Our seventh monthly Zoom video meeting, on Monday 13th May 2024.
We gave those of you who would have liked to have taken part in the Wales MTB Gathering, and discussed creating a Developing Mountain Biking in Wales – http://welshcycling.co.uk/news/developing-mountain-biking-in-wales – a chance to get a taste for what was presented and talked about on the day, and to contribute to the conversation yourselves.
Robbie George from Welsh Cycling gave an intro to the Wales MTB Gathering, and the reasons behind Welsh Cycling bringing people together to launch the Developing Mountain Biking in Wales project. Presenters from the day gave the same 5 minute talks they gave to attendees, including Ian Warby talking about how different groups came together to create Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland, an update from the UK MTB Trail Alliance’s Robin Grant on the state of play in Wales for trail associations, informal groups & bike parks and the trails they look after, Martin Astley talking about BikePark Wales and trail centres, Manon Carpenter talking about racing and events, Cycling UK’s Gwenda Owen talking about the Trails for Wales campaign, and Morgan Jones from Disability Sport Wales and Dr Fiona Spotswood about what we can do to make mountain biking more inclusive.
We then opened it up for a Q&A for people to ask questions of the presenters and then Robbie talked through the next steps for the project.
There were 35+ attendees including Kath Goodey & Ross Adams (Trail Collective North Wales), Alison Roberts & Andy Braund (NRW), Anthony O’Boyle (Mountain View Bike Park), Chris McNab (Brechfa MTB), Emma Kingston (Bikepacking Wales), Heather Freindship-Kay, Jason Bullimore (Tirpentwys Trails), Jim Cossey, Jo Atkinson (Risca Riders/Wyllie), John Morgan (Risca Riders), Katie Sutton (Preseli Riders), Mark Morgan (Black Mountains MTB), Steve Jones (EMBN), Tom Young (Cambrian Trails Project), Mike Hanson (Woburn Bike Trails), Paul Mackie (Ride Mendips), Pete Blundell (Northampton Bike Park), Rupert Barry (Forestry England), Sophie Gordon (Cycling UK), Andrew Hicks (Marshley Harbour Woods), Bern Mclure (Grassroots MTB), Jez Sainter (SingletrAction), Kieran Foster (Byways and Bridleways Trust), Tony Pocock (Sixtyseven70), Tony Skirrow (Ride Northampton), Zoe Woodman (girls ALIVE), Robbie George (Welsh Cycling), Ian Warby (Firecrest MTB), Martin Astley (BikePark Wales), Manon Carpenter (North Cardiff Trails), Gwenda Owen (Cycling UK), Morgan Jones (Disability Sport Wales), Fiona Spotswood (University of Bristol) and was hosted by Robin Grant (UK MTB Trail Alliance).
Here’s some links to stuff that came up during the meeting:
https://www.cyclinguk.org/blog/trails-wales-time-reignite-campaign
https://www.imba-europe.org/knowledge-hub/dirtt-project/
https://www.borderscollege.ac.uk/base
https://www.cyclinguk.org/cycle-activity-provider-membership
https://businesswales.gov.wales/topics-and-guidance/business-finance-and-grants/shared-prosperity-fund
but yeah welcome everyone um this is now um the seventh monthly call we’ve had um for the UK TV Trail Alliance um you think we’d be getting a bit more practice at them but um bear with me um um and today is all about giving all of those all of you that weren’t able to make um Friday’s inperson gathering at the lodge in stay little which the most amazing venue I’ve ever been to with a with sort of almost 180 degree panoramic views over the mid mid whales mountains um was absolutely beautiful absolutely beautiful day um some of which we we spent outside in the sunshine which was which was great um but why we were all there really was to discuss um kickstarting creating whatever name you want to give it to it a a developing mountain biking in Wales um similar to develop developing Mountain backing in Scotland which has been in existence for the last 14 years um but I won’t still anymore Robbie’s funer Robbie should really give the intro to the day as he organized the event um so Robbie I’ll hand over to you yeah thanks Robin um I’ll start off I’ll just uh I’ll share my screen and just go through the uh slides that we shared and I think Robin shared the uh the candidate pack or the delegate pack I think I called it the wrong thing but sent out anyway um before so um which gave a a kind of a potted history if you can pot history into 13 pages that was as poed as it got um but it was the intention of uh showing that we’re we’re not starting from nothing um there’s you know there’s a worldclass product in Wales it’s just and the question really was what why is it that when you know I was traveling around Wales and of course and you know people speaking to each other and the the sector feels a little bit unloved like there’s there isn’t a voice like there’s some real challenges going on in terms of the um you know people who want to develop the sector but coming coming up against some barriers and and so how do we move forward so that was the intention to identify what you know what do we need to do so um just firstly this is what it looked like um it was I mean I was go you know if anyone goes to pois you don’t generally pack for good weather um and it was insanely good weather probably almost too good probably need a little bit of shade as gender’s face will testify and there was other people one of the only bits of comment that I’ve got about what could have been improved on the day was um it was a little bit Sunny um so what we’d intend if you haven’t been stay little before the logic day a little sorry so inside you can see man I’m presenting so there’s a fairly small room when I saw it I was a bit concerned that we weren’t going to fit everybody in but we did and um credit to the speakers they all stuck I I gave a challenge to speak for ear five minutes um so basically call to action what are you talking about what’s important to you and then let’s go and workshop it and and get the the opinions of the people in the room so using the uh the wisdom of the crowd so to speak so um yeah I think we by the end of the speech we were only running 15 minutes over time which I was was amazed by because I just thought everybody was going to go on like when you know when everyone’s got a captive audience it it can sometimes be hard to re in um but yeah then we went outside beautiful open lawn with like like um Robin says with his panoramic views and we split up the tables um specific challenge was um set a vision for the specific area so whether it’s bike parks whether it’s risk management whether it’s Trail associations and land owners working together whether it’s sport Pathways and whether it’s inclusion or campaigns and advocacy so there was all you know lots of really really good conversation that was happening straight after the the um the the speeches um just when everybody was going to grab a coffee and then try and set some really clear tactics for okay what do we actually need to do uh we then um had a look at trying to um put a little bit of cost against what we’re what we’re proposing so I’ve set three cost um uh areas which are pretty wide so no not pounds so free something we can do now so the the example that’s always worth giving is we can all tweet and you know or push out on Instagram or or LinkedIn or wherever it is we can all say what we’re doing and what’s important or some campaign that’s running and collectively as a as a large number of people our voice will will get to quite a wide audience um what might we need 100 grand for so the reason for that amount of money was uh that’s what I’m trying to raise in year one um and the intention is that we try to secure at least three years of funding to to make a really good fist of it you know after three years if we go actually it’s it’s too hard we need lot more money and the money is not available or something doesn’t work then then at least we’ve tried but that’s what we’re trying to secure and I’ll come back on to that um a little bit later and the last one was a million pounds so if we if we if we’ got something like developing mountain biking in Scotland which is funded to the tune of two to three million pounds a year at the minute um that’s at the minute star from scratch that’s a pipe dream but you know what what would be a million pound project you know is it a new bike park is it some education program where we get mounted biking into every school you know you know what does it look like so fingers crossed we can raise that kind of money um but I I um uh for those who joined the call earlier I spent my weekend in Abus with delivering some activities a bike festival for the a um primary Festival so I had a little bit time in the evening actually got the notes uh together and there’s some really interesting stuff which I I think I’ll share at the end I’ll let everybody do their speeches and I’ll just dive in to show you what actually came out of um of the of the discussions so morning was was all that that I’ve just talked about and then in the afternoon we we looked at the fierce framework which Fiona will on you later so started off with um just just a bit of scene setting really a you know trying to look at the purpose why are we here what’s going on in the sector why is it that we need to come together and um and and think about how what needs to work moving forward shouldn’t it just be working by itself considering the sector that we have and the impact on the economy that man to bike and off-road and touring um has uh for the world’s economy but you know but it’s not the case people are wanting some support and direction we focused on the networks so there was a brilliant network of people there on the day from bike parks to volunteers to UK MTB Trail Alliance to world champions um downhillers um to you know universities represented to individuals representing um you know bike shops or individual organizations and groups it was it was a really really good Network um which gave for me gave a really diverse um uh diverse range of opinions um the one of the really key things though was we wanted to explore the ownership and the government of an over you know project like dibin so that started off as a government essentially a government-led project even though it was a number of different people coming together and um you know and then it was decided that it di would sit under Scottish cycling but what do we want the ownership uh to look like here because MB Wales which some of you may be familiar with it’s not a it’s it was kind of owned by the sector really it was um you know visit Wales would pump put some money in and they own the the the domain named for NB Wells but actually MB Wells was set up as a cic and it was governed by people in the sector but there was some there was some governance issues and that the chair stepped down they didn’t have a defined recruitment process and no one kind of stepped into that so so the project started to drift and they haven’t actually met as a group for two years so we want to look at you know this ownership and this governance what does the overall structure look like so it can be we’re developing a sustainable model to move forward with rather than something that would not be attended to for for two years this is something that’s ongoing regular meetings regular actions regular things like dig days and stuff and then of course the big one is finance so nobody’s under any illusions that we we we you know we can’t do everything for free we do need money to do some stuff the you know the trails are in a need uh a significant investment I was riding clim x with um with with a with a contact today in the in the dery valley and you know it was super wet and it just needed some you know some drainage work doing on it but that cost a lot of money and actually the the W Valley Trail Association the volunteers that run there they’re having real issues with getting the permissions from lrw just to do things like cut backs and and and some shaping of the trails so um those ongoing challeng we you know we need some money but then we also need the permissions and we need to make sure we’ve got the right ways of way ways of working so just in terms of the purpose you might you might have um whether you not you’ve had a chance to go through all the pages that Robin shared with you before but I you know put for forward a this is a potted history of mountain biking in Wales and or not necessarily mountain biking in Wales but actually some strategies and some things that have happened in the sector that gets us to where we are for the for the present day and I described it as the rabbit hole that I went down when people started there telling me you know when when I started with well cycling back in July after after moving over from britsh Shing was we need a dim bins we need a dim bins we need something like that and the more people I spoke to the more people shared said something slightly different and um you know all these things and I thought I’d just timeline it to go like when did this happen and why and who did it impact and you know what you know what was going on including things like developing M biking in Scotland so you can see all the stuff that happened in Wales it was really really positive like the moving up a gear strategy selecting the next gear and um you know the UK’s first tra dedicated Britain’s first dedicated Trail Center Cody Bren MB Wales getting created which at the time was supposed to be the voice of the sector that all happened before Di was formed so what’s happened since then why why is it that the there’s this perception that we don’t have something like dim bins and there’s a variety of factors at play but there really is that need and and I would say from Friday that real desire and that passion now to come together and do something about it you know everyone’s recognizing and and what people have put down as what they want to see isn’t you know it wasn’t a group room that the people going we want 10 bike parks per region was going now actually what we need is some best practice guidelines to better support Trail associations to how do they break down these barers how do they apply for funding what does good trail design look like what does good risk management look like what does good signage look like you know all these things and that’s just you I’m not going to say these are easy Wings wins but these things exist you know through dim bins through through other places um you know that we we could put together and it would be a case of the group coming together and deciding on these things so um so yeah quite uh quite an interesting Rabbit Hole I went down but there’s certainly been a lot of work but a need now to to to do a bit more so this was a summary of the people that were there so really good Network and uh trashy trails end up rocking up after sign up the day before but yeah they were there as well we didn’t necessarily talk about the Su sustainable Trails but that what they do is obviously a factor in in everything we want to do moving forward what I want what I wanted to push for is um to look at rather than these individual logos and an an organization and individuals doing their own thing is to actually look at ourselves more as an ecosystem and recognize where we have this shared value and if we come together to Share value you know we’re not hogging all the people or we’re not only signposting people to our opportunities we’re not a bike part that only cares about the bike park we’re actually doing some Outreach work to either bring people to the bike park or support Trail associations and Trail Builders to you know to get better actually what will happen there is become stronger as a sector and rather than taking our section of the par we grow the pie we make the pie bigger and then we get a bigger bigger piece of it uh just by by design of that and part of this is you know when we start to speak to ministers and things it’s to try and articulate to the Welsh government how they benefit from the user I don’t think they it’s not like they don’t know that they benefit the economy benefits from the secondary spend that you know somebody buys a coffee and ice cream at a bike park um or you know pay pays for parking there’s a benefit to the economy