In 2012, Scottish Government and sportscotland launched a new funding programme, ‘Legacy 2014 Active Places Fund’, to develop infrastructure to help create a legacy from the Commonwealth Games being held in Glasgow in 2014.
This fund was really beneficial to the new direction for Scottish mountain biking being led by DMBinS, especially in areas where a cluster was created. Following the success in Tayside and Fife, two new clusters were established in Central and Highland regions with £5.5m of trails and pump tracks developed through the funds.
The early pioneer of community led trail building in Aberdeenshire was Dale Kitching who worked tirelessly, without a great deal of support, and was successful in securing funding through Active Places and other sources to create the Aboyne Bike Park.
Inspired by Dale’s work, a local teacher, Chris Redmond, felt that his local community, Tarland, would benefit from the creation of an additional trail network. Chris worked hard to source funding (including from the Active Places fund) and with the support of Tarland Development Group, created Tarland Trails Drummy Woods. The trail network was an immediate success with children, young people, new riders, and families with many travelling across Aberdeenshire (and beyond) to develop their skills in a safe, fun, and progressive trail network which has a blue trail, red trail, an ‘easy’ orange graded jump line, and a small natural surface pump track.
This was not the end of Chris’s ambition. He also sourced funding for a feasibility study into a larger trail network at Pittenderich Forest on the East of Tarland.
With successful clusters running successfully now in some areas across Scotland, DMBinS saw the potential to support the development of mountain biking in Aberdeenshire. To begin the process, a small collaboration was formed with the architecture department of Robert Gordon University. In February 2015, the university hosted an evening with DMBinS and Forestry and Land Scotland to look at some examples of trail centre trailhead facilities and, more importantly, understand if there was desire from the local riding scene and community to improve their region and meet the established demand of a regional level trail centre.
It was immediately clear there was a motivated community with the desire, and skills, to develop their area. DMBinS were keen to support them, and a cluster was formed.