Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland has published the first draft of the Strategy for Scottish Mountain Biking 2026 to 2036, and public consultation closes on 17 August 2026. The draft is being developed by DMBinS on behalf of the Scottish Mountain Bike Consortium, and comments can be submitted through an online form or by email to info@dmbins.com. Consultation findings will be published alongside the final strategy at the Scottish Mountain Bike Conference in November.

The document is a genuine draft rather than a finished strategy. Several sections carry placeholders marked for autumn 2026, including the economic evaluation statistics, Bicycle Association participation data, and the evaluation of the Scottish Cycling Facilities Fund. The action plan and measurables appendices are listed as still to follow. The previous strategy carried three numeric missions, two million annual visits by mountain bike, a world champion or world series winner in every discipline, and £158m of annual GVA by 2025, all of which DMBinS reported as met. The appendix that would set equivalent targets for 2036 is one of the sections still to come.

We have read the draft. What follows is a summary of what it contains, along with some early observations on where it differs from the last strategy. These are our own, and the draft is public, so it is worth reading alongside this piece and forming your own view. You can download the full draft strategy from DMBinS.

Six themes where there were five

The 2019 to 2025 strategy set out five key themes: a world-class trail network, the international destination of choice, a leader in MTB innovation, tackling Scotland's issues of health and wellbeing, and Scots achieving on the world stage.

The new draft has six, each with its own ten-year ambition: Trails and Supporting Infrastructure, Tourism Destination Development, Innovation Enterprise and Research, Education and Skills Development, Health and Wellbeing, and Scots Athletes Achieving on the World Stage.

Five of those map closely onto what came before. Education and Skills Development is the only genuinely new theme. Education did appear in the previous strategy, but scattered across action areas rather than gathered into one place, covering coaching numbers, leader bursaries, further and higher education pathways, and a Europe-wide approach to trail building training. It now carries its own ambition and its own set of directions.

Managing what exists, not only building more

The clearest change in tone is around trail stewardship. The draft states that Scotland's mountain biking infrastructure has matured over three decades and now represents a substantial national asset, and that ageing trail networks and visitor facilities will require increasing attention on maintenance, renewal, and long-term sustainability.

It goes further than that. The draft explicitly raises the adaptation or decommissioning of assets that are no longer sustainable to maintain, and says sustainable trail plans should support informed decisions about renewal, management responsibilities, and where necessary, trail decommissioning. Resources, it says, should be prioritised towards facilities and experiences delivering the greatest environmental, social, community, and economic benefit. Nothing of that kind appears in the previous strategy, which is framed throughout around growth.

Alongside it sits a strategic direction on moving from public sector delivery towards community, charitable, and private operating models. The underlying goal is not new. The 2019 strategy proposed a membership and subscription model for riders and businesses, with the stated aim of removing the need for long-term public sector investment. What is new is applying that thinking to who owns and runs the trails themselves.

For riders who have watched trail centres age without a maintenance budget attached, it is a notable thing to see written down in a national strategy.

Permissions, not forgiveness

One strategic direction under trails is headed "Permissions, Not Forgiveness". The draft frames it as promoting collaborative relationships between riders, communities, land managers, and public bodies, by encouraging responsible development, clear permissions, and collaborative planning approaches for trails and infrastructure. The Community value section makes a similar point, stating that early and meaningful engagement should form part of the planning and development process.

This is not a new concern. The 2019 to 2025 strategy stated that a focus on entry-level facilities had left a vacuum at the top end of the sport, and that this had led to many challenging trails being built by riders without landowners' permission. It pointed to National Access Forum guidance released in 2018 as a framework for riders and landowners to work together, called for a culture of trail stewardship, and listed both promotion of that guidance and helping to stop inappropriate trail building among its actions.

The new draft's language is development and planning focused, which points towards new build rather than trails already on the ground. Existing networks are dealt with separately, under an action area on sustainable trail management covering asset condition, renewal priorities, and end-of-life management. A separate action area under the same theme commits to supporting informal trail networks alongside urban riding facilities, pump tracks, and skills areas, describing them as vital local opportunities, particularly for young people and communities with limited access to the outdoors. What clear permissions would mean in practice is a reasonable question to put during consultation.

Gravel appears for the first time

Under trails, the draft includes an action area titled Promoted Gravel and Long-Distance Routes, covering gravel riding and long-distance off-road routes as part of a wider tourism and participation offer. It is a single paragraph with no named routes or regions.

Thin as it is, it is a first. Gravel does not appear anywhere in the 2019 to 2025 strategy, which listed its growth markets as adventure, bike parks, families, enduro, and e-bikes.

The destination map has shifted

The previous strategy sorted destinations into three tiers. Tweed Valley and Fort William and Lochaber were premier. Dumfries and Galloway, Perthshire, Cairngorms, and the North Highlands were priority. Glasgow and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs, plus Aberdeenshire, were emerging.

