How Hard is it to Build Your Own Bike Trail?

Depends on your definition of hard!

Some one recently asked here on BikeFat.com, “How hard is it to build your own bike trail?”

My answer would be that building a good singletrack trail is hard, but it isn’t really difficult, as long as you are inspired by what you are doing, and know why you are doing it.

Just like any undertaking we really want to succeed at, we need to approach it with passion.  The years I have spent trail building have required a lot of hard work and commitment to complete, but it is really difficult to call something ‘hard’ when it is bringing you so much joy and pleasure!  The energy to perform the work will always be there in spades (pun intended!), so long as your heart and mind are there with you in full.

Asking whether or not a task is going to be hard might mean that you are not quite ready to get into it.  When the time does come, I assure you that you will not be asking whether or not it is difficult, or whether or not it is possible.  Your friends might be telling you that it is, but you won’t care.  You will already see the finished trail in your minds eye, and believe me, nothing is going to stop you from making that vision a reality!

Building my own bike trails is a lot of work, but it’s the funnest work I’ve ever done!

Let it be said that the actual building of a bike trail is relatively easy, so don’t worry about that.

The hard part will probably be getting approval from the appropriate land owners and managers to actually begin the building of a trail, assuming that you want to go the ‘Legal’ route.

As with most things, the hardest part is getting started!  One step at a time, keep the eye on the goal, and go out there and make your vision a reality without trembling in fear at the prospect of hundreds of hours of lower-back crushing physical labor!

With enough motivation, I’m sure you’ll find it easy.

If you found this post lacking in content, that’s probably because it is!  If you are searching for more in depth information about building bike trails, please check out these links below:

Build Your Own Bike Trail, and

10 Ways to Make Your Mountain Bike Trail Awesome!

They contain much more useful information!