Mountain Bike Trails & Building

Building your own mountain bike trail can be fun, whether it is a technical downhill section, or a long singletrack. It will also improve your riding because you have to think about lines and finding the best way around an obstacle.

There is no firm guide to building the perfect trail because each and every trail is individual. This is a brief list that should help you build a successful trail.

1. Gaining Permission - This is the first step you should take because there are many people that do not gain permission and return in a few weeks to find all of their hard work destroyed. This is usually done by the land owners, forest ranger or just ramblers.

2. Planning the lines - You should mark out your trail before you start digging, use logs etc to mark out where jumps and berms will go. The logs can also be used as the 'foundations' and it means that you don't have to dig quite so much.

Mountain Biking Resources

Make sure that you spend time in getting the lines right first time because riding bad lines is not fun and you will only end building it again.

3. You should now get a second opinion from another rider - The largest contribution to trail deterioration is poor trail design because the flow of rain water has not been taken into account and trails can get swept away or made too slippery to ride.

4. Build the trail with longevity in mind - Try to find a source of clay like mud because this dries out and goes extremely hard and so the trail will last a long time. However, in wet conditions the clay can get very slippery and so some a thin layer of topsoil should be applied.