[Closed] Local Trail Groups/Clubs/Associations: Whistler vs the UK

Ive ridden plenty of WORCA stuff, theres just not the density in the UK, plus trails need PP etc or get ripped out. You can pretty much build what you want out their, I know I built enough last year

Ive ridden plenty of WORCA stuff, theres just not the density in the UK, plus trails need PP etc or get ripped out. You can pretty much build what you want out their, I know I built enough last year

I wondered if it's just the perfect scenario, but would it work on a smaller scale? Or is that generally more left up to the club scene/trail builders etc separately.

Main issue must be landowners' fears about liability?

Another point about the UK is that it's covered in natural trails that you can ride for free. Not sure if Canada has access like we do, but in the US they certainly don't.

So people have to come to these places to do their biking.

Also - isn't Whistler a ski resort too? There's going to be tons of infrastructure sitting idle for 6 months of the year, so they would be foolish not to invest in opening up the rest of the year for business.

Also - isn't Whistler a ski resort too?

Very much, and the bike park does exactly that. I don't have any idea how many of the folk of come to ride the park also ride the trails in the valley that WORCA maintain.

The local council realise how important the trails are to the resort in the summer and have just signed a $50000 fee for service deal with WORCA for trail maintenance. The alpine trail mentioned in the info graphic is a funded from a huge range of places including local fund raising via raffles etc, donations, crankworx etc.

There's a lot of riding in the Sea to Sky area, from the North Shore all the way up to Pemberton, but you're right, it's localized in those areas. We don't have the villages and towns spread all over the place.

Outwith the trail building though, could somewhere like peebles support a similar organisation, but on a smaller scale? I have no idea how the trail fairies organisse them selves there, would there be enough riders to achieve something similar or do too many of the regulars riders and builders come from Edinburgh and further a field?

This is something I've often though about. There are quite a few similar organisations around, so WORCA isn't that unique, but there's certainly nothing similar within the UK.

I suspect there's several factors.
The point Molgrips raises about access is one. Scotland especially has some of the best access laws in the world, but even England and Wales don't have any widespread bans like the some other countries.

Then there's the history of the various clubs within the UK. There can't be that many clubs within the UK that don't have some form of road bike history. PeeblesCC probably has one of the biggest mountain bike kids group in Scotland, if not the UK, yet it's still largely a road focussed club.

Trail provision is another area. Yes, there's been lots of organisations and groups campaigned and fought for trails to be built, but they are mostly run by small groups consisting of a few key individuals.

There are other areas to consider, but even comparing those three things to WORCA and similar organisations, WORCA was formed as a mountain bike club. It's never been anything else, so it doesn't have to consider anything but mountain bikes.
One of it's key aims was to increase MTB trails and access, which it has done very well. It's fought to protect and maintain trails, and adopt/build new trails. As a result of that, it's built a very strong membership, as trail users know, that without WORCA, the chances are the number of trails would be far less, with nobody to maintain them.

Which brings me on to another point, I feel a lot of people in the UK just expect trails to be provided for them and take what trails there are for granted. I know that's a bit controversial, however how many mountainbikers can honestly say they've physically and meaningfully contributed to trails they regularly ride?

I could just about write a book on the Tweed Valley, so won't go into it in too much detail. There are plans to try and establish a more formal group (TVTA), however that's gone a bit quiet, but I do hope it does officially get formed. I think a couple recent key meetings have established some of the obstacles facing it, and that it's not going to achieve it's aims anytime soon. All I'll say is public body wheels turn very slow, and will still require an awful lot of persuasion.
As for the trailfairies, they're currently an FCS led volunteer group. Good in the fact FCS take on nearly all the responsibility, bad in the fact the TF's only get to do what the FCS say. Again, things are gradually changing, but it's a public body, and there is the good old British tradition of, it works as it is, so why change it?

And now I've found the photo, I think this photo sums up how much the Whistler Municipality considers the mountain bike trails.
As part of a new housing development a part of Danimal would get destroyed, so it was a requirement of the planning permission that the builders had to re-route the trail and provide suitable waymarking.

[img] [/img]

It was a more upmarket development, so the developers wanted something suitable for the neighbourhood, but could you imagine anything similar happening in the UK?

aye, that's possibly my favourite trail marker in Whistler.

It'd be interesting to see if the folk involved could get the TVTA up and working. Having one voice that can do everything from organising events and raising money to trail advocacy/dealing with the FC.

