August 27, 2020

Quick guide to Take Care of Your Trails

If you’re new to mountain biking or unfamiliar with volunteer trail work, here’s a short explanation of IMBA’s annual Take Care of Your Trails campaign.

About Take Care of Your Trails

Take Care of Your Trails is an annual campaign to promote trail stewardship by mountain bikers. Simply said, if you enjoy riding your local trails and nature as much as we do, take action to keep it that way or make it even a bit better. Each year, the number of groups and volunteers is growing!

What can I do?

Trail fairies don’t exist and that’s why local trail crews from all over Europe are spending time to maintain, repair, dig, shape or clean up their trails. These groups can definitely need some help. So, get dirty and join the next trail work event in your area!

If there’s no local group around than that’s the first thing to start working on. Get organized, contact your municipality,  local forestry or land manager and get things started! Make sure you have permission from land owners or managers to do a volunteer trail work day. Keep it simple the first time by collecting litter, pruning or fix those muddy parts on your favorite trails. Take a look at some of our tips for trail crews for some guidance and inspiration.

Is it any fun?

You will love it! What would we do without trails? Keeping your trails in great shape or removing litter that has been left in nature gives great satisfaction. You’ll meet your new riding buddies, learn some trail building techniques and new things about the forest or landscape you never knew. Get stoked and finish your trail work day with a well-deserved ride on some fresh soil!

Go visit takecareofyourtrails.com and click on the map to get all details of events in your area, like contact info, date & time, location and what to bring. You can find a digital promo toolkit on our website and we make sure you get some printed materials as well.