NATIONAL TRAILS TRAINING PARTNERSHIP
trail development
By Katherine Fuller IMBA Marketing and Communications Director
s your community the next great mountain biking com- munity? What does it mean to embrace bicycles on natu- ral-surface trails and how do community leaders and land managers get started?
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The International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA) is working to spread its three decades of trail and community-building expertise. To do this, it has launched a series of programs and initiatives designed to accelerate the pace of new trail construc- tion over the next five years and to catalyze mountain bike communities, nationwide. IMBA is reaching out across the country to land managers, tourism and recreation professionals and commu- nity officials to help them learn about, embrace, create, fund, and implement mountain bike trail projects big and small. A significant step toward achieving this goal is IMBA’s new Trails For All ini- tiative, which is all about “bringing the riding to the people.” In 2018 alone, the program is set to impact 101 communities with nearly $1 mil- lion in investment and planning. IMBA will offer accelerator grants to help jump start trail planning, host professional workshops to provide the tools needed to make trail communities happen, issue a national state-of-mountain-biking survey to better understand the needs of the rider community, and continue to recognize and
30 SPRING 2018
AmericanTrails.org
Ready to create a great place to ride? IMBA invites you to learn everything it knows about develop- ing mountain biking opportunities.
promote the world’s best backcountry rides (IMBA EPICS) and mountain bike trail communities (IMBA Ride Centers). “We believe mountain biking changes lives and improves communities. It’s a powerful answer to so much of our soci- etal challenges, from obesity to digital addictions to loss of connection with nature,” said Andy Williamson, IMBA’s Trails For All administrator. “IMBA is leaving no stone unturned in its quest to catalyze a greater number of vibrant mountain bike communities across the U.S. We want to help ensure everyone has access to ride where they live.” Ready to create a great place to ride?
IMBA invites you to learn everything it knows about developing mountain biking opportunities. For 2018, IMBA partnered with the Walton Family Foundation and Visit Bentonville to host three IMBA Trail Labs— intensive workshops during which IMBA’s professional trail develop- ment staff plus local experts will lead par- ticipants through a proven recipe for developing model community trail sys- tems.
The inaugural IMBA Trail Labs takes place June 20-22 in Bentonville, AR, dur-
ing IMBA’s Dirty 30— a celebration of 30 years of mountain biking and the people who make it happen. Bentonville Trail Labs will offer attendees a firsthand look at the intentional elements of an innovative and diverse mountain bike trails community. Bentonville earned an IMBA Ride Center designation because it embraced (and celebrates) the integration of mountain bike trail systems, paved paths,
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