A secret document replaces a leaked one. The discussion about the German Federal Forest Act, which is currently being revised, is based on internal papers that the public should not actually know about.

Officially, the possibility of federal states being able to ban cycling in forests without compelling reasons has never existed. The fact that this article will not be included in the new German Forest Act is also based on indiscretion in one of the authorities working on the draft.

However, months have passed since the German Mountain Bike Initiative DIMB and others worked to ensure that the impending free pass for mountain bike bans was removed from the draft law. Heiko Mittelstädt, who is in charge of the DIMB's policy dossier, played a key role in this. "Our arguments, which we put forward together with the Bike.Nature.Movement and other associations, were obviously heard and implemented by the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture," he comments in the DIMB's press release.

Nothing is fixed yet - least of all when the new forest law will apply

The passage known as the "Komoot paragraph", according to which anyone who publishes digital tracks of unauthorized routes is liable to prosecution, which could inadvertently happen not only to mountain bikers, but also to mushroom hunters or orienteering runners, has also been removed.

Nevertheless, there may still be a need for discussion when it comes to the specific wording of certain rules, admits the DIMB. The official hearing of the associations, in which the representative body for female mountain bikers in Germany is also taking part, has not yet taken place. It is also unclear whether the new German Forest Act, which is about much more than cycling, will be voted on in the current legislature, which ends in 2025.