off with a bang at our 10th-anniversary Summit in Val di Sole on June 4th.

RAISE THE STOKE- PROTECT AND PRESERVE

As the heading suggests, in 2022 we are raising the stoke by going bigger and better with our goals and ambitions. Over the years, what was initially a friendly competition, has grown into a community movement of passionate and dedicated trail crews contributing countless volunteer hours to preserve their local trails and natural environment.

The objectives of the TCoYT campaign since its inception in 2017- the brainchild of Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland- has been to promote trail stewardship, improve the image of our sport, recognise the work of many MTB volunteers, and encourage new or strengthen existing partnerships to protect the places we love to ride.

This is a campaign we can all be proud of and believe that there is a great opportunity for capacity building within our member organizations. Trail maintenance across Europe is largely on a volunteer basis which means without the volunteers and trail associations, we would not have the trail networks we have today. TCoYT is a means to recruit new volunteers, and raise the stoke level in getting involved in such maintenance events. That’s why this year we are setting ourselves some extra goals and ambitions for the campaign outside of the typical ‘competition’ aspect.

OUR VISION AND GOALS FOR 2022

Maintain. Protect. Preserve

VISION:

  • PROTECT & PRESERVE – Protect and preserve the natural environments that we are privileged to enjoy.
  • RESPECT- Respect other trail users, land & park managers, and the environment
  • MAINTAIN- Maintain and preserve the trails we already have
  • SHARE- Share the trails with others. Be inclusive within the community.

GOALS:

  • Better community engagement (participating in trail maintenance days, stronger social media presence)
  • Better inclusivity and diversity in participation
  • Provide better support to trail crews organising events (Better engagement with our members and their organised events)
  • Building better relationships with park and land managers (Clear messaging around responsibility of trail crews to always gain permission from park/land managers to work on local trails)

AWARD CATEGORIES

Outstanding trail crews – We will be awarding the top 3 crews in Europe who manage to get the most amount of ‘boots on the ground’ during the course of the campaign. This will be measured in 3 ways. 1) number of events, 2) amount of volunteers, 3) number of hours logged.

Most Outstanding National Mountain Bike Association - award emphasizes the importance of national trail associations and their created impact on their communities and trail networks.

Protect and preserve award - is awarded based on the best community-led conservation idea/proposal from a trail crew or association.

Trail advocate of the year award - rewards the individual who goes above and beyond for their local trails and association. This award is given to an individual who has distinguished themselves in hours and service to trail maintenance during the past year.

To sign up for this year’s campaign, head over to the ‘Take action’ page


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