it’s not like they don’t know but are we talking to them in the way that you know how does universities delivering um MTB actually position whilst universities as different as distinct from uh ones in in England or or Scotland how do Trail um you know what’s the linkages between Trail centers and and tour operators you know that there’s a perception now that they’re working independently so let’s come together and understand these linkages and grow it and look at that you know delivering that societal value and impact that economic value and impact um that service value that we’re there providing the service but there’s this own over all benefit you know we’re all shared in the space and there’s a real need to work together and look there was I don’t think there was anybody pushing against this there was like there was that real you know real positive energy uh around the lodge um so then just in terms of the ownership in the government governance where you looked at these are just propositions so imagine left of the screen right the screen you know is MB Wales actually dim bins I mean it was set up to kind of be that but then as has drifted a bit it it was almost never also never really a Grassroots movement um but people want it people like it people like the brand they recognize the website it’s got you know good information and stuff on there um and then if MBA Wales is the top do we then need other subgroups and things like say gender running the campaigns an advocacy group a tourism industry group that um you know represents the bike parks and and bike shops and stuff the sport Pathways so we making sure we got clubs and racing and stuff or do we need something else is it actually di model and MB Welles is kind of the mark marketing function for the sector so or is it actually just like that ecosystem at the bottom that we just exist as a sector and recognize that there is shared value so what what do we want it to look like moving forward or is it you know is is it something else and there was certainly from the those I talked to so I was actually involved in the um you know the leadership structure and things there was a few different discussions but then I I discussed with other people and the general feeling was that MB Wells was was a pretty good brand and maybe we just need to work it bit at that to actually get it moving again reappoint a chair get a vice chair a Treasurer and actually try and um you know set up to get funding it’s almost like an easy win that it’s already set up we can do something with it straight away rather than going down this rout of something entirely new which will take significantly more time and more money um so no nothing decided yet more more suggestions I think the priority though is we recruit into the roles in mb Wales and and almost let that that that group decide um what the what needs to be based on the feedback that we’ve got from um uh from the sector so far so that was uh not a finished uh open space activity so that was it um that was uh it in the nutshell um yeah I’ll I’ll come back on later if that’s okay and just share what some of the the themes were but I’ll let everybody else do their their short speeches so Ian do you want to do you want to go next yeah have you got me screen yet or not yeah um have you got the right screen now yeah I think so just go yeah no problem so yeah basically um Robbie asked me down to talk about how we got together to create mountain biking in Scotland so as you saw with his timeline it was about 2010 when we got things going there um I was saying to the group that one of the things that really struck me was um Brian portius ran the workshop that we had up in Scotland to basically start the project and to put together the strategy and one of the big things that Brian said at the beginning of that meeting was to leave your baggage at the door so obviously everyone wanted something different from that organization everyone came with their their own kind of stories of success and frustration and it was really just getting everyone to to kind of forget that and look at what the future could hold and how we could get things to move forward properly and it really hit me that that Brian ran that meeting in such a way that the animosity that might have been there was really kind of extinguished from the beginning and we all worked you know very much like we saw on Friday uh everyone was working for the future and what there could be rather than what was or any mistakes anyone had made or any frustrations that people were harboring a little bit and I think it it was it was great to kind of be able to share that message at the beginning of the day and get people thinking um then it was just really looking at some of the organizations that came together at the beginning and um kind of for me one of the the bits about my time at CTC was just the power of Partnerships and bringing together the right people to get the organization going and obviously each of these organizations have their own targets their own structure but being able to put money in the pot and get in bins going really enabled us to kind of work together and kind of agree on the voice that we were going to use to kind of speak to people and also the kind of the approach that we could take and Target that early work um and get that started so a real range of organizations coming together and and kind of obviously some of those could put money in but others like Robbie said could really put time and contact and obviously there’s a value to that as well if you can if you can kind of Leverage that support from those people and then I just put down some keys to success so just creating that clear and concise strategy defining those early priorities um focusing on the easy wins it’s easy to try and over complicate things but you don’t really need to and then don’t attempt to be everything to everyone it’s very easy for these organizations to have a million people putting them in a million different directions but it’s just looking at those early targets and saying this is what we’re working on we might be able to come back to you later and then obviously budget um as Robbie said it’s kind of looking at that 100,000 back when we started we had a budget of 65 ,000 to get going and it was really just pulling as much money together as we could to kind of get that officer in post and then that leads to more funding so it’s really exciting looking at how that can can kind of grow and then gaining the poit political support so one of the things that dibin did really well was to kind of use the numbers that mountain biking was putting through to leverage that support from the government and then once they came on board you could really see the difference and the funding starting to flow it was fantastic and then uh leverage all opportunities utilizing the partners and again that’s really what struck me on Friday was just how many people were in the room Keen to do something and the opportunities that were there and The Leverage that we could bring together um and and I think everyone left just thinking yeah if we can if we can work together on this I think there’s a really good thing and then the last one was just to always be ready to be adaptable and responsive it’s very easy to kind of want to set these things in stone but if you can out quickly and respond to those opportunities that come along it really gets things going and that’s really what dim bins has done exceptionally well to kind of be where it is today and have the money it has cool thanks Ian um and I think it is me next um so I um five minutes this time Robin don’t um never is never going to be five minutes when it was 10 minutes last time I was going to say Robbie was very kind at the beginning by not pointing out it was me that took twice the time that he allocated um on Friday so I apologize for that then and I apologize for it again now um so you all know who the UK interv Trails is so I won’t labor that point um but what I wanted to what I did on Friday was try and give an introduction to sort of the state of play so so where are we at with all the informal Trail groups um trade associations of bike parks um in in Wales as to as of today now we did a membership survey um back in um December January Feb um took a while to get everyone to get the survey complete um and this is this slide is just looking at our total membership base in whales so you know that all of the all of the bite Parts all of the trail associations all the informal Trail groups that the UK MTB Trail liance is aware of in Wales as a total of 53 as you can see it’s dominated by informal Trail groups are people that might have built some trails in the woods and have set up a Facebook group but not much more than that those Trails probably are not officially sanctioned um then there also formally constituted um Trail associations there bike parks um and other and there’s also um uh one planet Adventure who a commercial Trail Center um as one of those slides so if you moving on to the next slide this is this is who answered the survey which as you can see is about half half that amount but as you can see fairly representative still of all of those groups perhaps is slightly underweight on the informal Trail group um area um and this is people that responded across the UK of the whole survey so as again you can see that Wales sort of overweights in the informal Trail group sense both in terms of survey responses and actually overall um but again broadly similar with the rest of the UK in terms of the other groups um this breaks it down in a bit more detail so um informal Trail groups are still that but um of the formal Trail groups of the trail associations as you can see in total in Wales um you know just over half of them are unincorporated not you know therefore each of the individuals are sort of personally liable and at risk um quite a good percentage of them formed as a as a community interest company which does protect the directors of their companies and again across bik parks and Commercial bik Parks there’s you know there were there are a few nonprofit bik Parks as well as the the vast majority of commercial bik Parks out there again that breaks down quite well for the survey so again we’ve got pretty good representation for all those groups again as as before underweight of the informal Trail groups and again looking at the detail View for the whole of the UK um you can see you know the main difference is actually in the rest of the UK there are a lot of charitable Incorporated organizations C so you know properly formly registered Charities that are running trail that are Trail associations um um which is obviously just a slightly different way of doing it than cic’s um so looking at how much funding these groups have got um basically not very much um so this is this is the situation for Wales um of the people that were spend the survey so almost half of absolutely zero funding as you can see almost three quarters have got have got ,000 or less um and actually you know even even the people with lots of money we’re only talking 5 to 10K here and we’re not talking large amounts obviously that excludes commercial bike parks um so really there is not very much money going into volunteer um built and maintain Trails um and again this is oh that’s just changing the background just for effect look he sad um but then if you look at how much funding um the rest this is the UK wide picture now you can see it’s broadly similar actually slightly more that haven’t had that had zero funding but as you can see the top end the top end of the chart there’s a lot more groups that are getting quite significant amounts of money including the real outlier there which is Thailand trails and Scotland who’ve received over 1 million in grant funding for their Trails um so where did you get that funding from in Wales well obviously most of them didn’t raise any funding but interestingly here what’s missing is that no one in Wales seems to be getting any grant funding for their Trails they’re either raising it from from their Community or the public they’re charging perhaps a membership fee or or race organizers to use their Trails or obviously they’re they’re doing sponsorship deals with brands or Comm commercial organizations um vast majority of people operating without insurance um which isn’t great um not vast majority but obviously a small minority well just a small yeah Le less than a majority but the British cycling there’s an open question about British cycling whether that covers you for dig days or not um so again you know not not not a very professionalized state of as spaires I suppose you would take from that um who’s Landing your Trails on quite wide split here I would expect more trails to BU on nrw land um but uh still you know the largest group of trails are on nrw land but then local councils Woodland trust and then private land owners is the other and then obviously some people are leasing their trails from land owners um the trails have permission well it’s not a black and white answer here you know actually as you can see there’s a real Spectrum um from yes a large chunk where there is absolutely no permission in place at all but also quite a few there’s informal permission or where they’re in the they’re in the middle of seeking permission and having production conversations with their land owner but haven’t got formal permission yet there’s quite a few again that that used to have formal permission but don’t anymore and then again a very large chunk that do have formal permission for the trails on the land which is great but obviously we you know that that no permission sector is a is a risky risky State of Affairs both for those trails and for you know and for the people looking after them um this is quite an important question we asked people what was the biggest issues your group are currently facing they had 29 options to choose from this is the top 10 for the Wales answers but you can see how those answers scored for the total of the the total of the UK in the second column so as you can see the top five actually all shared across um the UK and Wales just in a slightly different order um but yeah I mean our trails are getting damaged by sto by storms quite frequently and that’s only going to get worse and worse through climate change we’re suffering from a real lack of vol teers and also in fifth place a lack of money as we’ve seen There’s real problems with motor cross bikes and chirons damaging Trails causing issues um and that’s also a lot of people riding those trails and not very not very people to maintain them so you know that’s a real problem as you can see fly tipping seems to be a real issue in Wales and compared to the rest of the UK um yeah and then asking people what’s their biggest barrier to progress these are just some of the quotes um that people gave in response to that question question you know everything through again volunteers and money you know talking about dealing with land owners in this instance nrw um talking about planning um talking about the issues and and effort and lack of direct you know lack of assistance to becoming official um and then um finally we asked them how you know out of potential projects that the ukb trail Alliance could do in order to help our members um out of 36 options how would you prioritize them you know what what what’s so again we’ve got this is this is an order from 1 to 10 for Wales but as you can see which of those which position these priorities had for the rest of the UK and the second column consensus both in Wales and across the UK that working toade British cycling and cycling UK to focus more of effort and spend on recreational mountain biking was a was a number one priority for all mountain bikers you know we we quite often feel like rightly or wrongly that we’re the black sheep of the cycling family and more time and effort gets on spent on other cycling disciplines um but lots of stuff there about helping Trail alliances and Trail groups you know work with land owners giving them guidance giving them documentation they can use to to learn how to do things um how where they can get