European MTB guide-instructor project enters next phase

The European MTB guide-instructor project reached a number of milestones in the last few months. After determing the training requirements for a professional mountain bike instructor-guide in the earlier stages of the project, now the project partners agreed on the final EU exam. The first European exam is planned for October 2018 in Landry, France. Officialy named CAPS-MTB (Creating a Professional European Standard in MTB Instructor-Guiding) the aim of this project is to create an European-wide qualification of ‘Mountain Bike Instructor-Guide’ with a clearly defined job description, qualification level and quality assurance process across Europe. The CAPS-MTB project is co-funded by the Erasmus + Programme of the European Union.Train-the-trainer coursesThe development of a range of train-the-trainer courses for countries/organisations who do not yet have a training program is another tangible result of this project. Three different train-the-trainer courses are availabe by now; a foundation course, an instruction course and a guiding course. All courses have a duration of one week (5 working days) and help new organisations to set-up their own national training schemes. End of April, at the IMBA Europe Summit in Slovenia, the first group of  tuturs of the EU MTB Guide-Instructor program received their certification. This group is capable to (re) train European MTB instructor-guides. [[{“fid”:”1141″,”view_mode”:”media_responsive”,”fields”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false},”link_text”:null,”type”:”media”,”field_deltas”:{“1”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false}},”attributes”:{“height”:453,”width”:680,”class”:”media-element file-media-responsive”,”data-delta”:”1″}}]]As an example, Norway is one of the first countries to complete (and contribute to) all t-t-t courses which helped them to develop their own national training scheme. This resulted in a level 1 and level 2 trainings program of which the first 16 level 1 MTB instructor-guides just passed their exams!New members joining the schemeInitially the project started with 5 EU countries (France, Switzerland, Slovenia, Netherlands, Poland) but during the process, Norway, the United Kingdom and more recently, Denmark joined the scheme as well. With countries such as Germany, Austria and Italy further cooperation seems to be gradually taking shape while countries like Greece, Bulgaria and Macedonia also attended a first informative meeting. The CAPS-MTB project officialy ends at in December 2018. The newly created European Organisation of Mountain Bike Instructor-Guides will deliver and revise the European standard and train-the-trainer courses from then on. More info can be found at www.eo-mtbing.eu [[{“fid”:”1142″,”view_mode”:”media_responsive”,”fields”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false},”link_text”:null,”type”:”media”,”field_deltas”:{“2”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false}},”attributes”:{“height”:510,”width”:680,”class”:”media-element file-media-responsive”,”data-delta”:”2″}}]][[{“fid”:”1143″,”view_mode”:”media_responsive”,”fields”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false},”link_text”:null,”type”:”media”,”field_deltas”:{“3”:{“format”:”media_responsive”,”alignment”:””,”field_file_image_alt_text[und][0][value]”:false,”field_file_image_title_text[und][0][value]”:false}},”attributes”:{“height”:907,”width”:680,”class”:”media-element file-media-responsive”,”data-delta”:”3″}}]]