The new draft names Fort William and Lochaber, the Tweed Valley, Cairngorms National Park, and Aberdeenshire as established destinations, with targeted support and investment aimed at Dumfries and Galloway, Perthshire, Inverness and Loch Ness, Ross-shire, Caithness and Sutherland, and Glasgow and Loch Lomond and the Trossachs.

Aberdeenshire has moved up two tiers, and the draft credits the completion of Tarland Trails with meeting the long-stated aim of a trail centre in the North-East. Cairngorms has moved up one. Dumfries and Galloway and Perthshire sat in the second tier in 2019 and sit in the second tier now.

Caerlee Mill, a 2019 proposal now being delivered

Bike Innovation Scotland, a partnership between Edinburgh Napier University and South of Scotland Enterprise, and Caerlee Mill, described in the draft as the world's first dedicated Mountain Bike Innovation Centre, run through several themes. Caerlee Mill hosts a Living Trail Lab, positioned as an evidence base for trail quality, sustainability, accessibility, and visitor experience, and a Human Performance Laboratory linked to rider development and performance analysis.

The idea has a history. The 2019 strategy proposed an Innovation District in the Tweed Valley, featuring what it also called the world's first mountain bike innovation hub, with a workshop, business incubator space, human performance lab, and environmental testing chamber. That built on the Mountain Bike Centre of Scotland, opened in 2014 with Edinburgh Napier University and Scottish Enterprise and then based at Glentress. What the new draft describes is that proposal arriving, under a new delivery vehicle and a new name.

Education arrives as a theme of its own

The first strategic direction under Education and Skills Development is integration into mainstream education, covering schools, colleges, universities, and wider education pathways. The draft names Developing Young Workforce programmes alongside school qualifications in mountain biking and cycling, combining riding skills, leadership, trail awareness, sustainability, and responsible outdoor access learning. That schools-level ambition is the clearest departure from the previous strategy, which touched on further and higher education pathways but not on qualifications delivered in schools.

Beyond schools, the draft covers college and university course alignment, new PhD studentships, and Knowledge Transfer Partnerships connecting businesses with academic expertise. A separate direction pushes cycling themes into subjects beyond sport and exercise science, naming tourism, engineering, product design, environmental science, business, digital technology, artificial intelligence, health, and place development.

More familiar ground is still covered. Governing body awards across coaching, leadership, officiating, bike maintenance, and trail development, continued development of DIRTT trail education and certification, bike maintenance skills, and recruitment and retention of coaches, leaders, officials, and volunteers all feature, as does strengthening the connection between outdoor education experiences and sustained participation.

The competition pathway, largely unchanged

Scots Athletes Achieving on the World Stage carries the ambition that Scottish riders are consistently visible, competitive, and successful at the highest levels of international mountain biking and off-road cycling. Much of what sits under it will be familiar. The previous strategy already committed to developing links between Scottish Cycling, British Cycling, colleges, universities, the Scottish Institute of Sport, and professional teams, and to accessible race series at local, regional, and national level so young riders have a clear pathway. Both return here, as do stronger youth clubs, talent identification, and increasing the number of coaches and leaders.

Two things stand out as new. The draft calls for integration across disciplines, naming collaboration and shared learning between mountain biking, BMX, cyclocross, gravel, road, and other cycling disciplines to support athlete progression. And it sets out data-driven performance development, using the sportscotland Institute of Sport, British Cycling athlete development, and the Caerlee Mill Human Performance Laboratory and Trail Labs for rider development, testing, performance analysis, and recovery.

Adapted riding gets a named commitment

Health and Wellbeing carries a good deal of continuity. Reducing gender inequalities, diversifying participation among people from ethnically diverse backgrounds, and supporting children and young people in areas of socioeconomic deprivation all featured in the 2019 to 2025 strategy, and all return. So does the link to mental health, though the new draft goes further by proposing a national network of Trail Therapy Hubs.

What does not appear in the previous strategy is adaptive riding. The new draft includes an action area on Adapted Mountain Bike Programmes, covering people with disabilities and long-term health conditions through adapted bikes, accessible facilities, specialist coaching, and inclusive programmes. It appears again under the draft's Inclusive value, which names the development and use of adapted bikes and improvements to accessible infrastructure and facilities. The previous strategy described the trail network as suitable for riders of all abilities but made no specific commitment to adapted provision.

The five values themselves are also new as a structure. Community, Innovation, Sustainability, Culture, and Inclusive open the document. The 2019 strategy had no equivalent section.

How to comment

The draft is available to download from the DMBinS website, and comments can be submitted via the consultation form or by email to info@dmbins.com before 17 August 2026. DMBinS has stated the consultation is open to everyone with an interest in mountain biking in Scotland, including riders, clubs, businesses, volunteers, coaches, and land managers.

Download the draft strategy, read the full DMBinS press release, or submit your comments.