funding from you know you can read all that that stuff yourself but um that’s where we are so that is it and having done that I will now hand over um to Martin okay good evening guys can you hear me okay yep great I don’t have a PowerPoint presentation um I explained while I gave this talk last week my colleague Rowan was due to be delivering this presentation and decided to fly to Australia to racing the Masters World Champs at the last minute so I got stitched up so it’s me uh me delivering this um so I’m going to be talking to you about the not very sexy but very important topic of risk management um it isn’t a lot of fun to be talking about risk management but I think with groups like the one that we’ve got together this evening it’s really important that we are talking about it um it’s about protecting Riders uh and it’s about protecting the support that we all love as well um so to clarify when I’m talking about risk management um I’m talking about the processes that we put in place to achieve two main outputs so the first one is to reduce the likelihood and severity of accidents happening on trails and the second one is to protect whichever organization it is which is managing the trails from litigation um we’re all connected here really um particularly when it comes to litigation um mountain biking is a risky Sport and unfortunately accidents will happen um on Trails really regardless of who built them and where they are um and we need to make sure collectively that we don’t leave an open goal um by not managing risks sufficiently um and we need to avoid a situation where really one organization is found wanting and it has implications for The Wider support um so I’m well aware that I’m sitting here talking to you as a bike park with um significantly more resource in particular than a Volunteer Trail organization so I’m not at all advocating that we all need to be held to the same standards here um there definitely needs to be levels in how this is managed but I thought it would be useful for me to talk you through um just at a very high level the process that we use at bik Park whales bearing in mind we’re on natural resources whales land ourselves um and how we kind of develop and manage risk on Trails um so the first step is the really fun bit so this is the plotting the trails working out where you want to put them getting GPS lines sorted um we have to gain the necessary consent so for us that means um consent from nrw so we have to kind of walk over the lines with them work around ecological Arch ological coal mining Etc constraints um if that all goes okay we then need to go through the formal planning process so we have to have planning permission for all of our Trails um and that’s become more and more difficult um over the years it’s much harder to do now than it was 11 years ago when we first opened um we’ve just received planning last week for about 26 new trails at the bike park but that’s taken us the most two years to get through that process um so if we’ve done then um we get to the very important kind of risk management steps so the first thing we do is create something called a trail design brief and a trail design brief is basically a short document one or two pages which describes the trail so it’s it will outline what grade the trail is going to be whether it’s going to be a tech Trail or a flow Trail or a plus trail with more jumps in it um and sitting alongside that is a a document that we have internally which is really important which is like a trail description sorry a trail grading descriptions document so we actually write a document that describes you know what a blue Trail should look like and what a red Trail should look like in terms of the features the surface types the gradients ETC and we even prescribing our you know how big a drop can be on a red Trail or how big a gap can be on a black Trail and that’s a really important thing that I’ll link back to um shortly so we create this trail design brief we give that to the build team we then make sure the build team are correctly resourced they’ve got the correct qualifications and training to do the job um and the correct equipment and then we start building which is obviously super fun B um once the trail is built um we then have a sign off process um so again you kind of need to be um qualified to do this so we send our trail crew through a course to be qualified um to do this and they will walk the trail refer back to the trail design brief which I spoke about earlier make sure that it’s delivered what um we said it would um and again the trail gradings document I spoke about earlier they will um check that uh you know they will even measure drops for example so they’ll measure a drop and say right does that sit within the threshold for this creative Trail um got to keep a paperwork process of all of this obviously so you can prove that you um actually signed off your Trail um and then it met your requirements uh once the trail is opened we’ve then got kind of a different Suite of of risk management processes the first one being um Trail inspections now probably most of the people in this room who are responsible for managing trails in some variety do some form of Trail inspection um we do ours monthly um and we walk the trails but that can be completely different depending on your organization I was talking to a friend recently who um works with the Volunteer Trail Association and I was astonished to hear that he inspects his Trail monthly as well um and he was telling me what a resource Trin that was for them to do and yet of course for a volunteer organization walking every Trail under your management monthly is a a massive drain on your time um so I think that uh there are definitely levels of you know how frequently and to what level these things are done um but at B Wales yet we do them monthly we then create like a job list um and we qualify our jobs as either safety or quality Works um if their safety they’re obviously prioritized first and they’ll be dealt with um at the top of the list should we find something that we think is really bad then we would close a trail and not open it until we fix that job but again you’ve got to keep a record of all of this you’ve got to make sure that if you’ve identified an issue that you’ve then got a record to prove that you’ve fixed it um and then the final part of the process is accident reporting um so I mentioned again earlier sadly people do hurt themselves mountain biking um and at bike par Wales we um do accident reports for anything above a certain threshold generally a broken bone or above for us and an accident report for us will be taking the first aid report interviewing the rider interviewing anybody who saw the crash doing a trail inspection sometimes taking photographs or even videos um of the scene um and just kind of making sure that the trail is safe um to remain open after an accident uh again keeping a paper trail of all of this um so to summarize that’s kind of giving you an overview of the framework that we use so they kind of the steps of the process that we use and I wouldn’t Advocate that other bodies or bik Parks have to follow the same level of detail or anything that we do but I think that the loose structure in terms of having a trail design brief um having a trail inspection regime and having an acess reporting process for example I think do spread um across the industry um and these systems can help protect jobs in the industry um they can protect the company if if it’s a company that um is managing the trails or an organization but I think really importantly they can they can protect the whole sport um I think if a really serious incident were to come in front of a judge um and it does happen and it does happen I have some experience of this myself um one of the first questions they will ask is what are the industry standards and where they met um and as we stand right now there isn’t really an official industry standard I think a lot of people will say that forestry commission or natural resources Wales system is the industry standard um and it’s kind of the the longest lasting um system that exists out there but it’s not an official industry standard and the judge wouldn’t necessarily see it as that so I would kind of advocate advocate for the fact that we do need some minimum industry standards and I I got to be really clear here I’m not trying to set targets that are impossible for volunteer organizations to to meet we’re probably talking about a pretty low bar here um but we’re talking about a framework and a structure that will hopefully help um organizations and give them a really good steer to the at least the types of activities that they should be doing um so that they can protect themselves um protect Riders um and ultimately protect the sport so that’s it thanks a lot cool um I was G to let people ask questions as we went along which I totally forgot about um so let’s not do that but if you’ve got any questions anyone for any of the speakers so far remember them and ask them at the end um but let’s move on to man on now okay can you see my slides is it doing the thing where you can see two sides at once yeah it’s doing what it did with the end but I think just go ahead maybe anyway you can quickly fix it what’s happened now better yeah that’s now sharing the whole screen um so yeah on Friday I was talking about sports Pathways in Wales um to kind of think about the whole picture how do you go from picking up a bike to competing at whichever level um you reach and I talked to a number of athletes um event organizers and coaches coaches and guides um for this just to check that I was kind of on the right on the right lines uh so I have a racing background so having uh Taken part in family run Dragon downhill Series in the early 2000s I’ve seen what it takes to organize an event uh and have also kind of gone through those Pathways of you know riding local trails from the house uh up to International um competition uh and then more recently taken on more of like this Trail Advocate role I think I’ve settled on um and making documentaries and uh being involved in the conversation around trails in general and this is very much because I think it underpins so much of mountain biking from you know that first step on a bike onto trails near the house up to uh competing internationally um so like trails and access um you know I really think it’s really important in terms of how we support mountain biking as a sport as well as you know also for recre and everything outside of sport um specifically so just thinking about the pathways you know from picking up a bike going riding either locally or maybe traveling to a trail Center in bike park where you know what it is you’re going to ride and then you might join a local Club to meet other people who are riding in your area um and if you’re young you know want to ride with other Riders your age uh go on to compete in theory locally you know you go to an event that’s you know not too much of a commitment to try out and then build skills um maybe showing promise gain support and go on to compete nationally or internationally if you’re if you’re heading towards the elite level but in practice what does this look like so can you find and access trails to ride are the trails Progressive can they take you from your beginner uh up to more advanced levels is there a local club that has a ride leader that’s able to take people out officially on official Trails you know and be publicized so that people anyone can come and join um are there any races local are there venues and are those venues are people able to get permission to run events at those venues and you find support um I don’t think this was this wasn’t really a focus um on on Friday and um so like with financial situations at the moment it wasn’t a big um a big Focus but it’s it is a relevant um very relevant part of this and can you get skills coaching again can you do it locally without having to travel and put in that big commitment um in your first steps so we know that access can be fragmented and obscure you know you might need to know someone who can show you where you can ride and if you don’t know anyone you know how do you find where you can go and we the like knowledge sharing platforms like straa Etc came up but if you’re not a confident Rider are you just going to follow a line downhill um the lack of modern Progressive Trail centers came up so you know if you want to lead group rides or do coaching um what options do you have and unofficial Trails is you know hearing from multiple people it’s just such a big gray are area you don’t know what you can and can’t do um you get some people who are using more unofficial Trails but again what Robin said when you come down to insurance and liability are you covered are you confident doing it in a publicized you know open way uh land permissions also come up so again common reoccurance is that it’s really hard to get permission to run events on N nrw Land and also as ride leaders coaches um any kind of events and that from race organizers hearing that private land is the easiest way to go and having bike parks doesn’t necessarily solve the venue problem um because quite often they’ll prioritize operations so having bike parks doesn’t automatically mean you have venues for races and also that there’s a need for much like a framework for wild Trails unofficial Trails you know how does that work a more clear guidance for events that you can also take to say local authorities to show them what you want to do um and for them to better understand what’s required and what you’re planning to do uh I think an example here is Kuman when there was difficulties and it sounds like getting local authorities to understand what was needed and that kind of communication um and understanding wasn’t there so how could uh a Wales wide organization help to kind of streamline that process um and I I do really think that the kind of difficulty in doing a lot of this like the vagueness around a lot of this does kind of gatekeep who manages to make it happen um so you have to be quite a confident well established well networked individual I think to make a lot of this happen um kind of from Riders and Inter leadership roles in in organizing events so looking forward those were the barriers looking forward the questions that I asked uh at the sports Pathways kind of table out on the lawn uh was how to you know General but it’s really important Sports Pathways how do we increase access to all potential future cyclists that’s bikes as well as Trails uh which did lead to some good discussions uh how to grow Grassroots organizations like clubs and Community groups how to enable local through to international events can we help coaches and guides to operate more easily and also have the infrastructure there that they can use and that you know we really do have a work landscape for mountain biking in Wales so where are the world class official Trail networks and accessible training facilities and race funes and um those were kind of the topics that I I kind of picked up on and introduced and then obviously went on to have slightly wider discussions at the at the table Sports Pathways station um but what I think Robbie’s going to maybe give more of the outcomes but my main takeaway from that at the end everyone voted we had Post-it notes all over the paper and everyone voted on the main things they thought was the most important and really it was the Grassroots level stuff so it was having the trails like Progressive Trails available um people to ride and also to be used for the various you know Club structures and coaching uh through this um they real need to have like that basic infrastructure there um and also enabling clubs and Community groups to operate so they can really support kind of from the ground up um cyclists into this Sports pathway um in mountain biking and it was less you know less of the elite and the kind of like high level venue focus and I think that speaks like where we are at at the moment and really needing to get the trail infrastructure Trail network and infrastructure around that right um to kind of let you know