The boom is unbroken. The sales figures are immense, but the range of routes is few and far between. Conflicts are programmed. The Alpine Club is now also consciously in favor of expanding the routes, because the illegal ones will only decrease in this way. Liability issues, route maintenance, nature conservation, compensation payments, these are the biggest stumbling blocks on the way to legal MTB routes, says Harald Maier, the founder of the Austrian Mountain Bike Institute. The problem is that there are simply not enough routes. studies would. prove that the majority of mountain bikers do not even know that they are riding illegally.

“Steering only possible through offers”

And because the mountain bike trend cannot be stopped anyway and the number of those who ride across forest and meadows has increased so much, the Alpine Club is also rethinking, says René Sendlhofer-Scharg: “We know that there are areas where there are too many cyclists. But that is clear when there are only two routes in the wide area. You can only steer with offers, with routes and single trails”. Because bicycles are now selling as well as skis. Which is why the Alpine Club, federal forests, hunters and landowners are now working with mountain bikers to find solutions for expanding the route.