As you may know Irish Mountain Bikers have recently formed Mountain Biking Ireland (MBI), an organisation set up to deal with the lack of designated areas for Mountain Biking. One of the first steps in dealing these issues was to seek the support of the International Mountain Bicycling Association (IMBA). IMBA have enjoyed great success in dealing with land managers the world over, securing thousands of miles of designated mountain bike trails, developing the codes of conducts for responsible mountain biking and setting the benchmarks for sustainable trail construction.  On the sixth of March last representatives from IMBA came to Ireland to meet with MBI and see if they were on the right road for IMBA accreditation.

The IMBA delegation consisted of Mike van Abel, the Executive Director of IMBA International and Colin Palmer, the Chairman of IMBA UK. They met with a select group of mountain bike representatives.  Visiting both Kindelstown, where MBI are working with Coillte on a pilot project or user built mountain bike trails, and Ballinastoe, an area heavily used by mountain bikers and one of the sites where Coillte propose to develop mountain bike facilities.