When it comes to mountain biking in the canton of Thurgau—or rather, the official approach to it—fines keep cropping up. A few years ago, the canton wanted to grant forest workers the authority—or even impose the obligation—to fine mountain bikers they caught on illegal single trails. This proposal was voted down during the drafting of the cantonal mountain biking plan.

Now the plan is ready; the cantonal government has approved it, but it will only take effect if the cantonal parliament passes an amendment to the Forest Act. What is this amendment about? That’s right—fines.

But the canton in eastern Switzerland doesn’t simply want to tighten regulations in the forest. It intends to improve the mountain biking infrastructure and links this goal to the ability to penalize mountain bikers who ride on prohibited trails. The official statement: “The goal is to direct mountain biking in the forest onto existing paths and legal mountain bike trails. To this end, the cantonal government is proposing a penalty provision that punishes illegal riding in the forest within so-called mountain bike catchment areas with an administrative fine.”

The deal: trails in exchange for fines

In other words: In the forest area where official mountain bike infrastructure exists, riders who ride off the permitted paths will be fined. If there are no trails sanctioned by the canton, fines cannot be imposed. Or put another way: If a municipality wants to curb trail biking with fines, it must offer trail bikers the opportunity to practice their sport legally.

This can also be seen as an incentive for municipalities and the canton to create MTB infrastructure. The downside is that the opening of a trail or the construction of an official route around it leads to riding bans. This mechanism is also familiar from other areas.

Whether mountain bikers are better off with legal trails and trail fines than before depends, among other things, on how many official bike trails must be present in an area of a certain size before it becomes a fine zone. The canton does not provide a clear answer to this upon inquiry from Ride. “A mountain bike catchment area always depends on the specific cantonal mountain bike infrastructure to be implemented. The more attractive and comprehensive the mountain bike infrastructure, the larger the mountain bike catchment area.” This ensures that the mountain bike infrastructure is developed in tandem with the corresponding mountain bike catchment area, explains the canton.

It is also important to understand what constitutes mountain bike infrastructure in the canton of Thurgau and what types of bike trails are to be developed. According to the Non-Motorized Transport Office, the primary focus is on legalizing existing, nature-oriented single trails. In the canton of Thurgau, this means that every single trail on which biking is permitted must first go through an approval process. This differs from cantons that generally permit certain trail categories but impose riding bans on individual trails for nature conservation, safety, or other reasons.

What the IG Mountainbike Thurgau Says

Silvio Crameri is president of the IG Mountainbike Thurgau, which represented the interests of the biking community during the development of the concept. The IG supports the concept; it is the best they could achieve so far, he says. However, he also reveals that the IG is working toward legalizing more single trails than is planned for the next phase.

Once the concept is implemented, Thurgau’s cyclists will have 100 kilometers of official single trails at their disposal. By comparison: The canton of Graubünden is about seven times the size of Thurgau, but with 11,000 kilometers of single trails, it offers mountain bikers more than a hundred times what is planned in the canton on the southern shore of Lake Constance.  

However, the comparison is unfair, as Thurgau is not a mountainous region and is also one of the cantons with the lowest percentage of forest cover. The forests belong to  around 9,000 different owners, explains Crameri; the canton and municipalities own hardly any forest. This means that every trail to be opened for biking must be negotiated with one or even many owners.

Finally, another figure puts the seemingly modest offering of 100 kilometers of legal single-track trails into perspective: Crameri knows from Strava data and surveys that there are 300 kilometers of attractive single-track trails throughout the canton. “We are working to ensure that as many of these as possible are opened up.”

And then there is the question of how many resources the Thurgau police have to send patrols into the forest to fine cyclists who stray off the trails.