UK Trails Project - January 2025 Update

Dave is based in based in Corris at the Heart of Dyfi, Wales and balances travelling for work with a young family, vibrant community responsibilities and tinkering with all manner of vehicles and, what appears to us, random machinery.

He started the year with a trip up to Scotland for our our annual whole team in person meeting, to plan the year ahead.

Although he had the furthest to drive, meeting at Glassie Bike Park (and staying in the onsite Bunkhouse) was pretty equidistance for the rest of us to get to. Everyone brought a cooked meal for the night and Dave was on the Welsh Cakes!

He was also able to spend time getting an in depth insight into the work we are doing in Aberdeenshire regarding sustainable trails plans. With a growing network of unmanaged trails in Scotland, it is important that the mountain bike community and landowners and managers, work together to understand the nature of mountain bike trails, their impact and collaboratively create management plans in order to sustain, maintain and develop the network.

Dave will continue to work and learn from the work ongoing in Aberdeenshire as he plans to adapt this country leading work for use in other home nations.

He also attended, alongside most of team DMBinS, Scottish Cycling’s Parliamentary Reception at Holyrood, Edinburgh, to hear MSPs pledge continued appreciation and support for what mountain biking is achieving in the country. He was able to discuss the benefits of MTB to communities, education, health and transport with MSPs and leaders from key Public Sector partners and contributed findings from the UK Trail Report to support ongoing work. He was super inspired to achieve similar gatherings in other home nations.

He was able to attend the annual in-person meeting of the Scottish MTB Consortium, alongside Graeme, Will and Colena at Forestry and Land Scotland HQ in Edinburgh. It was a good opportunity for him to listen to all consortium partners discuss the challenges and opportunities for MTB in their next strategy phases and contributed findings from the UK Trail Report to shape future provision.

Before heading back down the M6 he was able to sign up to several exciting conferences to feed into discussions on trail management and accessibility and enjoyed a site visit to see the volunteer work of TVTA and our Marc at the Golfie, and enjoyed a chat with local riders and residents over a breakfast roll at the Innerleithen Golf Club.

Dave was invited to British Cycling HQ to host drop-in meetings with mangers in Insurance, Clubs, Communities and Education programmes to discuss how Trails form a central part to all MTB riding. Explored how these departments could work together to enable riders to take care of trails though the BC Club/Group structures. He also was able to present the UK Trails Report to British Cycling Staff, fielding many interesting questions.

He also took the opportunity to scare himself half to death by joining a training session on the Velodrome. Apparently, he enjoyed the speed of being in a chain gang, but was aware that this was not his forte and was mindful of causing a massive crash. He came away very impressed by the facility and quality and enthusiasm of the coaches.

To end his Manchester trip, he was taken to ride urban bike trails in the nearby Clayton Vale Park. Seeing at first hand the maintenance challenges following winter storms and discussed how volunteer partnership with land managers could create a better riding experience.

Back in the office Dave is working hard analysing UK Trail Report data to create mini-report for each home country while keeping in touch with all Steering Group partners in all home countries.

He also continues to assist the progress of Welsh Trail Associations and is following up on all enquiries and interest on this trailblazing project that came from the launch of the Report at the Scottish Mountain Bike Conference in November - and there have been a LOT!