What is adaptive mountain biking (aMTB)?
Amazing riders like Jeremy Mcghee, Christian Bagg, and Martyn Ashton have been bringing more attention to accessibility on the trails and the quality of adaptive bikes. There still needs to be more clarity regarding making a trail adaptive friendly, aMTB ratings, and adaptive riders in general. So for the next year, Trailblazers will be going into great detail on what we have done to make our trails inclusive for all and what our plans will look like going forward.
In the merger of NwaTrailblazers and BikeNWA, Trailblazers was born with the motto ‘Movement For All.’ With that, the development side of Trailblazers saw a need for accessible routes for aMTB riders, and it became more apparent after talks occurred with Jeremy McGhee and Brain Carlson. Knowing that Jeremy was to relocate to Bentonville, it was the perfect timing to use his consulting skills to help map the OZ Trails system and teach us about aMTB trail rating and building standards. Timing, coupled with the grant approval from the WFF, helped drive work toward auditing our trails. In doing so, we have improved routes with our trails so that aMTB riders have multiple choices of where they wish to ride in varying distances and skill levels.
The history of adaptive mountain biking, the sport took off 15 years with the creation of Handcycles. They are better suited for XC, DH, and everything in between. Following that was the publication of the Adaptive Trail Standards by the Kootenay Adaptive Sports Association(KASA). They determined that many modern “Flow” Trails are well suited to aMTB with some modifications. They state that two significant factors that determine if a trail is accessible or not are: trail width and turn radius. The average trail tread must be a minimum of 4’ wide, with pinch points no narrower than 40”, by making these trails wider equals better-suited trails for intermediate and beginner riders. With that said, ‘Adaptive Friendly” is a vague generalization. That covers beginner aMTB trails to advanced trails. Just because a trail is adaptive-friendly does not mean bland, sanitized, or easy. Some minor changes we made in Blowing Springs and Wonderland were simple minuscule changes. For example, a tree gate reroute and moving a railing board from the inside rail to the outside on a bridge opened up an entire loop that is now ‘Adaptive Friendly.’