to build a investment um so yeah that was my introduction talk and takeway awesome thanks man on um Gwenda meanwhile I hope you are thinking of questions right I’m not used to um zoom and I’m on my iPad so I’m not even gonna try and share my slides I did find them but I I’ll do without so um oh cool yeah you got them there Robbie thank you yeah I think I’m pretty sure they were still uh fantastic well I’ll start talking while Robbie’s um doing the technical stuff um so I’m Gwenda and I’m Wales advocacy and development lead for cycling UK so I lead on all our different to types of work in Wales cycling UK for those of you who don’t know used to be CT cyclist touring club and we’ve been around since 1876 I might have got the numbers wrong there but a long time um and it thanks to us that we can actually ride on Bridal ways because we campaigned for that in the 60s I can’t remember the exact date um to enable um bikes to be on Bridal ways um however with other access reform um in Wales we didn’t see access with the crow as I think Robbie pointed out in his timeline so we have access land in Wales but we can only ride our bikes on 20% of the public rights of NE way Network and Walsh government realized that this was a problem and so they launched a they announced their intention and launched consultations on widening access to the outdoors to a wider range of users including um people on bikes and horse riders and back in 2015 to gain support for that consultation to get people um we and open MTB and others work together to launch our Trails Welles campaign as you can see there’s some um people you might know there so we were working with while cycling back then um and there’s um Tom Hutton who is one of the the key people behind it um we had amazing support for um our petition and lots I think it was a record-breaking response to the W government consultation so we thought you know Happy Days um you move on to the next one Robbie I can’t remember what’s on it but um yeah they just pictures something there yeah so 2015 and then 2019 we got a ministerial um commitment to um increasing rights away now and we thought we you know this is it we thought um we’ got to change and I put that a picture there just to illustrate how ridiculous our existing rights of nwk network is the path on the right um as you’re facing it the narrow one is a bridal way the wide one is footpath so strictly speaking you can’t ride on the wide one so there are lots of anormales like that there are lots of places where it makes sense for you to be able to ride but we can’t there are tracks on Open Access land that would cause no harm and would really join up those networks so um this is why sorry I’m r ling a bit now so um the expert groups met then to look at how we could go forward um this was dueing covid and they discussed the different options they had different user groups um land owners Ramblers British hor Society Cy UK um representing the wider cycling um bodies and they all discussed different ways the different challenges that would be faced um looking at the technical problems of changing the law um looking at how you would decrease at um increase access and they made recommendations which nrw then um presented a paper to um Welsh government and basically that was that since then click on we haven’t really seen much progress so in 2023 we um did some research we wrote up our findings and we launched our report Trails for Wells we can’t afford to wait so why can’t we afford to wait economic benefits the health and wealth being benefit to being the outdoors we know the reasons why access to the outdoors is good and Wales we feel is missing out as manon’s touched on we’ we’ve got an amazing landscape in Wales it’s perfect for riding your bike off-road in terms of um that Grassroots enabling people to get on their bikes and ride their bikes and their doorstep we need to simplify and make um an enable wider access to the outdoors so we launched our report and we had great attendance in Cardiff Bay we had um ministers tend it currently it was the minister at the time Le Waters um came and they showed interest and they said yes yes but the problem is that it lacks priority in terms of the political um agenda um and so if we can have the next slide that is my ask the detail of um what we’re asking for is in the trails Wales report I can put a link in the um chat later um but what next we need to really we need to remind Welsh government of why they’ve committed to increasing access um they did it for the right reasons we’ reminded them of those reasons in this report and we now need to make sure that they become sufficient priority um as we we said um on Friday say on Friday realistically we’re probably looking at the next senate elections of 201 26 we’re looking to get it into Welsh government Manifesto there’s no time for legislative change um during this parliamentary term what we would like to do is to see if we can push forward for um the request we made for them to trial higher rights of access on Welsh government owned land nrw land so we could look at where there are places where for example the Ramblers and cyclists and horse riders might disagree on how we should um afford the higher rights so we can work some of those things out by triing it um but what we need to do we need to raise awareness we need to raise an awareness with senate members with local politicians with local land owners with the wider public of why this matters and this is why we need to work together with you so we can all help make that case so that was my ask were how do we get this up the political agenda and get Walsh government to deliver on the promise they made back in 2019 thank you cool thank you Grenda um Morgan good evening everyone hope you’re all doing okay just pull my slides up lovely so yeah my name is Morgan Jones and I’m here just to share a little bit with you um about inclusion in mountain biking so I am a performance pathway senior officer at disability sport Wales um I am a new dad I’m a husband and I’m also an international athlete in three Sports um if you look in the top left there you can see me competing at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in athletics uh bottom left um winning a a bronze medal at the Rugby League World Cup um and then I haven’t included a photo in case you all held it against me by have also played golf for Wales as well um but more and more when people ask me what I am or what I do I find myself saying that I’m a mountain biker and for me that’s really cool because um as a young child I never thought that that would be something that I would say about myself given that I was born without my left forearm and hand I just didn’t think that it was um something that would ever be something that I would say about myself um so what I want out of today and what I uh wanted to get from Friday and I think I achieved it is to find out how we can best work together to make mountain biking more inclusive and I really want to hear about your vision for the sport and um also to highlight a structure that we have at disability sport Wales that may um support us all in working towards a more inclusive mountain biking future for Wales so at DW we believe that inclusion is more about process of arriving at the best outcome um it’s the journey that counts the quality of the opportunity and the way in which people are treated considered communicated with and provided for it’s not the end result that’s important in itself it’s the journey that the individual has whilst getting to that end result that end result might look different for me versus someone else you may have someone who progresses along a pathway to become a high performance athlete you may have someone who participates in the sport never goes any further than recreational participation but still has a really valuable experience in that Sport and I guess if we put inclusion and Sport together that’s how we uh come to in sport and um that’s a project that is very important to us at DW so inport is a disability sport Welles project which aims to support the uh physical activity Sport and Leisure sector in delivering inclusively of disabled people and uh to help along that way we have developed toolkits to support clubs national government bodies local authorities and third sector organizations in Wales uh so looking around the room I think that ticks off quite a few of us here um to deliver excellent standards of inclusion for disabled people in sport and physical activity so Within These strands of in sport so um the program looks slightly different for clubs as it does National goverment bodies as it would for local authorities or third sector organizations um within each of those we have measures of Excellence um so you would have um at the initial step we have in sport ribbon so that’s the first step along the pathway and then we have bronze silver and gold different standards of excellence that enable you whichever organization um or body that kind of best describes you to Showcase that you are confident in delivering inclusively of disabled people at disability sport Wales we know that no one understands a sport better than the sport itself so the principle behind in sport isn’t to tell you how to do inclusion or tell you how to run your sport it’s more about listening to what your vision is what your goals are and helping you formulate a plan to get there and popping in some measures of support to help you do it so um at certain levels of sport um the club NGB local Authority third sector organization would be assigned a case officer and they would then support them through the process of working towards the next in sport standard so from bronze to silver silver to gold and then maintaining that gold standard and then the call to action that I brought to the group on Friday and I’d equally like to share with you all here now um is just to reflect is Mountain by exclusive is is mountain biking as inclusive as it could be right now what do we want it to look like be like and feel like for those who participate and I really want us to challenge each other on how we can best support inclusion in mountain biking going forwards I think we’re in a really unique position here where we’re coming together um Robbie summed it up really nicely um it’s almost like mountain biking 2.0 in Wales it’s a unique position and we can name make this almost whatever we want it to be it’s a clean slate let’s do the best job we possibly can and uh yeah make M bike in the most inclusive sport for people in Wales thanks very much cool thank you Morgan That’s brilliant um FAA FAA nearly didn’t make it um because the train was delayed but I think she is here can I just say while else waiting for F’s coming really interesting just following from what Morgan’s just said I’ve just had an email this evening from the mother of a disabled Rider in Wales a very passionate I’ll share an article about him shortly but very passionate young man called Adam who’s got Junior fiom maglia syndrome and he’s set up a race team called Phoenix Racing I think he’s based in ponti so somewhere near there and he um he’s having an issue entering events and some there’s his mom’s calling around lots of different event organizers and having a real issue and saying it’s a mixed bag so I’ve got a call call with them this week to find out kind of what the issues are but it one of the outcomes of the the conversation that Morgan facilitated was around making sure we’ve got inclusive categories and that we’re promoting these and showing that is a thing that can happen um you know if not just in Wales hopefully across wider British cycling activities but it just shows that that they went out the session on Friday and then we get the email in say this is something that we want so why these conversations are so important you um f you Fiona is on the line I can see her but she’s um doesn’t seem to be coming off M mute um oh she disappeared um well look I tell you what let’s um let’s just go back then um and before Fiona comes back and hopefully gives her talk and then before Robbie um talks about what we did in the workshops um after everyone spoke let’s actually just give people a chance to ask any of the speakers question questions um so use the little hands up bottom button at the bottom of the screen um and ask away Robin I think bion’s reappeared oh we can see you now fee which is great hello we gone she so while we Wai for f any questions for for any of our speakers we can see if you there if that helps you could do it all by Mark that would that would be interesting can you hear me okay we can now yeah sorry I’ve got really unstable internet I’m on I’m in transit it seems to be working okay right the seconds okay great would you like me to talk about project fce yes um explain to everyone that um I’ve asked you to sum up which was what two hours worth of workshops into five minutes so it’s bit yeah that’s great I’ve given problem yeah so essentially um a lot of people in the call I think um have are familiar with the work that we’re doing but I’ll give you a a twom minute intro to it um so I work for the University of Bristol and with a team of amazing researchers all of whom are interested in sport and exclusion oh it’s really noisy sorry see I can find a slightly quieter space um and so we’ve been doing research about mountain biking for the last few years trying to understand gender inequality and address it um so basic on a of an extensive qualitative research program we’ve developed a set of um research findings that explore women’s experiences of mountain biking but also um what mountain biking looks from the outside to women and girls and I think that’s really important and those voices are often missed in um in research about the sport research we’ve we’ve the research findings point to a number of different kind of key areas one of which is media and marketing and how the sport is represented um and lots of other people have also lots of other research has pointed to that um how important it is in action sports or non-traditional Sports um how um like surfing and snowboarding and um skiing and climbing um the the cultural representation really shapes how we sort of how the stories we tell about the sport and how we think about it and who’s included and who’s excluded um so that’s that was you know not a great surprise but there are lots of other really important findings in the research like the fact that um women and girls are kind of pushing back against the traditional kind of shared culture of mountain biking which is you know understood to be very malale dominated and Hyper masculine um and creating very actively creating their own culture through particularly through women-led um and women only community um and there’s a bit of anger going on which is quite interesting and quite a lot of um active curation of an inclusive culture in mountain biking so it’s very much um transforming and we I feel like we’re on the edge of something quite exciting with the culture of R biking so we got this set of research bindings I’m very happy to talk about those um another time but as a result of that we have developed the fierce uh framework which is a policy face framework um which is designed to um sit underneath um and and sort of scaffold um cycling organizations and uh forestry England as well as one of our key partners and kind of inform projects and programs and initiatives and obviously um funding as well and uh inform programs in order to Foster uh inclusivity in the future and there are four different parts to that framework right at the heart of it is um community building so we throughout all our research there was something that came out time and time again about the importance of women L and women only communities so that is very much at the center of the framework and then but we we recognize also that we don’t want to segregation we want to to strive for integration and transformation so the three areas around the outside are integration so encouraging you know putting program program and activities that encourage women to to be part of mainstream Mountain bik culture and to shift mainstream Mountain bik