The Scottish Mountain Bike Gathering 2023 - The Lowdown

Welcome to Perthshire and Comrie Croft from event partners, Comrie Croft. Andrew shared the story of the evolution of Comrie Croft from a struggling farm to a unique tourism offer that has sustainability and mountain biking at its core.

Graeme was able to share an update on the progress, on behalf of the members of the MTB Consortium, on the implementation of the 2019-2025 Scottish Mountain Bike Strategy and the key themes and action areas that collectively the community, land managers and owners, businesses, national agencies, Local Authorities, and riders will all play a part in delivering.

Sustainable mountain bike trails: Tom's presentation illuminated the need for research into the impact of trails and for delegates to consider that if we truly want a sustainable trail model we need to consider what people (riders) want to ride alongside the more established pillars of sustainability: environment, social and economic.

Carolyn Robertson, Cairngorm Capercaillie Project and Emma Holgate Glenmore Lodge and Badenoch and Strathspey Trail Association presented on the Capercaillie Trail Feathers Project.

A really interesting but challenging project, which is seeing local mountain bikers develop their plans into something which can achieve the projects objectives. Awesome to see mountain bikers have a voice in a wider conservation effort.

As a community who care about recreation in the outdoor environment we have opportunities and responsibilities to protect the places we love to ride.

For more on this - watch this space - as a pretty special film that the Gathering delegates were shown, will be released shortly.

Further reading -

Riding trails for capercaillie: Tales from a Mountain Bike Trail Intern

New Powers to Mountain Bikers to Help Save the Iconic Capercaillie

Capercaillie Emergency

How sustainable is mountain biking in Scotland? What actions will help us collectively improve?

Panel Speakers:-

Doug Blease - EnviroCente

Lauren McCallum – Protect Our Winters

Stuart Chalmers – Forestry and Land Scotland

Tom Campbell - Edinburgh Napier University

An insightful and thought provoking session building on Tom's earlier presentation.

Aneela provided an informative and emotive look at diversity and inclusion in mountain biking and discusses why both are important for a healthy, vibrant MTB community. This was followed by a healthy panel discussion.

Panel Speakers:-

Aneela McKenna - Mor Diversity

Neil Russell - Adaptive Riders Collective

Aoife Glass - The International Working Group (IWG) on Women & Sport

Nyasha Makusha - Rider and Video Creator

Anna Riddell - Ride Out Coaching & Limitlass

The panel explored further why diversity and inclusion are good for the mountain biking community, for the individual mountain biker and how diversity and inclusion in our clubs and at our events is so important. Drawing on their own individual experiences, this was an inspiring session. We heard their stories and were encouraged to all play a part in creating an amazing, diverse community where the contributions, perspectives and the presence of many different people are embraced.

Bob MacFarlane, the UCI Cycling World Championships MTB manager presented to the Gathering on the world's largest ever cycling event, hosted in Scotland for the first time. Bob shared the successes of the mountain bike events and the lessons learned for Scotland to continue to host world-level events.

We were also delighted to be joined by MTB Legend and 2023 UCI Cycling World Championships Board Member to share her unique perspective from being an athlete competing in the XCE events, having riders on her team competing in the XC events, and an inside track of the successes and the learnings from the event as a board member.