November 6, 2020
Trail Advocate of the Year (w)
Mountain biking continues to grow in popularity amongst women. It’s not just more women practicing mountain biking, we also see a gradual increase of female trail crew members, advocates, trainers and guides. That is really exciting! We’d like to embrace and encourage this development and hope to see many more women follow this example, increasingly fill leadership roles, making our MTB community more inclusive step by step.
That’s why the Trail Advocate of the Year award has both a men’s ánd women’s category. Time to put the 2020 winner of the women’s category in the spotlight.
Meet Corinne Dutertre, our Trail Advocate of the Year 2020 (w)
Corinne is both president and trainer at Vélo club du Pays de Fayence (FR). In practice, she does a lot more from hosting events to organizing trail maintenance days or liase with local authorities and land managers.
Corinne loves to train all different groups of the club after she obtained here federal training certificate. Whether it is the group of youngsters, the Enduro group for teenagers or the leisure group for adults, she does it all.
‘Corinne Dutretre is a great ambassador for our sport! Her Take Care of Your Trails event and follow up on it were impeccable as it was last year already. During this year’s two day event, she managed to raise awareness about the importance of maintaining trails by making sure everyone from her club and local community were involved : the instructors, the youngest riders in the club, the parents and the mayor of Bagnols-en-Forêt to obtain the permission for the event. She’s just a great trail advocate all year round as she organizes different events, ensures the trails are well maintained and encourages kids to start mountain biking’, said Cathy Naveax, national coordinator of Mountain Bikers Foundation.
Shape & Ride Picho’Bike
The Take Care of Your Trails event that Vélo club du Pays de Fayence hosted last September was linked to the Picho’Bike route. Several sections of the trails were exposed due to erosion and needed to be fixed or deviated. Other parts that were overgrown by vegetation were pruned. Club members, teenagers, parents and a MBF group leader made the event to a great success. The regular Saturday morning training for club members was cancelled and replaced by this trail maintenance event. Everyone loved it. Especially the teenagers who could spend a whole day out on the trails digging, carving, having a trailside picnic and riding the finished trail with their friends at the end of the day.
Besides the honor, our Trail Advocates of the Year will receive the Showers Pass IMBA Jacket. This feature-loaded lightweight yet durable waterproof-breathable hardshell is ready to hit the trails and to resist UK wheather conditions. Congrats Corinne!