The vast majority of people that we meet on the trails are not in clubs. They don't race and they don't want to. We see people who throw the bikes on the back of the car and head up to the trails at the weekend just to let off some steam before they head back to the office on Monday morning. We see first time bikers who want to give it a go and maybe get fit. We see the outdoor type who goes scuba diving before breakfast, hits Derroura at lunch and then changes into a business suit for a meeting at 3:00. We see the kids dropped off at the trails in their moms 4x4's so they can blast downhill for two hours before they walk home exhausted sucking on cool pops. We see the kids who don't get dropped off to the trails and who don't know where the trails are, but they spend every afternoon clearing jumps made of old pallets and broken bricks on the kerb side outside their house. The common denominator for mountain bikers is the love of movement, the love of the bike, finding one's limits and then breaking them.

Mountain biking is a young sport. It came to Ireland around 1986. Before that there was cyclocross. Cyclocross was done on modified racing bikes with slightly knobbly tyres. It was like cross country running with a bike. I shouldn't really say was, because it is still done but for the moment, mountain biking is way more popular. The first mountain bike I saw was imported by my friend Fergal. It was a Dawes Ranger. By today's standards it was a heap of junk but in 1986 it cost about £750 and had a fairly good spec at the time. I think he got it in the penny farthing in Aungier St. I thought it was the coolest bike I had ever seen. We headed out and did sections of the Wicklow Way, him on his ranger and me on a hacker that I had built to resemble (as much as possible) a mountain bike. Hill walkers greeted us with disbelief and curiosity. By and large they thought mountain biking was a great idea. This was not to last however.

Over the next couple of years mountain bikes were sold to the masses and people wanted to use them. The Dublin and Wicklow mountain became swamped by groups of enthusiastic mountain bikers. The hills were no longer safe for hill walkers. Before long Coillte began to post signs prohibiting the use of mountain bikes on their land. A more equitable compromise needed to be reached.