Why I mountain bike by Aileen Anderson

Moab, Lake Garda, North Shore: famous mountain bike locations. They have developed a cult-like status amongst mountain bikers and if you have not taken your bike there yet, you should. I’ve ridden all of them and they deserve their reputation. Not just because of the awesome, custom built trails with “sweet flow” but for the experience of being in a place that attracts mountain bikers from around the world and I really like mountain bikers, in fact, I’m yet to meet a really bad one. In these places everything is catered to mountain bikers: restaurants, hotels, tourist offices: bike washes, pasta meals, glossy maps. You can arrive at a restaurant covered in mud and still be welcomed with a knowing smile. These places are the perfect mountain biking locations. But they are not why I mountain bike.

Somewhere in Wales

I’m not saying that you should not go and ride these places, you should. In fact, go and book a flight right now but they are not the reason why I love riding my bike. For me, mountain biking is about those unknown places that you find by chance and wonder why no one else is there. My most memorable rides have been cobbled together with a combination of topo maps, google earth and gut instinct. Yes, you often find yourself hike-a-biking over a pass, cursing the thorny bushes, or worse, riding tar, but sometimes you find a cattle track, an old gravel road, a hiking trail that ends up putting the most custom-built trail centre to shame. These trails won’t be marked “the spider” or “rock and roll” and you won’t find little tea houses selling scones or little red and yellow stickers showing you the way. But you also won’t have to negotiate your way around groups of road riders blocking the single track. Sometimes, you may come across a startled sheep or a terrified hiker but if you are lucky, you will get it all to yourself. Then, as you become more familiar with an area and start to see the topo map in terms or pieces of single track, you can spend hours stringing them together into perfect little circles. A few scouting trips are also important. Now days, whenever I go for a run, I spend most of the time scouting a new area for that little piece of track that may close the circle or checking if that tiny little dotted line on the map is rideable.

Forest outside Geneva, Switzerland

I’ve found these routes on the back end of Signal Hill in Cape Town, in the Jungles of Loas, in the Welsh country side, on the ocean cliffs of Kauai Island, on the fringes of urban Geneva, in the Monduli hills of Tanzania, and in the truly awesome mountains of the Pyrenees. I can’t tell you the names of the places because they don’t have names. They are just a collection of trails spontaneously thrown together over cups of coffee before a ride. I will also say that, like any art, one gets better with practice. So next time you think about going on a mountain biking holiday, drive past the trail centre, purchase a good topo map, lay it out in a place that sells a fine espresso and start planning an adventure.

Kauai Island, Hawaii