Branching out from forestry

Originally uploaded by cuu508

Where the trail cuts into the diagonal of the hill in this picture is where I found myself a few Sundays ago, after a 20-minute uphill mountainbike grind, and nursing a double hangover. The uphill over thick gravel became a mountain traverse, and my burning lungs were quickly extinguished by fresh air blowing up the hill from Lough Corrib.

This was Derroura, a Coillte recreation site, twelve hours before the polar air hit and Ireland was covered in snow, and the skies were as blue as you see them here. I got sunburnt. It was blissful, if somewhat scalding for my poor alveoli.

Until, that is, my back wheel rim started hitting the stones. I had a puncture. Not a problem, however. Claire, one of the staff  in the wonderful Killary Adventure Centre, had told us about her puncture at the top of the hill, so in the carpark at the bottom we made preparations. I had a tube and all the accoutrements in my backpack. Patches, multi-tool, yadda yadda. We had two pumps, so could afford to leave one behind. Or so we thought.

After a high-speed tube change, I started pumping, and pump as I might, things remained disturbingly flaccid. The pump had died, leaving me seven or eight kilometres from home with airless tyres. Shite.

Phil sprinted off to fetch the spare pump and I picked up the bike and started jogging home. Seven kilometres of trail is plenty of time to think, and it got me thinking about Coillte.

Coillte owns a million acres of Ireland – almost 7% of the island of Ireland (turning over €381million, 0.001% of Ireland’s GDP) – a sizeable chunk. Of those million acres 79% is forested, with a mix of 38 species – 16 conifer, 12 broadleaf. For a long time, most of that land was off limits to bikers of any kind.

For years, we mountain bikers trespassed on Coillte land, enduring the shouts and lashes of walkers who viewed us as bandits and outlaws.

Until, that is, Coillte started engaging with the growing mountainbiking community in Ireland, and realised that if a person could afford to spend upwards of €1,000 on a bike, they could probably afford to pay for other stuff, too.

Hence, their new development of outdoor recreation sites, for biking, hiking and the rest.

Jewel in the mountain-biking crown is their outfit at Ballyhoura, which I’ll be hitting after the Blog Awards on Sunday. It’s €5 for parking, another €2 for the bikewash, and there are 95kms of looping trails of varying severity, with a shop and showers at the trailheads.

Finally, the days of Coillte not seeing the woods for the trees are over. Bikers like trails that are maintained and have ancillary services, and will flock to them. Take the Queen Charlotte Track in New Zealand, a mecca for the local bikers, or the ‘World’s Most Dangerous Road‘ in Bolivia, both of which have mountain biking industries around them. The last time I was in Ballyhoura, there was traffic, a variety of nationalities all bashing the trails, having received a long-overdue fáilte from Coillte. Fantastic.