WORCA's success also will have a lot to do with the support from local bushiness they get. Each beer league races is sponsored by a few of the local business who usually provide food/beer afterwards and hopefully then see an uptick in business afterwards. Given how hospitality driven Whistler is its a strategy that makes sense for everyone involved, but not sure how well it would translate to somewhere like the Tweed valley.

There are two main reason why a 'Worca' style trail organisation is very unlikely to succeed in the UK:
(1) land ownership
(2) apathy

Vast tracks of land in the US and Canada are publicly owned, whether at City, State/Province or Federal level. Whilst there are still many hoops to jump thru to build trails or put on events, private land ownership in the UK means the land owner has to be very cooperative to get the same things accomplished. Governance is also very local in North America meaning if there's enough will, the politicians can be voted out if they don't serve their public. In Whistlers case, its actually called the Resort Municipality of Whistler and has a specific mandate to increase tourism. Good luck with getting all those ducks lined up in the UK

The other problem is apathy. Why bother building trails when you've got a public right of way system which is the envy of (some parts!) the world???

@markgraylish - I think you have hit then nail on the head, but it's not totally apathy - it's a lack of necessity.

I moved to the US from the UK about 4 years ago, I've lived in California and now the Seattle area.

[b]I've been constantly surprised how poor and contentious trail access has been.[/b]

Yes, there are excellent trails, I'm lucky to live right next to a little park called [url= https://www.evergreenmtb.org/trails/duthie-hill ]Duthie Hill[/url] which has a bunch of freeride and xc trails. The thing is there is no legalized national network of trails like we have in the UK. Access is fought for and often lost - look at the stuff going on with the Wilderness Act (roughly equivalent to banning MTB's on all trials in National Parks in the UK). Riding in Marin - where the US branch of MTB started is now far more restricted than it was in the days of the hippies tearing down repack.

The work that the Evergreen MTB Alliance do around here is excellent, as was the BTCEB in California. But if they weren't doing it, there would be far fewer places to ride.

It's a constant annoyance that I live near some epic mountain locations, but can't just grab an O/S map and go exploring along bridleways. There just isn't the network of trails. We are so lucky that the national network of ROW's exist. See also: The NHS.

Just my 2p/c's worth.

and the obvious one?
Whistler is full of people who want to be there because of what it has. Why would you spend your summer in Whistler unless the pay is good or you like living in a great bike location.
It looks similar to the queenstown stuff in NZ - similar situation. It's a magnet for like minded people, the weather is decent and the rest.

It also seems like the set up wants trail maintenance and building, learned that in Rotorua each shop/mates group has their trails that they look after and a big bike community.

The UK has heaps of great riding that already exists, building is mostly frowned upon but it would also be interesting to hear Northwinds perspective from the Tweed Valley trail building point of view.

There is also a strong MTB club set up here in Oz, again helped by not being able to race or join a club event without either joining ($100/year) or paying a day rate of $20. means there are clubs who organise stuff. The local one will be running the Oz XC Marathon event next month - if people want to know how to do events cheap then basically nobody gets paid and it's all organised and run by volunteers who are coerced/blackmailed/guilt tripped into doing it 😉

Mike: out of interest, is there actually much public land in Oz or is the mostly privately owned?

Lots of public land, just very little accessible to bikes

certainly in the UK, many clubs have historically come from a 'racing' background, and very few of those clubs seem to consider advocacy and rights of way, or the provision of trails, as part of their remit. In the US the nature of access (no rights of way system) has seen them develop in very different manner, with a more holistic and rounded outlook on their role.

One complication is that our divided nature of representation, BC primarily promoting racing/competition and CTC recreational, and I think thats detrimental, particularly for mountain biking, as it has not had the support or representation that it deserves. That's unlikely to change soon, so we are where we are.

however theres also a cultural issue - MTB’ers as a community have, for a long time, deliberately or otherwise, distanced themselves from ‘authoritah’ - a complex mix of being ’newcomers’ in the outdoor recreation arena, younger, at a different phase of life, where they want to ‘just get out and ride’ rather than sit in committee meetings debating angels on pinheads, and of course, ‘rebels’ in the fact that the ‘system’ of bridleways and footpaths is utter bollocks, and we have effectively chosen to disengage with it and do what we wanted.

