It was nearly thirty years ago when I first visited what became the Red Bull (now Tarw Du) trail at Coed y Brenin. Forest recreation ranger Dafydd Davies had literally finished cutting brash and rolling the last of the boulders into marshes the day before. Turning wild mountain forest into 11km of challenging, purpose-built, all-weather singletrack. And it was that ‘All Weather’ aspect that suddenly had mountain bikers driving from all over the country to ride a loop that you could blast around in an hour if you were really flying. But the fact you could properly blast around it – as it was an officially sanctioned MTB-only trail – with signage to keep you on track was a massive draw too.
It was so successful that additional trails followed and the forest hut cafe and bike hire set up by Snowdonian MTB legends, Sian and Dafydd Roberts, was replaced by a purpose built eco ‘visitor hub’ on the other side of the valley. Walking, running and wheelchair trails were built to radiate out from the center and keep different users – and their relative speeds – safely separated. The whole surrounding area and the major travel corridors to Coed y Brenin saw a dramatic economic boost from the extra visitors and the model was rolled out in South and Mid Wales. Then Scotland followed suit with the Seven Stanes project, which formalized trail building that was already going on around the Tweed valley and eventually led to the marvelous things being done to integrate and mature mountain biking by DMBINS.
