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IBikeRide.com has awarded Gisburn forest with its ‘trail of the year’ award following a user generated feedback survey on the trail-exclusive website.
Sharing the MTB podium Gisburn is followed in second place by Afan Forest and then in third place by Glentress, meaning the podium is made up of English, Welsh and Scottish trail centres.
Gisburn Forest Bike Trails are located in the Forest of Bowland, a designated area of outstanding natural beauty near Slaidburn, in Lancashire. The centre has a mix of graded XC Trails (much of the red grade trail has been hand-built by the volunteers). There is also a Freeride/Downhill area (currently being rebuilt), a Skills Area and the Hope Line.
The mechanism for choosing the Trail of The Year was that each of the individual trail reviews and ratings written by ordinary riders throughout they year was added to the "IBIKERide Trail Index" which uses an algorithm to dynamically add up all these ratings to create a ranking of the top trails.
Kev Duckworth from the PMBA / Gisburn Forest Trail-builders group on hearing the news was quoted as saying: “I’m really pleased that Gisburn Forest is so highly regarded by our users to come out #1 against so many great trail centres around the UK. It’s not even a year since our new "hub" was opened with the Cafe, skills loops, new trail head and large car park and the expansion is still on going. Our toilet block is due to start construction in the next few weeks and late summer the next stretch of volunteer built single track will open. So we are still improving the trails and facilities! I hope this award will mean even more people come to visit and enjoy themselves.”
The Trail of the Year campaign, which kicked off in October last year, was sponsored by CUBE Bikes, Sealskinz and High5.
The top ten are as follows:
1) Gisburn Forest Bike Trails
2) Afan Forest Mountain Bike Trail Centre
3) Glentress Mountain Bike Trail Centre
4) Coed y Brenin Mountain Bike Trail Centre
5) Chicksands Bike Park
6) PORC
7) Antur Stiniog Mountain Bike Trail Centre
8) Innerleithen Mountain Bike Trails
9) Kirroughtree Mountain Bike Trail Centre
10) Hamsterley Forest Mountain Bike Trails
