Where It All Began
I knew the jig was up when my girlfriend looked at me, rolled her eyes, and said, "NO. No more mountain bike holidays. I HATE them!" It was the ’90s, and mountain bikes were in their hay day. I was crazy hooked. All I wanted to do was ride. I worked in an MTB store—the legendary VicMTB in Kew. I rode every day. I thought about riding all the time. My MTB was kept in my bedroom even when it was dirty. With my girlfriend...
But the 90s, whilst the golden era of MTBs and innovations in bike design (most of which didn't work, BTW), had one big problem. Mountain biking was virtually impossible to do legally. Trails were off-limits. Most were for walkers only and sometimes horses. Definitely NOT MTBs. So you can see my problem. Whilst I rode a top of the line GT Zaskar LE, which nearly bankrupted me, my partner rode an MTB that didn't work, on trails that didn't exist, in places that looked down their noses at bicycle tourists. Plus, riding normal MTBs is HARD. Hill hurt. Crashes hurt. And it's smelly. Bike holidays in the ’90s and 2000s were mostly for the Uber keen nutter or rail-trail sleepy.
Boy, have times changed.
Which leads me to Trail Towns. About five years ago, I started noticing something changing. And it was changing fast.
I was in Zermatt, Switzerland. The ski shop (one of dozens) was pumping. The last week of the season, a big spring dump had dropped, and business was good. The ski shop owner was beaming. I asked him why he was so happy. “eMTBs,” he said. “They will be bigger than skiing one day. We start hiring in 2 weeks.” This was 2014. In Summer, Zermatt was the domain of old rich people wandering about the village looking up at the Matterhorn.
Then in about 2014, eMTBs hit. Suddenly, ANYONE could ride up to the Gornergrat, 700m meters above the village, for a coffee, schnapps, and a gentle ride down. Kids. Older people...anyone. Bike shops in Zermatt and all over Europe swapped out skis for eMTBs, and business went nuts. And it's been getting even crazier. That's where the idea came from. From Zermatt, Switzerland. Cause, unless I had asked the owner of the ski shop..how was I to know? What we need is one place to go to find out where to ride, where to eat, where to stay, and where to play. For families, and especially bored partners...
Welcome to Trail Towns!