culture so that women feel like it’s a space that they belong in there’s also a focus in the framework on leadership and we recognize that um role models are extremely important and the diversity in the voices that are making decisions in policy and other areas of leadership in mountain biking are incredibly important for shifting um the culture of the sport and then finally there’s that that vital um focus on cultural transformation so there’s a lot of the strategy which is been Shifting the stories we tell about um about mountain biking both in terms of the mountain bikers the people we see when we when we see mountain biking in the media and in marketing but also in terms of mountain biking and really expanding um the types of riding and the the the ways that people connect the stories about how people connect with sport I do have the um the framework I don’t know if I’m allowed can I sh can I share something am I allowed to see that so I’m actually the reason that is very noisy is because I’m up in Manchester and I’m about to I present I’m about to present tomorrow to British cycling I don’t know if you can see that yeah we can y okay this is the um this is the the framework the the overview of the the framework so you can see that building mountain bike Community is in the middle and it’s all about stable visible supported and growing communities of women mountain bikers and at the top you’ve got integration of women into mountain biking and then in yellow divers diversifying Mountain bik leadership and then over on the left hand side transforming M Mountain bik cultureal represent ation and together that is a cohesive framework for shifting gender inequality in the sport we’ve been very lucky in the project to be supported by um five amazing Partners Forest England British cycling Welsh cycling International mountain bike Association and dimens and we’re in the process of um doing our road show workshops and the Welsh cycling um Workshop um last week was our second so we we uh ran a workshop for Forest England at the cycle Network meeting a few weeks ago and then came up to Elan Valley last week which was quite special um because um it obviously was part of this incredible Workshop that Robbie pulled together thinking about the future of um strategic Focus for mountain biking in Wales and we we’re really honored to be part of that conversation and now we’re uh up in Manchester next week we’re coming out to Vienna for the National mountain bike Association and then in a couple of weeks we’re going up to Scotland um to Glen TR to spend some time with Scottish cycling so I don’t know how well I’m coming across I don’t know how much you can hear me so I’ll leave it there and um give time obviously I’ll be around for any questions that anybody’s got um but it’s just to say that I think our relationship with Welsh cyclings a bit unique in terms of our partners in the sense that um W cying has been very open from the beginning to think about how at this sort of cusp of something new slash old but new new strategic development of mountain biking in whales how how inclusivity can be embedded in every step of the way in every step of that journey and it was really refreshing and exciting at the meeting last week to see how many times inclusivity came up in conversations across all the Strategic areas and I really can see how um the how the fierce framework canem can embar and underpin the work that’s going to happen now um and it’s a I see it as a really really exciting opportunity and I guess our kind of ambition for Wales is to to develop Wales Welsh mountain biking as a a a case study of national inclusivity um and then we can you know hopefully develop a case study and show other regions and other nations how to do it so that’s kind of that’s our Global ambition for Wales what an awesome ambition um cool so has anyone got any questions for any of our speakers uh so kieren’s kieran’s got a question and Ross has got a question so Kieran go first oh he’s asked him on the chat sorry I got confused Rob uh Ross do you want to go and then Kieran can decide if he wants ask in personal not yeah that’s great thanks Robin um f a question for you and and others um and you did come across really well Fiona so thank you for that in difficult circumstances um it’s it’s a it’s a sort of question and thoughts around the word sport um so have have you have you played around with that is there any thoughts around using the word sport within mountain biking because obviously there is a huge Sports element I compete myself have done many years but when I go out on a weekend or midweek for me it’s not a sport it’s a Pastime it’s a Leisure activity and I’m just wondering where you sit within that yeah it’s a great question I mean we we use the term action sport rather than just sport because that’s the term that academic researchers use to refer to um mountain biking as it as part of a cluster of sports that are not competitive and inclusive inherently inclusive as in um have I can’t remember the list now I read them out for my piece of paper in Wales last week but they have a particular definition um and they are were sort of set up as subcultures pushing against institutionalized hierarchical structures in mainstream Sport and therefore should be much more inclusive and what’s interesting so things like climbing and snowboarding and surfing and mountain biking falls into that um pushing against you know the sort of hierarchical structures of of Road cycling I guess um and what’s interesting about that is that um despite the promise of much more inclusive spaces uh for you know women and girls and and other underrepresented groups actually through particularly through media marketing representation they have actually just followed the same trajectory as mainstream sport so I do think carefully about the word sport um I’m a consumption researcher so I research the consumption of things culture consumer culture and I see sport as a really important part of consumer culture it doesn’t have to be competitive in fact none of my research is about competitive sport it’s about part participation serious Leisure we call it but it’s a really good um it’s a really good question and is something we think about then the question from kieran’s quite uh quite similar as well um ju just read that so how do you think well is best able to engage with support the mountain bike uh mountain biking is the organizational culture focus on M NTB as a sport um and yeah I I think I mean just just historically if I were to put the timeline of the different the shifting focus of world cycling um against that it it’s always shifted according to whatever sport Wales kind of want us to do and then it’s affected by resource and and funding stream as well so so M bike we did used to have a um previously have a m bike development officer but it was a m bike development officer for sport it was somebody who looked after the talent Pathways who developed the clubs and the and the competition formats to to bring through a new generation of riders I’m not sure man might might have been a beneficiary of that um kind of structure but it has been the focus what we’re what we’re shifting to now is the recognition that our over focus on Sport and specifically Road and track cycling has actually disengaged and disinf front as a huge number of people we we just not deemed we just not been deemed as relevant enough for the cycling sector in Wales and when you go out there I mean I’m on a feels like a bit like a trip of a lifetime that I’ve got to go to like go go rid in h a forest and then n Aran and then um as up at um yeah climac X today and it’s just like what we’ve got in Wales is amazing and that you know there’s there’s so much more to that in terms of tra we just want to celebrate that and get people on bu now we we do because we government body of cycling we do have to keep on coming back to Sport and think okay what would be the potential end game I’m happy just getting people on bikes and I was delivering this festival at the weekend that was just we introduced 106 kids to bike racing that were otherwise doing football and and rugby and pretty much none of them were were at clubs and things we just wanted to get them on the bike plant the seed that if they think about dropping out of one sport then there might be something else for them and if they just get on a bike for active travel or for adventure that you know that’s brilliant but we you know long term we’re thinking we know that if we grow what we say we grow the base of the pyramid we increase participation increase the number of cycling families there is a ton of research that talented Riders will come from cycling families they’re more likely to ride more often they’re more likely to engage in uh more formal activity like racing and they’re more likely to go on um you know be successful and you know Manon is articulated her journey being from the family and having that opportunity so we’ll celebrate if if they don’t get on the talent path way no problem at all they’re just happy getting on a bik that’s great but but our role in terms of supporting this is is to whether or not we can achieve this but is essentially to be the fulcrum around um the cycling sector in in Wales kind of revolves um and to try and play a more Central role in just pulling the sector together so Friday was an example of doing that where I basically opened up my contact list many people that were already there like it was great seeing like BK well see one planet adventure for the first time in a while like you know Old Friends Meeting but you know we we pulled it together and made it happen and gave the framework to have the discussions and that is probably how we’re going to work moving forward rather than as necessarily leading on everything that we’ll have a we’ll have a seat at the table of many um many different things so yet we you know in terms of the the tourism element MB Wales essentially focus on tourism um you know celebrating the bike parks and things which brings on to the next question around the focus on dimb heavily weighted towards Trail centers and dedicated facilities um absolutely right they are a Grassroots movement as well so they do do plenty of um you know conferences that bring people together the women’s conferences and things and they they are seeing as the as the voice of the sector for everybody to not just focused on that but we can take this wherever we want it doesn’t have to be the same model you know we look at demmons and go we can go like you know any good coach does you’re a magpie right take the good and you discard the bad so what have they done really well that we like what’s it that we need to do slightly differently what are we going to add on and this is one of those ones where we’ve had inclusion like like Fiona said that you know we we wanted Morgan to be there we wanted disability sport Wales so people thinking about this and we wanted to set the big ambition to be the most inclusive MTB sector in the world it’s a big ambition and how you know how do you judge it but we want to be recognized as you know the gold standard and what else could we do that you know that that might be different I certainly think there’s a you know there’s a few different things we’ve got to recognize we start from a uh a position of you know l a lack of funding and a lack of resource at the minute but I’m really confident we can grow it great question thank you Karan cool thank you Robbie um Kath hi yeah I’ve got a couple of questions for Martin actually regarding sort of um what good looks like regarding Trail building um and how that’s go that could differ between um commercial bike parks and sort of volunteer built Trails up in the woods um I’m I’m aware that IM of have started putting together sort of European sort of a European stand standard for for trail building and I’m I know you said that there aren’t actually any solid recognized standards currently but I wondered you know do you think it would be a good idea to jump in with in and and kind of use their European Trail standards and apply them to our sort of volunteer built Trails I just wondered what your opinion was on that Martin um there’s kind of two separate things going on there there’s the actual Trail building standards as in the quality of the construction of the trails and then there’s the sort of compliance and monitoring side of it which is your Trail inspections Etc um what I was particularly advocating for was more of the post construction um phase and the compliance on that side and kind of making sure that the process of building the trails is um done correctly when it comes to construction as you said there’s quite a few different bodies that are all not working against each other but working to different standards and I think one of the issues with um some of the bodies that are involved in it is that they often don’t come from the UK and in particular in Wales we have very specific conditions which we have to build our trails to I.E loads of rain um which I’m sure you you have the same issue with in North Wales yeah um so in guidelines aren’t always easiest to apply in the UK um so it is challenging um whether or not I’d advocate for us all working from the same H sheet I think yeah basic um best practice simple guidelines would be good but you you have to be so careful not to um sort of back ourselves into a corner by being overly specific which I think I feel the same about on the compliance side as well we’ve got to make sure that we’re giving um minimum standards when we’re talking about best practice guidelines not being overly prescriptive and making it so that it’s really difficult for people to be creative when they’re building a trail not sure if I answered your question kind of yeah yeah yeah sort did um and in in terms of I mean the fact that certainly for us at Trail Collective North Wales we’re not really applying to nrw to actually build any new trails we just want to maintain you know what’s on the ground already the best trails that have actually been there for 20 years and more but it’s it’s how you reconcile what’s already there um with you know which were built without any kind of sort of specific design in mind you know they’ve just sort of evolved over the years and we we are trying to sort of maintain them and and optimize the the sort of safety for you know for Riders and other Forest you I think in that situation there definitely are best practice things that probably should be adopted across the industry you know on obvious things like um Crossing Bridal ways and that kind of thing which are the obvious flash points um and I’d imagine you have lots of issues with trails that were built with no consideration for when they cross a bridal way or path or they merge with another Trail those kind of guidelines would I’d imagine be super helpful for someone like yourself um when trying to manage a trail that you’ve probably adopted that somebody else built yeah and it’s how we do that moving forward in a sort of MB Wales um in this sort of structure you know um who’s going to take the lead on that you know that that I think you know it’s I guess you know there’s there’s a lot of very experienced sort of pro Trail designers out there but but how are we going to I guess it’s a question it’s an open question how do we how do we kind of you’re um you’re sort of advocating for the same thing that I am but for a slightly different topic so you’re talking about Trail construction standards and I’m talking about Trail management standards but I feel the same as you in that I kind of want someone who is not me who is not um an individual but is representing us collectively um to to listen to us and to agree what we believe as a industry or Collective or whatever are the right guidelines for us to be working towards and I think yeah you’re right that for trail construction it would be useful to have that in the same way that it would be for trail management yeah and my second question was about um Trail uh sort of Maintenance qualifications and how those are going to apply to volunteers who certainly don’t want to be involved with sort of construction