How Mountain Biking Fits into Estonia’s Ambitious 2035 Goals

Our Advocacy Officer Hans Stoops kicked off the year with a trip to Estonia, to present how mountain biking can contribute to the country’s ambitious goals of becoming the most active nation in Europe by 2035. In his blog, Hans highlights several impressive features and figures that underline this commitment.

On January 14-15 I had the opportunity to attend the “B-EST Way to Move” conference in Tallin, Estonia, hosted by the Competence Centre for Physical Activity and present mountain biking and the work IMBA Europe does to ensure that riders across Europe have the opportunity to enjoy accessible and sustainable trails. Estonia has a goal to be the most active nation in Europe by 2035, and mountain biking can absolutely contribute to that goal, especially if the country is prepared to invest in the development of trails close to population centers.

It was therefore very interesting to hear Assar Jõepera from Estonian Health Trails present his organisation. Now in its twentieth year, this collaborative initiative between the Ministry of Culture and the State Forest Management Agency has built 130 tracks with an investment of €65 million. With an Estonian population of just 1.3 million, that means a trail for every 10,000 citizens and an investment of €50 per person. These are impressive figures that other countries should aspire to.

Estonian Health Trails has data to confirm their trail usage thanks to in-house-developed trail user counters. This commitment to improving citizen services via data was expanded on by Jasper Truyens of Sport Flanders. The Flandrian region of Belgium is home to more than 9000 km of mountain bike trails. Sport Flanders has been collecting usage data in 24 different trail locations since 2019, and through sophisticated modeling techniques combining their logs with data from Strava can now predict where people are most likely to ride, and what contributing factors make a particular location more popular (as a hint, don’t underestimate the potential of a café or bar to attract riders!).

From further north,  Pekka Tahkola reports from Oulu, Finland, on improving conditions for year-round cycling, with a particular focus on maintenance, including snow removal. Oulu has the interesting strategy of maintaining a thin (max 4cm) layer of compacted snow to improve conditions for cyclists in the winter. Of particular interest for the IMBA Europe community, though, is his dedication developing 400 km of singletrack trail throughout the community to complement the regular cycling infrastructure, to ensure that mountain biking is accessible to the population and contributes to local mobility.

Estonia, with significant natural beauty, sparsely distributed population, and a right of public access, has a unique opportunity to grow mountain biking through public initiatives. It will be interesting to follow the goals laid out by the Competence Centre for Physical Activity, and continue to contribute with inspiration and knowledge from the IMBA Europe community.