Trailbuilding FAQs

Find out who the land owner is and approach them first. Explain what you'd like to do, that you'd like their permission and that you'll build the trail to known specifications.

If and only if they agree, get something in writing. Then walk the area to identify both good and bad control points. Decide on the type of trail - either open and flowing or tight and technical - and join the good control points with trail.

Mark the trail alignment and show it to the land owner. If they agree, you can start building using the tools described elsewhere.

If you're interested in building trails take a look at IMBA Building Better Trail manual which can be purchased from the IMBA website or you can download from the IMBA-UK.com website.

It's highly likely that you will. For your own piece of mind each person building the trail should have third party liabilty insurance. This protects them if they injure another trail builder or if a member of the public is injured by the building work.

Provided that the trail is built with the land owners permission it is unlikely that you will need insurance for the trail once it is built as the landowner should be able to cover it on their Landowner Occupancy Liability insurance. Basically this insures them if people use the trail and injure themselves. It would be worth checking that they have this insurance.

If you have been paid to build the trail then it is recommended that you have some kind of insurance to protect you against claims that you designed an inherently dangerous trail. At the time of writing this is difficult to do.

It is very difficult to answer this question because the cost of a trail depends on so many factors. Such factors include: the type of soil, the degree of side-slope, the source of labour, the amount of armouring that may be needed.

The cheapest trail would be built by volunteers in a well drained area on a moderate side-slope - this could cost as little as £3/metre.

The most expensive trail would involve the use of heavy specialised, machinery on a steep side-slope. Often this would be built by contractors and could cost upwards of £30/metre.

Waterbars usually consist of logs or rocks placed at an angle across the trail. Their intention is to catch water flowing down the trail and to dump off to one side.

Unfortunately, they are more likely to dump a cyclist off of the trail. They are also awkward for walkers to step over and horse can have trouble with them too. Water bars are difficult to build and are high maintenance trail structures. They often clog and this prevents the removal of water from the trail. Instead it flows down the trail damaging it as it goes.

IMBA UK recommends that water bars should be replaced with rolling grade dips.

It's a maintenance-free trail structure that allows water to flow off of the trail whilst at the same time not being visible to riders.

It consists of a shallow depression 6-8 feet long oriented along the trail. Beyond this is a small rise 4-6 inches high. The downslope side of the depression nearest to the rise is open to promote the flow of water off of the trail.

Full bench construction is the name given to the technique of digging a trail into the hillside that it crosses. The trail should be dug down to mineral soil which is much stronger than the organic top soil.

The soil that is dug out is discarded down the slope and is not used as part of the trail surface.

Outsloped trail is the term given to a trail where the surface slopes slightly away from the hill that the trail is on. Ideally trails should be built across a hill or slope. The idea is to outslope the trail enough to allow any water on the surface to flow off whilst not making the surface difficult to walk or ride on.

The target outslope should be between 3-5%. Without a digital spirit level this can be difficult to measure accurately. However, if you aim for a flat trail it's likely that you'll actually get an outsloped trail of about the right amount.

You could use a half-filled clear water bottle to check the outslope. Lay it on its side and the water level should show whether the trail is flat or not. If you walk along the trail and you feel your ankles rolling outwards you've definately got too much outslope.

There are certain basic hand tools that you will need. Picks, shovels and mattocks are easily available. More specialist tools include pulaskis and Mcloeds.

If you are building in a rocky area or are building a trail feature rock work then stone hammers and pry bars will be useful too.

Yes! Our own web shop offers several trailbuilding books, including one that's free of charge (in PDF form) to IMBA-UK members. For more info, please see our Trailbuilding Manuals page.

This is the name given to the surface of the trail that riders actually ride on.

A rolling crown switch backis a trail building structure that allows the direction of the trail to be reversed in a very small space, typically on a hillside. Because of their complexity they are only built when absolutely necessary

They consist of an approach which slopes in towards the hillside, a crowned turning area on which the cyclists turns and an outsloped exit. Typically a switchback will be approximately 3-4 metres across and the downslope side will be built up so that the cyclists turns on a platform above the surrounding ground.

Climbing turns are used in area where the sideslope is moderate, typically no more than 8%. In this case the trail direction can turned simply by building a very large (15 metre) radius turn. Careful outsloping ensures that the water is not allowed to flow down the trail.

First off, as long as the trail building is official, we'd like to hear about it so that we can publicise it on the website. By 'official' we mean that the owner of the land on which the trail is being built is aware of what's going on. IMBA UK cannot, and will not, be associated with illegally built trails.

A good way to publicise what you're doing is to talk to your local bike shops. Try to get posters in the windows or on the counter. Get local mountain bikers to a meeting and make sure that everyone knows what the aims and objectives are.

Perhaps then consider putting together a website or setting up a mailing list so that riders can communicate and can keep up to date with progress on the trail.

It's also easier than you might think to get your trail publicised in the press, both locally and nationally. Write a press release, keeping it short (no more than 200 words) and to the point. Make sure all the key information is in there, and include contact details. If you supply a good picture (35mm slide, big glossy print or high-res digital) to go with it you're very likely to get into press - there's usually a bit of a last-minute scramble to fill news pages, so anything that's 90% fully-formed will be a blessing to the editor.