qualifications and knee BOS and all that sort of thing because it’s just not possible for volunte is um and I guess we have the opportunity here as sort of MB Wales potentially UK MTB Trail Alliance to to try and try and kind of promote I guess and encourage people to you know not discourage people not put people off um through having kind of unattainable Standards imposed on us that are actually designed for industry not for volunteer groups yeah I can definitely see the challenge with that and it’s actually something that Robbie talked about a little bit at the meeting on Friday and it was that potentially Partners like ourselves at Bike Park Wales can help out in the wider picture in some manner here like we can’t be giving people qualifications because it’s just not how we’re set up but we did talk about the fact that once every now and then perhaps we could run a day where people can come and learn from our trail crew um they won’t walk away with a qualification which you know might make it less useful but we we’d certainly be open to the idea of occasionally educating The Wider Trail building World um in the way that that we do things yeah I mean CPD is necessary isn’t it in all in all professions so yeah I think that sounds sounds good plan okay thank you thanks well thank you guys I I suppose I wouldn’t be doing my job unless I said you know obviously there there are there are some things that probably need to be sort of you know Wales Pacific or Scotland Pacific or England Pacific or Northern Island speciic other things that you know shared C problems across the whole of the UK which is obviously one of the the driving forces for setting up the UK MTB Trail Alliance and you know I feel quite strongly these sorts of common problems we should be you know tackling you know through the UK MTB Trail Alliance and and trying to you know over time step by step slowly slowly you know develop those standards if if our members think they’re appropriate um anyway Gwenda you put your hand up yeah it’s it’s back to um I think it’s kieran’s thing um just to say a lot of the conversations that happened on Friday were with people who I would say didn’t associate with sport who were there were people who were almost apologizing for being there say I’m not really a mountain biker and we had lots of discussions about that as well we talking about campaigning and the campaign um workstation was mostly women which was interesting um but some of those are ones that that you know that they it’s very much they’re wanting to get out there a lot of them getting out with their kids and stuff like that so I think you know what Robbie it’s part of the whole thing it’s about enabling people to get out from their outdoors and it’s it it is very much about that ordinary off-road as well as the mountain bite and the sport thing I think that was very much the feeling I got from um the day on Friday that it’s all part of you know the bigger picture so it was good it was very yeah as a non-mountain biker myself I felt very comfortable and very you know involved and um yeah sound felt part of it as I think everyone who was there whatever their level of ability or interest or particular things so yeah I think it it boded well for going forward cool thank you Grenda um Mike you’ve had your hand up for a while yeah thanks hi um just following on from what C said uh our organization we’re we’re completely volunteers were unfunded but as far as um Trail bill qualif ation I think you need to have the people who lead the digs they need to have a certain level of competence and part of that competence is the ability to pass that knowledge on to all the other volunteers and that’s what we do all the time because I was fortunately trained by certainly in war many years ago um and it’s been my job to train the other leaders how to lead as well as how how to design and dig and it works well so yeah that was just what I wanted to say cool thank you Mike BN yeah thanks Robin it’s a question for uh Martin uh Martin just you were talking about your uh the trail inspections and the maintenance I was wondering how do you actually record your your inspections so we use an app um but that’s taken us years to develop it but before that we just used a paper based system um and we had loads of paper filed away um and we would actually we’ve now developed it so that each Trail has its own section on an app but you can have a simple piece of paper per Trail and it asks you the same questions for example um is the trail head signage in place you know is it clear and legible um are there any um areas of the trail that got storm damage Etc it’s a checklist you just go through that checklist and it makes it super easy to do um and yeah ours is at base but you can just simply do it on a a piece of paper that you file away I love just our local Trail um we we developed an app ourselves and based on a QR Code system as well where by we have each um we had the kind of log every every jump every drop every burm and then yeah we go through you know is and then general questions is there Dey on the trail is there any overhanging branches um is there any D anything dangerous and then yeah um that’s it interesting that thanks you got if you got if you got the QR code burn I assume that that proves that you were there at the time because you scanned a QR code at a certain place yeah C but also we have the the QR code on the standage at the trail head and also at the end of to the trail and what we do is we encourage any riders that um are on the trail that if they spot say a tree falls or something happens or even an angry Walker in the trail for example that they if they scan the QR code in their phone they can immediately report to to us or through the app um even if the Trail’s just running well if the like the past few days we got a lot of comments so trains Trails run really well very dry no issues so it kind of it it gives us a record that the trail has been well maintained so if something does happen we can say well we did a regular inspection and then also we had independent verification from um riders that um the trail was running fine last Thursday and it was running fine Friday so um and then if there is an issue that can report it then the app will allocate um the uh work to to uh to the maintenance crew and then we quite fix it and then we’ll take a photograph whenever it’s it’s been repaired before and after to show that we kind of cleared it up cool I’m gonna write ask you to ask ask you to write a a post for the for the trail Hub about that b yeah but no no not by tomorrow you know just next week is fine um Roth yeah thanks Rob um man on question for you for you well I say it’s a question try I’ve been sitting here trying to formulate the question in my head so forgive me if it doesn’t come across too well but based on what you’re saying about access to entry um and having sort of gone through that 35 years ago when I got into mountain biking as well but also based on Robin’s slide around the weight towards unsanctioned trails and therefore the level of liability that sits with those people who have created those Trails that’s it’s sort of arguing with itself that access to entry is there because of the mountain bike and as well to get to more sanction Trails requires a vehicle which is a barrier to access in itself often so all those local trails that might Sit Close to where people are but aren’t sanctioned therefore nobody wants to take you there and create liability and it just creates this really sort of pull push argument for how do you get into it unless you find your own way just yeah that that’s my question question yeah and I I think that’s probably where when I started thinking about Trails on trial as a documentary um there’s quite a lot of discussion in 2020 about you know how in you just inclusivity in general and like my I guess where my thoughts went where you know it’s such an amazing thing to be able to do and it’s a shame that for so many people you would not have the first clue how to get started um and I’ve obviously been as Robbie said you know cycling family my dad’s taken me out it’s been so normal for me to use all these Trails I’ve never thought twice about it until you know last few years and then you’re like oh God it’s actually a complicated mess um and and I know there’s a lot of people who aren’t you know um just not confident to go and do something they’re not sure they’re allowed to do um and you know yeah I think that you know you have to be quite confident and and happy to deal with any confrontation you might experience as well while out on a trail you know if you’re not specifically on a bridal way or out in the woods where um mountain biking isn’t like off officially accepted um or recognized you know officially um so yeah I guess what was your comment you know I definitely [Music] um if I’ve if I’ve kind of interpreted that right right uh that’s why I think it’s so important getting the trail Network right um liability is like is a is a broad question you know where does that actually lie how serious is it what examples do we have of it really going wrong I guess not not many and hopefully that would never happen um but that’s why I think all of this is so important having these conversations figuring out the best way to do it and making sure there are local trails close to people’s where close to to where people live you know that’s like sustainable Mountain life you know you don’t have to get in a car and drive and it’s accessible for the vast majority of people so that is why I’ve kind of found myself in this space and I think it’s important for multiple reasons um so yeah I suppose just to add to that I mean there’s there’s obviously liability issues for land owner there’s liability issues for the people that built the trails but I think in this context is also recognizing that you know the existing structures that well cycling and others have for guided rides fall apart when when they encounter unauthorized Trails because if you’re your British cycling or wealth cycling insurance won’t cover you if you’re guiding on an unauthorized Trail so you know you that you’ve got to make a decision about whether you make yourself personally liable or not if you’re guiding that ride and also break in Breaking Theory your clubs rules um and although there are lots of informal Trail groups you know right riding clubs riding groups in in South Wales and and North Wales and mid Wales um you know again they’re guiding people on these Trails you know they’re exposing themselves to risk they’re perhaps unaware of you know if someone if someone really hurt themselves on one of those rides and someone was leading those rides the person leading that ride is could could be up in court could be sued and personally liable for it um and until that’s Ted in court it’s um is an unknown thing um I me Dave ldy did a really good job you know Dave ldy came from from nrw I think he did a really good job of articulating that probably there’s probably quite a lot of people who just going out there and digging and not considering the risk and his his whole thing is consider the risk make sure you you know F follow some you know good good practice for for managing that risk because you could be liable um you know it’s obviously not always what people want to hear they do we just want like the access to always like do it do what on to a certain extent but we’ve just got to be realistic and they’re hugely yeah concerned about about risk um just want to answer one of the questions um from I think it was Tom um just through dibin and education so we did invite um uh universities so we did have uh Swansea University uh came along um and there was some really good discussion there so so they’re interested in setting up a mountain bike performance center um and one of them one of the reasons for that is roundabout student en Richmond a kind of a USP that there’s there’s no one else really um really delivering that but I came from uh British cycling last July and actually set up the um or set up the engagement program with colleges so similar to the um the college program that’s been shared from from Scotland there’s four maybe five now College cyclings uh in England that I was able to secure funding from sport England for through the dice program that develop um diploma in sporting Excellence um which was um this additional level of support that that the athletes can have there was actually an Offroad ride Academy based out of St elb’s Welsh Riders can actually access that um and and to study remotely and they can also do it at SGS SGS um Josh darling for awareness he went to SGS so and this is something I’m really interested in setting up here so I’m actually supporting event with Colo cryy on on Wednesday at at pemro um as we try to build those relationships for them to go out to the uh the colleges and there’s 12 colleges in Wales that all have their kind of satellite campuses um so seems Seems doable we’ve got we’ve got an example in um North Wales of pad MTB who Bas out Cody Brennan they’re working with colleague um clo um colle Mani I think and um they’re offering a week-long course to get leadership and coaching qualifications so they can then become young leaders and it’s just really interesting I’ve made kry aware of this to go could we offer this out how many other colleges are delivering these you know outdoor education courses where they could benefit oh we can get leaders great and they and get get some get some experience out there what what about performance angle Could you actually support athletes at the college campuses that are closely linked to a world class Center like bartk Wales so we’ve got K Mera that you know that might be able to do that so definitely something we’re looking at the other one is universities uh like I’ve already mentioned Swansea so the seven universities that offer sport degrees in in Wales um so uh you know looking to to speak with them about what an MTB program series um you know structure could look like through them so we’re looking at that that pathway there was a big one about getting MTV on the curriculum in Wales something we’re working on already just to get cycling on the curriculum full stop then what does it look like if they progress from that to go towards colleges and then what a look like to get to Unis um so loads of potential working on it not not an easy nut to crack but I hope to hope to see some in Reser cool anyone got any questions why you’re thinking on I’ve got one just to finish on the last point though I mean one way of solving that problem Robbie about liability for for guiding would be just to change British cycling insurance policies so you were covered if you were guiding on on alized trails that would be a simple solution to all at least least solve that part of the problem um Good Luck having that conversation that’s biggest I’m trying to have it I’m trying to have it bit little bit by bit um so I have a question for Gwenda actually and I suppose it’s in two parts right one part is you know going back to the trails for Wales campaign how do we collectively get that restarted and back on the agenda and actually you know moving forward again and I I’ll do the second part afterwards yeah so as I said what we’re g to be doing realistically we we we’ve still got this this longstanding commitment from Welsh government to increase access we’ve got the recommendations from nrw um part of the work I’ve been doing um with others in the background is um talking to Welsh government about how we can progress this because we’ve sto so that’s where we’ve been working with ramblas cry BMC um out um Open Spaces someone ask that question so a group of us on the cross party group on the outdoors have been working together to and writing to the minister saying look we need to move forward on this we’re all agreed we want to have access to reform we’re maybe not all agreed about how that should happen but let let’s do some trials on wealth government um access on was government owned land a lot of nrw land so we can trial whether allowing you know higher rights by default is the way forward or whether it needs to be