From trail centers to racing, UK mountain biking is in a real crisis right now. Should you care and what can you do about it?

The future of where we ride

Let’s start this conversation by talking about the absolutely insane situation surrounding where we ride our bikes offroad here in the UK. Considering we’re talking about a multi-billion pound global business the fact that it’s increasingly based on illegal land use is crazy. 

Sure, there are privately built centres like Bike Park Wales which is going strong, but the news about the potential closure of facilities at public trail centres like Coed-y-Brenin is likely to be the first rumble of a serious storm. And it’s been brewing for a while because the lesson the original Welsh trail centers taught us - that it’s no use building new trails unless you commit to ongoing maintenance - still hasn’t been learnt. 

It's not just trail centers either, doing the recce ride for a new gravel/MTB route for Cycling UK last week showed that a lot of legally useable bike routes are far from useable in a practical sense. Either because they’ve been blown apart by storms, buried under skin ripping nettles and brambles or barricaded by farmers who know it’ll be years before the local council gets round to sending them a letter asking them to stop. 

The backlog to clear all of the outstanding rights of way issues before a ‘setting it all in stone’ deadline is absolutely vast too. It's no wonder that a lot of us are riding footpaths, deer tracks, or whatever ‘cheeky trails’ we can find/build to keep things interesting and keep the sport progressing. Even if that does a lot of reputational damage for our sport with landowners and other countryside users.

That all feeds a background of local authorities and national stakeholders like parks and forestry often being fundamentally hostile to bikers and massively short-sighted in terms of the economic gains we’ve proven we can bring to areas like the Tweed Valley in Scotland and Wales too. That’s the hard shoulder that groups like the SRAM-funded UK Trails Project or the volunteer/crowd-funded UK MTB Trail Alliance and a bunch of others are trying to relax. But even with shining examples like DMBINS to follow they also show an achingly patient process. 

If there’s one thing MTBers have proven time and again, it’s that we’re not only very impatient but have been an anarchic, insolent, "well f**k em, we’ll ride there anyway" bunch since the very birth of the sport. This is cool and all, but when you see how well-organized, professional, and determined the hiking and horse riding reps are when it comes to getting their (right of) way it’s no wonder we’re struggling.

The future of racing

Late last month it was the long-running and much-loved northern Enduro series PMBA announcing that the UCI British Enduro Champs they'd finally negotiated into existence after ten years would be their last race. Speaking to Kev Duckworth – the dynamo behind a decade of event and trail creation – it's due to several factors. He's lost the use of some venues for various reasons, overall event running costs are around 30% up compared to 2019, and Forestry England's fees are now 20% of the ticket price. Mainly it's been a big turndown in competitor numbers and those entries coming a lot later which makes it much harder to forward plan for efficient logistics. The much loved Naughty Northumbrian event has also been cancelled this year and Western Bike Events have reduced their number of races too.

Last week the fantastic flagship of racing, trail creation, and whole area revitalising that was the Tweedlove organisation also announced that the next couple of events would be its last. A group of riders and volunteers who were a big part of making Glentress, Golfie, and Innerleithen a top global riding and racing destination, finally sick of scraping by as things have got worse rather than better for 15 years. To quote TweedLove's founder Neil Dalgleish "bike industry sponsorship is a fraction of what it used to be, and public sector support for events like ours is generally sporadic and minimal – despite the number of visitors we attract to this part of Scotland" There’s a lot of rightful resentment from Neil and others about how grassroots racing - particularly enduro - has been exploited and then taken out of reach and out of touch with real riders by ‘official’ organisations like EWS, EDR and UCI. 

The future of bike buying

I’ve made numerous pleas to support the small brands and stand up for the ethics, ingenuity, and innovation that make our sport great in this column over the years and I’ll always wave that flag damn hard. 

If anything we should be grateful that bike buying is actually way behind the retail curve of pretty much anything else when it comes to independents – shops and brands – still managing to survive in the shadow of mega brands. 

With DJI, Honda, Audi, and even Ford coming into the mountain bike space recently, and Bosch, Yamaha, and Porsche already well established, even the biggest bike brands are now looking like the small indy kids. Which is, in fact, what they actually were when they were camper van sale-funded import businesses, touring bike builders in red farm barns, or selling spares from a trailer at bike races.

The future of bikes

Obviously, I love all of the new tech I get to play with and the future of bikes is probably the least concerning thing about riding right now. Sure I think e-bikes - like electric cars - are being massively mis-sold in terms of hiding very obvious reliability, maintenance cost, built-in obsolescence, minimal resale, and potential safety/insurance/access issues. 

But then everyone from the media to shops and brands has had as big a boost in revenue as riders have in easy climb and extra run stoke. So, of course, the industry is going to carry on trying to get everyone hooked on assisted pedaling because addicts are always the easiest to sell to.

Apart from that though, conventional bikes are now so totally sorted in terms of control, survivability, and how well even a 'meh' bike rides. As a result the most compelling ‘must have’ most brands can tempt us with is the ability to hide snacks and spares inside our frames.  They've even tried to convince us to ride road bikes on singletrack so we go back to breaking things and bursting tires like we used to!

The future is ours, but it’s not free

And here’s where I cleverly tie everything up - the answer to all the issues facing mountain biking is that too many of us are expecting too much for ‘free’.

We complain we don’t have anywhere to ride and that facilities are closing but then we park on roadsides rather than in paid car parks. And yes I know we pay taxes to support Forestry who have a mandated obligation to provide recreational facilities, but does dodging an £8 ticket to ride your £8000 bike really make you the new Robin Hood? 

We ride trails to death and blow their cover on Strava or Instagram, but we rarely help maintain them or go to council meetings to sit alongside the horse riders and hikers and defend their existence. We complain about the rising cost of bikes but we ignore deliberately durable innovations like Shimano LinkGlide in favor of wireless wizardry.

Commenters condemn the bike prices of some brands compared to others without stopping to think that the more expensive brands are likely the ones still supporting the media they’re consuming for free and the trail crews and advocacy efforts that create the trails they’re riding for free.

And don’t think for a minute I’m excusing some brands and media who use volunteer created trails for bike launches, photoshoots, etc. either without contributing to local trail group funds. They’re just another, big business version of the same ‘expecting stuff for free’ problem. Pulling maximum short term profit out rather than actually 'investing' in sustainable growth.

And I fully appreciate that ‘times are hard’ and sometimes saving money is a case of survival. But building a better future for mountain biking doesn’t have to cost you anything. Just swap a ride for a bit of bush-whacking or puddle-draining at your local riding spot. Or give some time to your local advocacy, trail building, or race organizing group so you have trails to ride and events to do. 

If you enjoy the content on Bike Perfect, tell your mates to come and check it out, or do your shopping through an affiliate link - it won't cost you any more and it might even save you money. As cheesy as the cliche now sounds, a thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, or positive comment below media you’ve enjoyed does make a difference to creators and it’ll also make your algorithm more accurate. 

If you do spend some cash, spend it with brands that support those same groups and initiatives. And if you are thinking of doing an event then get your entry in early so the organisers can plan properly and pay the advance costs. Otherwise you might find the event you wanted to enter has joined the ever growing cancelled list.

Because at the end of the day, if we’ve got no good trails or events to ride, and nothing entertaining/interesting to consume when we’re not riding, then it doesn’t matter how good your bike is or how great a deal it was does it?