The question arises not only in the canton of Zurich, but in large parts of Switzerland. What is mountain bike infrastructure? Is it built trails and signposted routes, as defined by the Canton of Zurich's analysis? Or is it the existing trails that mountain bikers have been using since the 1990s?

If you take the analysis of the canton of Zurich at its word, then there are only a good handful of trails for tens of thousands of mountain bikers to practice their sport on. The single trails on which these tens of thousands ride every day are mostly part of the "existing trail network" or they are "user-based trails". In other words, something that wasn't built for mountain bikers or was created by them, which is prohibited.

By the way: creating trails through the forest on your own initiative will never be legal and there are good reasons for this. There are equally good reasons why, depending on the situation, it makes sense to officialize existing trails shovelled by bikers afterwards.

The actual mountain bike infrastructure is the existing trails. This is where the sport of biking began and where it still takes place today. Thanks to the Uetliberg ruling, it is clear that this is often legally okay.

A network of built trails is an absurdity

The inventory and needs survey, which the canton of Zurich had carried out by Allegra Tourism, recommends expanding the mountain bike infrastructure. As it defines it, this means building trails. In principle, at least one would be needed at each of the 36 hotspots identified.

This is the wrong approach for two reasons: firstly, it makes mountain biking more expensive than it actually is. Trails would have to be built for tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of francs. That would add up to millions. Secondly, it makes no sense ecologically. Because what many studies show: The greatest impact on nature is the creation of a new trail and not the use of an existing one by mountain bike.

After all, it takes years to build a network of trails reserved for mountain bikers. If, as a consequence, trails are closed to bikes after opening - as has already been the case in several places - then there will ultimately be less mountain bike infrastructure than before.

Built trails can be fun and ease the situation in busy areas. Much more improvement would come from making coexistence on mapped trails the norm and thus recognizing that the many great existing singletrack trails are the true mountain bike infrastructure.