on a case- by case basis so we we’re continuing to push for that we’ve now got a new minister in huaner Davis who’s got responsibility and Hugh is totally on board Hugh was at the launch of our TRS Wales report he’s um he understands the issue so in terms of that political lobbying we want going to do that there won’t be time in this um senate for it to pass the legislation there might be time to progress some you know some trials on MAR government land then we want to work to get it in Manifesto so what I would like this community to do is like to work with you just like to say right how what do you need from us to have the conversations with your politicians so they understand why this matters so whether it’s you know CF did a really good piece for report um about like the impact on her business of not having uh of having restrictive access um and it’s that sort of those messages those stories we talked a lot about stories on Friday about how we get those stories to the politicians the ones who can make the change happen um both at a local Authority level and at sener level so that’s it we’ll be doing calls to action and also engaging with you um following Friday um sorry I’m going to ramble B because these thoughts are still going through my head from Friday because I’ve not really had a chance but it was really we’ve got um uh one of um well cying FES was coming up in Cardiff on the 7th of July I think and that started by a small group of us women got together in Cardiff because we want to get more women involved in campaigning it it morphed into there being lots of Breeze people and stuff so it’s more about people getting people riding we’re still doing that campaigning element I thought that’d be an ideal opportunity to start talking to those women who ride Offroad about what they need from us in order to share those messages so that’s just one idea and then you know we look for other opportunities to do that that and you know Sophie and dunan and I will be talking about how we progressed the campaign as well we haven’t had a chance to do that just because we’ve had sort of like lots of changes in cycling UK over the last few months but it’s still there we’re still working in the background we’re looking to influence the manifestos for 20126 I know it sounds a long time but if you look at the work campaigning is a long it’s a long haul it always is um the highway code is one example I don’t know it’s like 10 20 years we’ve been coming on campaigning on the highway code the changes came through like two years ago it doesn’t happen overnight but all this thing and I am very excited about the work that’s been done to bring this community together um because that will sort of like just make that voice much stronger and much louder so does that answer that Robin I think so I mean I think I think we’d all like it to be happening faster but we recognize that yeah yeah we recognize that’s not easy suppose it’s just yeah it’s just anything we can all be doing to help I suppose you know you know that that you know they’ve agreed to this nrw trial how do we Kickstart that trial and make that happen now he’s on board and it’s not a question you should answer right now but my point is is you know I suppose now we’ve got this this this development marking in Wales Community how do we use it to to push that forward and then you know the second part of my question though is is more specific to Trails right so from a UK to the trail perspective and from a lot of people’s perspective I imagine on the call is you know yes we want better access rights to all sorts of land and paths in Wales but also there are real issues with our current rights as far as unauthorized controls go and also government Behavior towards those trailers you know via nrw and other organizations and I suppose how do we you know how do we how do we how do we make that part of the conversation and obviously as you know I’m now part of some of those groups you’ve talked about you know as in in terms of the UK MTB trailer l so we’re taking part but it’s it’s you know we’ve got a very specific set of needs that you know that could really benefit from you know a change in policy a change in behavior from NW even a change in law in terms of landowner liability is that sort of scale of change could really make a difference and yeah just just just look into your help and advice about how we move that forward really I mean I think our campaign is specific in terms of the the right way law that that’s what we’re looking to campaign on we’re looking to increase access to for bikes and horses to access land and on public rights of way so that is the focus of our campaign in terms of you know and I think that as far as we’re concerned we’re not experts on trail building that’s not what we are you know we’re there about getting Everyday People on our bik on their bikes and access reform is one of the things that we’ve been working on for quite a few years now um to do that I think the wider question of liability you know I I think yeah I think that’s a different conversation um I’m not sure it’s part of the same conversation it’s not one that I’m equipped I don’t think to to deal with but I’ll take it back and we can talk about that but yeah i’ got I’ve got some i’ got some thoughts on it but let’s not waste everyone’s time now um cool has anyone got any more questions Robin kieren here just a very brief intervention on that last point about liability certainly reduction of landowner liability was part of the conversation within a groups so it was at the front of the it was at the front of the discussion and certainly there was a lot of call for that and actually probably likely to be one of the tradeoffs for improved access so I think those two things do get it’s already on the radar as being something that goes hand inand but not for the trail build I think sorry m interpretation was that was for trail building you were talking about well yes so the broad point of landowner liability um and how it would lie so whether it lay with should we say natural features or built features or exactly what the format was there I mean I don’t think you’ll ever get um just from the experience of of everywhere else I think you’re always going to be on a very different thing between built Trails versus natural land form um but I think there there is an area in between from the discussions that we had as part of arag okay well I’ll pick that with you both maybe afterwards um Mike you’ve got a question yes um for genda just following on from this um getting um more access is one of the concerns from um the powers that be that if more access is given to mountain bikes there will be more Trails unauthorized Trails being dug all over the place no I I don’t dug I I I think it’s um it’s it’s one that’s working out how to do it has proved more challenging um there is opposition from land owners and Farmers um and that that was apparent during the Arab groups I didn’t sit on the Arab groups but I’ve heard from Kieran and dun of people and and I know the farming community in Wales is very reluctant and I’ve a national access Forum we’ve had representatives from the Farmers Union saying that they do not want to give any higher rights of access um that that’s that’s probably their default um so yeah those are the blocks and part of the problem was to to because I think I think David L was fly unfair when you go on Friday like you nrw made rather than making one recommendation forac that the Welsh government could accept they made three different here here’s three options and then left it to the government to choose which obviously then then didn’t want to choose make being seen to choose an option that wasn’t you it made it much harder for the government to actually take action I I think is my personal analysis yeah um and it’s about priorities as well and you know if if something’s going to be difficult and it doesn’t have to be done then um yeah it sometimes isn’t so I’m acutely aware of time and I want I want Rob be to to sum up what we did in the workshops really and then actually that’s all to move on to a more interesting conversation but also like if any of you obviously need to go to bed um go and do your homework whatever whatever you need to do feels feels don’t please don’t feel guilty about dropping off the call but um for those you want to continue I’ll continue as long as um I’ve got people um go Robbie yeah I I’m definitely that category of needing to go to bed um I Haven really had a weekend of of relaxing unfortunately so um yeah so this these These are the outcomes it will be a little bit small uh Robin you’ve obviously got access to this so if you want to share it just this is this is a draft strategy this is not the strategy this is essentially an outcome of the workshop what um just so you’re aware of the process so we we had our different stations lots of people so we had like 45 people I think actually ended up attended on the day so imagine you give 45 people the the you know a voice and an opportunity to speak you get a lot of stuff down on paper and I’ve had to you know disseminate that with the actions and stuff it’s still a bit of work to do these are kind of the headline actions the actions need to be grouped into uh kind of more strategic areas and objectives which at the minute uh um are under themes so these are just uh broadly speaking the themes so just um the um in each section I’ve put the top three so manam mentioned before that we had a voting system so after all the tactics we’ve done the last 10 minutes of the uh of the session everybody got three votes on every single station so we had six stations so 18 votes in total so people could put their sticking next to what they thought was the most important thing now this isn’t saying that stuff that got no votes isn’t important there’s quite a bit in there that that isn’t but actually people were just drawn to specific things that I think we can say with a fair degree of confidence is what is most important certainly to the people that were there on the day and we want to stress test this now really by going out to a wider audience going out to um yourselves so I I’ll just go through the headlines uh really so for the stret governance leadership the vision was a world class wmtb sector led by worldclass people and governance so that sets out you know from the from the tone that sets out you know an intention that governance and risk management is at the heart of what we do and we’ve seen to you know really care and and take um you know take on the the responsibility and challenges there so first thing is creating a single enti to represent the off-road sector in Wales um whether or not we actually need to create it as I’ve already discussed or we just reignite MBA Wales with some new Recruitment and things and the recruitment for that will open shortly um deliver a strategy and a project plan with clear goals so this is essentially the the draft strategy we want to you know refine it um actually put into something into a gun chart um so we’ve got some timelines and certain determine a timeline for is it is this a two-year plan four-year plan you know what is it what do we want to do and what are the actual goals this does link to some stuff that’s further down a big theme coming out is we people want to see resarch they want something like a PhD study somebody coming over researching the sector proving the economic value of MP of mountain biking and off-road cycling tourism Cy Tour cycling to Wales so that we can go with way more confidence to the Welsh government and say you need to invest in this um or for them to pull together different government departments to to invest in it that does link to the um funding model so we need to fund this there’s stuff that cost money we can’t get away from that we want something um like a trails fund for Wales so if you look at dibin they’ve got on through different sections like Trail fund for South Scotland and stuff with pretty sizable chunks of money and we want to have something like that probably a nationwide one start off with and then maybe we’ll um you know every time we start to have the regional ones but something where uh Trail Association just go quite easily and ask for money whether it’s for qualifications or whether it’s for equipment or whether it’s for an application for some permissions or or whatever it is that we’ve we’ve got some money that people can tap into quite a big ask but we we we’ve got the structure to to actually do it but then looked at um Trail development and risk management I think Martin’s actually covered it really well and um you know so what he’s saying is we need that National Standard for trail development you know maybe we just take the dirt project and and actually we promote that and um potentially refine it if we need to for to make it relevant for Wales um because you know that bipart Wales have specific grading for different things like tacky trails and flow TRS and stuff um big one there was that like just um you know he talked about the trail inspection and Grading and and to include inclusive Trails as well so that you know people um with impairments or that might be on adaptive bikes can so with some confidence that they’re going to be they’re going to be all right if they go down there they’re not going to get come unstuck um you know and have to be rescued off the trail or anything like that that’s really important for for including um you know making cycling more inclusive stage in description is really important so I thought it was quite interested the clim trail that there was a um Biko Min sign for an um an categor sorry an off piece Trail uh there was a black Trail and had lots of information on it they had been sanctioned by nrw but on Friday we were hearing that nrw agreed there there wasn’t enough signies like people are just digging trails and not giving any indication about the severity of it so stuff out there exists but we actually need to come with a standard that we can push out there and be really encouraged and pushing Trail associations to adopt like whatever you dig just here’s how you grade it and then put a side post at the top someone who doesn’t have the ability to go down a black trail with a big slab um you know doesn’t end up un Stu because they’re going to you’re going to be liable um and then so creating guidelines for a minimum standard though as well we appreciate we you know some of this could be seem to be a burden for uh for for trail associations that want have a minimum standard uh of just based on safety and risk management um you know managing that liability um and funding again came up so fun funding a role to set up the risk management framework guidelines whether or not the the the role is within the structures leadership and governance that came up before um sorry um so you know we we want to try and fund a role that’s part of the you know the 100K in the first year that we’re targeting has actually fund at least one role maybe even two to really drive this forward and for for part of this the first steps to be actually setting up this risk management framework and and these guidelines for tourism tourism linked to the risk management so it’s kind of a sub conversation it’s probably a bigger conversation to have around that but things around how do we create like destination Wales if you’re familiar with that about like people really wanting to come and being supported and everything being there on you know on a plate for them to they want to see you know the research brought together so better conversations informed by evidence about the the impact of um M bike in the economy and to try and secure a PhD to to deliver that terms of the sport Pathways so we’ve obviously got Trail infrastructure and training that that might as a structure be U moved up to the trail development but you know we want to ensure Rider can access Progressive trails from beginner to advance to enable Progressive coaching I think it’s really interesting the amount of times that you know and manam I think said it in a closing remarks on the day was that she was really pleased that there was a real focus in the sticker