Several attempts have been made to try and turn that round and get riders to become more active in advocacy for about fifteen years now

I know one club that has a very active fundraising side of things, and just got a bridge built by the council after collecting about £5k towards it by holding a series of events. I think that's an interesting model and things like this could begin to change what we think clubs can do in the UK,

, organising everything from Enduro races, $2 beer league XC races with a few hundred competitors, $5 beer league DH racing in the park with pro timing systems, trail advocacy and fund raising, guided rides and lessons and more besides.

On racing it's a really tough one. In the UK the list of places you can't race is long, even think about doing an unofficial mates race down a bw and the stw fun police will be out. Do it at a trail centre and risk it being busy do it on fresh cut/homemade rails and they will get trashed or your balls cut off by the landowners.

Great idea though

FWIW, last year we did a season out in Whistler, and one of the first things I did was join WORCA. Raced a bunch of Phat Wednesdays, some of their enduro events, some of the toonies & a load of their Monday night rides.

I think collectively doing about 18 events cost me less than one enduro race in the UK. They do a pretty amazing job & charge relative buttons for it.

Met a great bunch of people to ride with, as did my wife.

Would it work in the UK? No. There just isn't the hotspot of cycling in a world reknowned area to draw people in.

I applaud them for what they do & have done. The sheer volume of valley trails is massive 🙂

We are so lucky that the national network of ROW's exist. See also: The NHS.

plus one, people often overlook what's good here. Great access too, I ride in local forests for hours. We have plenty of good local built stuff.

Its happening in the UK but on a smaller scale, commensurate with the size of the area, in easy reach of me

Quantocks, FoD, Long Mynd, Cwm Carn, Brecon Beacons, BPW, Afan and everything in between. Open access to our natural countryside

I think what is most overlooked here is the fact that you can walk around whistler, even go to the bars/night clubs wearing five tens and no one bats an eyelid. Amazing.

We are so lucky that the national network of ROW's exist.

Agreed. Down here in England and Wales we may complain, but we have it far better than most countries outside of Scotland and Scandinavia.

In the US the huge majority of land East of the Mississippi has no access at all. It's private and closed. You can't go for a walk, a ride, anything. You have to go to designated spots to do it. Most of it is state/county parks, and most of them are like parks. You pay to get in, park, and go around the neatly maintained smooth trails.

IF you have anything worth riding, that is. Where my inlaws live, there is NO local riding AT ALL. And I mean none - not even a cheeky footpath or bridleway snicket. You have to drive for an hour to find the woods, and they are lucky that the woods are that close.

I've not been to Whistler, but I've been to Bend, Oregon, and I was quite surprised to find that it's essentially a pure outdoor town. It's the only town for miles around and it seems to only exists for outdoor pursuits. The place is full of outdoor shops, outdoor businesses, and people doing outdoor pursuits. Most people on the streets are wearing Columbia, TNF gear and so on. There's nowhere like that here - except maybe Betws y Coed, but even there I suspect the majority of the visitors are the tea-room granny Victorian tourist types.

I expect places like Moab, Fruita, and Whistler are similar. So the proportion of the population into outdoor pursuits of some kind is probably huge - close to 100% probably.

Hence all the riders, and the lack of opposition from land owners wanting to do put it to other uses.

These threads always make me think of a couple of things.
The grass is always greener and be careful what you wish for.
As said the conditions that make these things happen are not sometimes that favorable for the rest of the place.

its not quite on the same scale but we have a pretty good club/scene going on down here in the westcountry. 2 sites, some of the best DH tracks in the country, regular uplift and grass root race series. All run by volunteers.

http://www.gawtongravityhub.co.uk/
http://www.woodlandriders-racing.co.uk/

A little late to this discussion but I think Whistler is exceptional even by Canadian standards. As has been mentioned above the whole town appears to know that summer mountain biking trails are an important part of the tourism revenue and lots of people there are into outdoor pursuits.

Near Calgary we have a fantastic trail network with probably over 100km of trails but the maintenance of them though is fragmented across several different groups which makes it a bit disjointed. There is though a Facebook group for trail conditions that has over 2000 members. Last year I attended a couple of trail days and the organizer reckoned that they'd had perhaps 150 different people in total. So less than 10% of the keen mountain bikers had worked on the trails they were riding which is probably more comparable to the UK I'd have thought.

I think RideSheffield do a reasonable job, albeit on a smaller scale to WORCA.

Fingers are in all kinds of access forum & land manager pies, and that's paying off by getting some cheeky trails officially recognised (or at least tolerated), plus quite a few FPs are getting upgraded to BW status.

