How To Not Build Illegal MTB Trails With Ben Cathro

Blink twice if FLS made you do this in order to keep the trail.

After 15 years of trail building in Rotorua, bang on Ben, excellent info. The other trail advocacy consideration we work with is community pest control trusts, trail providing access to more area for trapping & monitoring. So just another reason for more trail.
MTB brings a better economy, stronger communities, healthier forests & a greater sense of pride of our beautiful town. 
Look forward to the DH season, cheers for all the great content bro.

I want to see Ben Cathro and Christina Chappetta review the bikes.

When's he racing

To anyone who likes mountain biking, you should do what you can to be involved in your local trail association group. They're popping up in more places and almost always can use a hand with advocacy, building rapport with the local land owners and community, or even just moving dirt. It's important to remember that most of the awesome trails we ride around the world are a privilege to have access to, and like any other privilege, can be lost if it's not cared for.

Scotland is light years ahead of ireland in terms of sanctioned trailbuilding. The country is such an insurance basket case that the landowners, Coillte, will not allow any unofficial trailbuilding. Anything that is officially built is just tame trail centre greens or blues.

Great vid🤘

This was very informative, I hope it will be helpfull for us germans.

I like to build trails, don’t like to cooperate with the city and other land owners

What I love about mtb is the majority of the time a failure is on my part, not the bike or the trail. People who sue are melts lmao

Literally impossible to get a project approved in Eastern Europe if it doesn't bring tons of cash yo the town hall

Building trails is just a whole diverent Vibe

Cathro out here with his court-mandated public service announcement

With Scotland's right to roam, how do they not have a zero liability for said landowners?

WOW! I enjoyed watching it! That is really cool!

What I liked about this the most was seeing no excavators. I get it, maybe I'm a luddite, but once you cut a "trail" with a machine, I don't think its really much of a trail, lots of fun, but I'd call it a "track" or something else. Trails are natural. (I realize he refers to this often as a track, but I'm going to chalk that up the the Scottish vernacular!)

where is this trail

High viz vests because...? WTF!

Where are these tracks?

Great trail, great riding - AMAZING! WELL DONE! But the video is not realistic.
The reality is you had some time on your hands - and you built a trail.
If you'd "worked with trail associations" and "consulted land owners on the route" you'd still be talking about it and your lockdown-opportunity to build would have been and gone.
I understand why you made the video, it's important to get on the right side of people - you're being a model of "seek forgiveness not permission".
100% support you. Just saying that government, landowners, councils and society need to realise there is a need for trails.
Unauthorised trail building is the only realistic way they will ever realise that need.
Otherwise they're just not aware how big the need is - they won't get this from engaging with just a few select organisations like trail associations etc.
Riders are stuck in a loop of:
- no decent trails
- no decent land allocated
- have to build
- HAVE TO KEEP THOSE BUILDS SECRET TO STOP THEM BEING DESTROYED
- then other riders don't know about those builds
- so no decent trails for them
- build their own
- and on it goes.
There is too much unauthorised trail building - but only because councils, government and landowners are too restrictive about trail building in the first place.
Yes there are official channels, but there's also militancy and sometimes that actually gets things done. Go out and build trails, people!!

Basically the exact opposite of all that sound advice towards the end of the video happened at my local (illegal) riding spot and, well yeah all hell broke loose!

Mighty Plop

I remember the Forestry Commission in the Borders telling us about a woman who went walking in Craik in her stilettos, left the road to hike through the rough where she fell, broke her ankle and promptly sued the Commission for damages. Apparently you need warning signs about that!

Jeez a non mountain bike guy could build a trail its called common sence

Me and my friends are about to build one in a local park and we are not sure if its allowed we are in scotland btw

we only have illegal trails in melbourne, australia

Ben I find your riding absolutely relaxing to watch. Just what I needed to chill out after a long, rough week... riding Stellenbosch tomorrow

Needed to see this trail in the pie

Ok back story my group is a dirt bike Enduro group, we found a great area but it was private property so we got permission. Ok so one day we were riding our trails and we came across a trail that we didn't make or have permission for it to be there, being a mountain biker also I realized right away that they were mtb trails, now don't get me wrong we have a respect system with the mtb community and most of us are great friends. But this was a breach on the terms of our agreement so we contacted the mtb community leaders and they did some digging around and found out that they weren't the ones that did it. So we tracked down who did it it was a bunch of teens that made it on a weekend so we let them deal with the property owners. Everything worked out in the end, so those kids were put to work on making other trails for us.

in fairness in ireland scotland wales and england you cant dig 6 inches before finding a medieval village or a iron age post hole also YOU should not be able to sue a landowner because YOU choose to ride down a hill and YOU hit a tree at 40kph and broke YOUR collar bone or worse, YOUR lack of ability is not the landowners fault...I and only I are responsible for my actions and mistakes so it really isnt fair to be suing landowners for when we fuck up

I just returned to watch this video again after some time. It's so excellent! What an awesome summary of how to do trails right.

Imagine trying to sue the trail for a crash, like let’s be real…

we had issues up deuchny woods in perth , we got stv and forestry commission involved and we got a great wee all weather track built which has brought a lot of bikers our way .

Watching this as I build trails on conservation area

I’m building a sick trail rn and it’s goin well but I hope I don’t get sued cuz it’s such a stupid rule

Ummmm

What if u can’t find who owns the land and build a trail with no big features?? And it’s by kids ?

I have clipped my petal on a bush and I flew down a hill

Yes, the problem with mountain biking is that it doesn’t have enough bureaucracy. All the good local trails started out illegal and then became more formal and are managed by the local trail builder group. When the state set out to build a trail they brought in “professionals” who had no idea what they were doing and they created trash trails with terrible flow and dangerous jumps that just don’t work. Oh and they covered the whole thing in gravel for some reason.

A trail no go, but active forestry over that village yes man!!!

Just build the s***

In Germany the legalisation of a trail is longer than the its‘s lifetime so you find an illegal Trail everywhere and the forest owners are in a conflict with the trailbuilders

Thank you!!!!!!

wtf if you build on your own property you do whatever you want

First rule of fight club is don't talk about fight club

Thé Forest is dying: all Brown pine trees are dead.