dot theocracy task the voting that people were voting for Grassroots they wanted to see youth clubs they wanted to see in in introductory trails and things so and you know we talk you know Dave Dave Evans gave a really good talk on on Bentonville on how their family Trails you know you have like you know disas railroad line kind of trails but there’s actually little features just to just a ride off and you know keep the kids happy and satisfied and just offer a little bit of something different for you know the different people in the family that have that have different needs what what do we have in Wales like that typically seen is quite gnarly in Wales and um you know that’s the identity of the country that we might need to spend a bit of money and and and time shifting club and Community groups just before Riders say developing that network of clubs there is clubs out there that are doing some stuff there’s some quite good informal groups especially women’s like gravel gangs and Moun biking networks but we need to do a bit more um on that space and make sure that there’s let’s say at least one per per County and several per per Regional area in Wales um so that so that travel is not an option again speaking to the guy who I went riding with today he um you know I well I can have funded him to run an inclusive Mountain bik project um in the Devy Valley because a load of kids from uh Paris who can’t access um the mountain biking um and travel is actually the biggest barrier getting to the trails of the biggest barrier the family is saying we we couldn’t afford to the session we’ve actually annoyingly we funded the sessions rather than the travel so we might have to Pivot it’s just we can’t we can’t get them there we can’t get the bike in the car or we’ve only got one car and like you know person doesn’t come on from work um so we can’t get them to the session you know so the more we can do it on the doorstep and make sure that we’ve got accessible ridable trails from every town and Village in Wales I know that’s pipe probably not possible but that’s what we need to work towards and the last one around the educational Pathways around get maned bike on the school curriculum so linking into the curriculum for Wales and consider life work skills like bike mechanics so I don’t know if anybody in in Welles actually saw the life and work skills um vocational qualifications that are coming in from 13 but you can train to be a um you’ll get trained up as a car mechanic from 13 years old in Wales but you won’t get trained to be a bike mechanic and I’ve told ministers this is this is nuts like come on let let’s at least get them trade up so they can fix a puncher and you know index some gears and make sure the brakes are safe and pump tire that that kind of stuff um so work to do on that a go some conversations coming up to try and get a friendship standard for bik mechanics which can which can be that pathway as well um so you can see how much man man and you did a great job getting the tactics out there there was Absolut ton of stuff on your street took took ages um but campaign advocacy that was another one’s in campaign big one progress the trail for well campaign we we’ve got to get that on the agenda move moving forward and as a sector we’ve got to come together to to progress it um working together and creating local action groups to ensure a joined up approach so local Authority areas so bring together government local authorities nrw landowners Riders other relevant stakeholders come together going come on let’s work together to um to to to enable access and if it starts to work in some areas of anyone that’s not burdened by national government government policy we then get to tell stories which links to the next B around storytelling or storytelling as I I’ve spelled that I will correct that so we want to tell more more stories of um communities coming together so there are some successful examples of nrw working with Trail associations and there are some successful examples and we probably need to tell those stories about the barers as well there’s things like you know like I say p MTB working with with a college there’s um there’s other there’s other examples of stories of collaboration which and we just want to tell more stories about mountain biking because stories are impactful they build empathy with with PL especially with things like access if you you know have a story about you know somebody that’s on an adapted bike that goes to a barrier and they just can’t access Green Space even though you know they should be able to there shouldn’t be any other the barriers but there’s barriers there there’s things in the way we we want to tell those um tell those stories um and then last one just on inclusion again storytelling and so pressuring put the pressure on ngbs and other sector leaders to promote stories from under represented groups um I feel like well we’ve definitely been about a lot better in the year but more people need to tell more stories um to show the art of the possible we want to get inclusive categories and races to be prioritized and promoted like I say I’ve had a query about this this this evening this matters um there are some concerns from uh from event organizers also I understand there some barriers in terms of the um uh cat how races are um within the sorry within the guidelines from British cycling so that’s something we need to work with British cycling on and then we want to partner with knowledge sharing Partners to Mark accessible routes so really promote them and go out and say you know hand on heart where are the accessible places that people can ride so I’m giving you a snap shot there is you can see there’s tons of more may maybe you managed to read them but like I said we looking to send this out stress test it make sure what we’re putting down is actionable that we can actually deliver it that it goes um you know and we’re putting time scales against it um but this will fir the ear part early part of strategy this is what the wsh government told us we needed to do try to secure some investment that if fun and this happens all the time that X Millions will pop up and they go we want to spend it on something we want to something with social or Community impact what have we got oh there’s this amazing you know mountain bike um movement that’s happening let’s go there right what have you got what do we need to invest in we go oh we need x amount for you know for a person or for this Trail or for or or for this campaign and and you know that that that’s how it works really interesting though just to just to share some good news for anybody in Wales and I do encourage you to look at this um around you might have heard of it the shared Prosperity fund so it’s called the leveling up fund um significant chunk of money so I think was 2.4 billion came across from the UK government it replaces some of the EU funding pots which was just about Economic Development and the Welsh government have distributed 800 million pounds to all the local authorities uh the county um and the counties across Wales to invest in the local economy and um really intered the Neath Port Talbert local Authority are giving 250 Grand to develop the trails in Aven so straight away that’s an early win of some funding being available and some money going back into the trails now the backstory to that is actually the local Authority has been on the take from Aven for the c um from the um the car parks there was an agreement when the um the cognation project was in that the car park money was supposed to be reinvested back into the trails but as as the pinch got as as it cost the living crisis bit they started taking the money and you can understand why but that meant the trail start to deteriorate and it’s actually Hazel from um I think she’s a man by Ranger at Aven and she pressured them and got quite angry I believe and has actually secured quarter of a million pounds which is brilliant so now what we want to do is go okay we can do if we can do it in one place we can do it in other places as well but we you know we need to have the structures and things set up so if you’re based in Wales look into that funding it’s significant and it could be just the the this the investment that we need to get this project on the way thank you that’s everything cool thanks Robbie um man has a question oh no you don’t you’re just clapping yeah clap for the thanks for the summary sorry I’m good news as well well done ha um so I have a question Robbie obviously you know I I was involved there workshops too and they were they were pretty Democratic there was lots of consensus um but obviously only involved the people that were there on the day how are you how you planning to involve other people and do you see some of the things that are written down and actually changing um yeah yeah yeah no no absolutely great question so I think what we um what we want to do now that I think the most important thing is to get the MB Wales group going again and for that to restart as as the voice of the sector so there’s a number of roles so the the the chair the vice chair the treasurers just some examples but we also need to make sure different sector different parts of the sector are represented the intention then is to formalize the strategy or make it as you know as good as we possibly can and then to bring together uh leaders from the different organizations like they did in Scotland so Ian if you look at how dibin started it wasn’t with it wasn’t a Grassroots movement from the St it was to a certain extent because there was that local demand but it was actually major government organizations coming together going oh this is really important to tourism this is important to Public Health this is important to um Community cohesion this you know it’s important to a lot of different people and at the minute those conversations are happen on a fairly individual basis so the intention is we pull them together take the the people who are who are forming up the MB Wales board and really articulate the case now we might need to do a bit of work kind of on the research element and things beforehand but we um yeah so that’s the intention that we start to once we’ve got something to go to them with that we go and try to you know start to make a little bit of noise about it on the other side of it about the wider sector so kind of like Riders and a wider pool of people I was mindful this event took place on a Friday that didn’t work with everybody with their jobs um we want to start um start to have some more Gatherings but on a more Regional basis so um we we’ve got um at least two maybe three uh women’s cycling events uh that originally started off with Breeze and we’re going to involve few of our coaches then um we thought about you know mountain bike in the off-road and actually off the back of you know thinking about the fierce framework in the need to develop communities is actually to we’ll have it as a women’s a women’s Gathering and it could be road rides it could be off-road rides it could be digs it could be workshops it could be education things so they’re going to take place in um September or early October at least one in the north and one in the South um and you know go and I’ve put out a call to action for people if you want to host a a dig day or a workshop or ride or whatever put your hand up because we’ve now got the netwk to push it to and then hopefully over time we just see a number of different opportunities and that’s how communities form and the connections develop and we’ll start to see actions it doesn’t all all have to be governed and managed by well cyc or MB Wells it can just happen organically and the sector will benefit um so yeah so that’s the intention moving forward that we well we’ve got to keep the momentum I think there was a lot of good good stuff on Friday but we’ve got to keep it going and make sure get the get some early wins in as well cool thank you has anyone got any questions for um I’m going to I’m going to ask a question I won I won’t labor labor the qu the false questions for too long because I know people want to leave probably but yeah just on I I suppose just having been there on the day I didn’t I didn’t pick up a consensus for MV Wales being the name that we move forward with I think I think I think there’s real merits in moving forward with the organization but but not necessar keeping the name um I don’t know Ian did you yeah I don’t think Ian picked that up either the day um where yeah just maybe you talk a bit more about that yeah they were just individual conversation because I was you know talking to people on on because I was with the on the group and we talking about MB Cy and developing what was it developing mountain biking in cry but then it would be called dim and dim of course means no in Welsh so that would be no mountain bike um so just saying it not spelling it so um yeah and B Cy kind kind of works there’s some challenges with the mark into International audiences using C um so it wasn’t necessarily was um you know huge consensus because I don’t think we had a vote I think it’d be really interesting to before when the group when the group is reformed to to explore that potentially go for a vote to the sector to go what what is the best name to move forward with I think every Wells works there’s obviously you know conflict to interest because there also Mt wal MTB Wales brand and you know the overlap there um I I think moving away from MB Wells could be helpful in terms of if we want to change it from just being a tourism and bike park Focus towards a Grassroots movement that has these dig days and you know kind of similar to dim bins and and as a campaign and advocacy arm that having a new name would be helpful I just think where we are with funding at the minute we’ve just got to rebr are expensive you know this you you’ve had the your background right Ro um so yeah what one TBC I’m not saying a decisions being made I’m I’m not there I’m not there to make the decisions um I’m there was just some some feedback certainly in the afternoon when I was sitting on the table that they quite like you know people quite like the name and other conversations I had so see where it goes it’s not decided yet okay cool right has anyone got any questions otherwise I’ll bring it to a close um no okay cool Robbie and I have previously talked about um using the trail Hub to continue um the developer mountain bike and Wales question um conversation which we will look at doing not straight away but we’ll work out how we structure that and make that work properly and who we invite to that you know how we get a wider audience onto that um onto the platform for for that discussion so expect that some point in the future but not straight away um and yeah thank you very much um for joining um it’s been a really productive call um have a have a good rest of the month and then and see you on the next month call thanks very much guys
1 Comment
Just watched back. A really valuable session. It’s great to see MB Wales as an umbrella, brand and organization potentially being supercharged. Also powerful that the thinking is to support inclusivity at the forefront be that gender, ethnic, social, economic, or disability. I found the conversation on Mountain Biking being an active sport and non-hierarchal “inclusive” subculture fascinating as the growth of unofficial, wild trails, and lack of resulting publicity, access and protected liability has probably inadvertently put that at odds (by driving more underground, niche, community clash) with what I believe is still our core essence ie an inclusive subculture that is an active sport and past time we want others to discover.
I do wonder how the rider community can be mobilized as a political force and how best to maximize that. That’s clearly a role the MTB media has a big role to play, like myself. What is the best role we can play I wonder and does the alliance need more action from the MTB media more widely.
I love how everyone has their Ian Warby story. Few of my own luckily and all formative. Will try and get to some more. Thank you for sharing these and well done on the progress.