Dig days are sporadic but well attended when they happen.

Complete new trails, part funded by the MTB community and then outside sponsorship on land supplied by the council. The first bit of Lady Canning is open, with more to come imminently and we're working on raising the cash for Radmires.

The Steel City race generates tons of media coverage for a tiny little event. I was speaking to some Californian bikers when on holiday a little while back and they knew all about it and thought it looked awesome. It also raises a lot of cash for Greno Woods.

Essentially though it's all down to a few guys putting in a lot of behind the scenes hard work because they believe in what they're doing (I'm not one of them, although I do assist where I can). It's starting to get recognised more nationally though, and the liason with landmanagers and the council are starting to be used as positive examples elsewhere.

PDMTB are also heading in the right direction, although they're still relatively small, although enthusiastic.

What I hadn't realised until I started spending time with the RS guys is quite how many different landowners are involved. On a typical Sunday ride from Sheff to Hope and back I probably cross ground owned or managed by 20+_ different groups, all of whom have a different attitude to risk, outdoor activities, environmental stuff etc.

I created Southampton Bike Park and it was challenging.

Full and detailed explanation of what was to be created and confirmation that I would personally finance the whole development. Full consultation including Powerpoint presentations. Over a year of admin and preparation to get permission finally resulting in acceptance.

We started the digging and trail building at it was going well. A mix of support and objections from the people walking by. Lots of accusations that we didn't have permission because there were no signs up.

We had a sign design created and ready to go but it needed to be formally approved by Southampton Council and Active Nation (they actually run the sports centre) before it could be installed. Remeber we had already spent over a year planning at this point.

It was a further 3 years before they erected the Bike Park sign. It wasn't the design we had shared. It didn't have Southampton Bike Park, the web address or facebook page links etc. It didn't have the map of trails, in fact it has virtually nothing we had asked for.

They had managed to erect signs saying "Cyclist must keep to designated cycle paths only" and "Cycling on Grassed Area Prohibited" within 2 months of the bike park opening and stuck these on the lamp posts right next to the bike park.

It is really hard work to get anything done and even when you do get agreements other people just wander in and change the rules or add new objections.

We had one person tell us that we had taken the only grass area in the sports centre that people could use to picnic. even though the other side of the path was a nice flatter grass area. They started to campaign to get the bike park area designated a picnic area until someone pointed out they were being a dick.

mikewsmith - Member
The UK has heaps of great riding that already exists, building is mostly frowned upon but it would also be interesting to hear Northwinds perspective from the Tweed Valley trail building point of view.

mc is at least as qualified to talk about Tweed Valley trailbuilding as Northwind or I. He's a Trailfairy just like we are but beyond that I'm almost certain he's also more heavily involved in the wider Tweed Valley MTB community.

Regarding the Trailfairies, we're in a very different situation to something like WORCA. As mc says we're an FCS led and directed volunteer group. We have no authority ourselves. That's handy in some ways as it also means we have no responsibility. All the volunteers have to do is turn up at a session and get stuck in, the FCS handles the paperwork and the boring sort of stuff that would otherwise require us to have a constitution, office bearers, our own insurance and other legal stuff.

But no authority means that we don't have any formal input into what we do and we're at the mercy of how much time and attention the FCS are able to give to us. We've had problems in the past when the limited number of MTB rangers meant we couldn't have as many sessions as we want and if the FCS is short on cash we don't have any means of funding trail development ourselves.

As said the conditions that make these things happen are not sometimes that favorable for the rest of the place.

Yes. Don't underestimate the amount of nothing in places like Canada. Huge tracts of land are owned by some company that simply owns it just in case, and doesn't really care what happens to it. Or they are waiting 60 years for some trees to grow. Or no-one claimed it so it's now state owned. That's why national parks in the US are literally parks - no-one lives in them and there's no other land use like forestry or agriculture, and they are government owned.

Simply not possible in the UK where every scrap of land is someone's interest or property.

If something happens anywhere I reckon it'll be the Tweed valley, I wonder if things will hit a critical mass there some time, there is such a density of unofficial trail building. At the weekend there was a queue of over 20 riders waiting to go down the well-known new trail at the golfy, there were riders cars parked along the side of the road and everywhere. Two years ago you barely saw another rider the whole day. I can see this potentially leading to various situations involving various landowners.

I'm guessing we have different land access rights to Whistler but I'm fairly sure our access rights DON'T mean you can hack trails into people's land as you please, park everywhere etc, and at some point some straw somewhere will break the camel's back.

I feel a lot of people in the UK just expect trails to be provided for them and take what trails there are for granted. I know that's a bit controversial, however how many mountainbikers can honestly say they've physically and meaningfully contributed to trails they regularly ride?

Very true, I'd further that and say in general in the UK everyone expects everything to be provided or done for them, whatever it is, eg clearing snow off the pavement outside the house, clearing up litter in the park rather than putting it in the bin themselves, etc etc. It's very clear from this website alone that people begrudge paying a few pounds to go mountain biking and readily complain that their MTB venue toasties are made from frozen or the toilets not opened for them outside working hours. We have a strange attitude that we must have everything done and provided for us for free, to some kind of magical high standard.

All I'll say is public body wheels turn very slow, and will still require an awful lot of persuasion.

Given budget and staff cuts the wheels are only going to turn more slowly 😉 In a way it's unfortunate mountain bikers in this country have become so 'reliant' on one organisation for their free recreation facilities.

Yes. Don't underestimate the amount of nothing in places like Canada. Huge tracts of land are owned by some company that simply owns it just in case, and doesn't really care what happens to it. Or they are waiting 60 years for some trees to grow.

In whistler case, its surrounded by government owned crown land. Much of this land may have companies holding rights to forestry, rock/mineral, rights of way for utilitues. Thenbthere sre first nation historical sites and treaty land as well as national parks.
There is a government department the integrated land management bureau that track this and are part of the approval for applications for tenured operations on crown land. When we went through the process of applying for a license of occupation to commercially operate guided moubnain bike tours on crown land, we had to seek approval from other stakeholders, like those mentioned above.
WORCA when building new trail also need approval to build trail. Its certainly not a case of free for all. Liability is still a concern here too. We actually have to name the givernment as additionally insured in our liability insurance policy!
We remain Whistlers only goverment approved commercial mtb guiding company

Squamish is surrounded mostly by private land in the immediate vicinity so that poses a very different challenge and requires land owners to be welcoming to bikes, again liability for private is a bigger concern in squamish. After the private land in squamish we get into crown and park land. All new trails in squamish undergo a section 57 approval.

Every community has a different situation and whistler certainly paved the way for trail adoption and development before new trail needed approval and consequently were abke to have almost the entire inventory of existing trail recognised as established with the ministry of arts tourism and sports. That process was spearheaded by one of WORCAS ex presidents.

Whistler is unique in that it recognised the importance of summer operations and the potential tourist draw, but worca was founded to try to open up national park land to bike for those already here, not to attract visitors. Once the economic impact was realised, thats when WORCA begain to have leverage to secure significant funding. Squamish IS catching up on this front!

In addition to paid trail builders, its hugely important to recognise those amazing individuals who pour their blood sweat and tears into the dirt to build stunning sections of trail simply for the personal reward. Thats where it all started.

Probably rode some of the Monday night rides together hobnob. And you almost certainly met my boss who's one of the guides.

Very true BearBack, he volunteers who turn up for trail days and especially the locals who just go out and build for their own enjoyment are what has made and make this place so special. Without them it'd be very different here.

WCA: It's a shame to see how so much hard work can have a damper put on it by NIMBYs and some council busy bodies. Looks like you guys have done some crackin work getting that up and running and wish you the best of luck.

I think the comments about Whistler being unique are probably very true. Small town, huge number of bikers and a willingness to work towards a common goal from those involved. There's obviously still hoops to jump through as shown by BearBack's post above, but it does seem like the perfect storm.

In an only somewhat related note, I got my first trail ride of the year in yesterday. A (rather slow) spin around Train Wreck was a lot of fun, but I'm not sure I'm ready to give up the skiing just yet!

I'd further that and say in general in the UK everyone expects everything to be provided or done for them, whatever it is

I disagree with that, in general. People do have a tendency to moan though, which may be related.

Re trails - almost all of what I ride is already here, and has been here for decades if not centuries. And that's been my experience in most places. I don't ride the Surrey Hills, it may be different there, but I don't see many man made trails. Except at trail centres where I'll pay the parking and the tax, and I'll eat at the cafe. I gather some volunteer work was done at Cwmcarn originally, but I was never aware of it at the time. Not sure if it goes on now or if it's paid for by the council.