Competition for the Swiss Cycling Guides? More like little brothers and sisters to the pros. The SAC is now also training mountain bike tour guides. Swiss Cycling helps train the amateur guides. The first one-week guide course starts at the end of August.

"We are on the way to putting mountain biking on an equal footing with other mountain sports," quotes an online article by Swiss Cycling Rolf Sägesser, Head of Summer Training and Safety at the SAC. Individual sections have been offering guided mountain bike tours for some time. Now the SAC is going one step further and training mountain bike tour guides.

Is Swiss Cycling creating competition for its own mountain bike guides, who offer free tours? Not directly, because SAC tour guides can only lead mountain bike groups through the mountains within the framework of their sections. The term "guide" is reserved for more highly trained professionals. It is comparable to the difference between SAC ski tour guides and patented mountain guides, who have invested many times more time and money in their training.

At any rate, the mountain bike guide course can be an introduction to guide training. Swiss Cycling writes: "If you would also like to work commercially in this field, you have the option of further training to become a Swiss Cycling Guide and, if required, obtain a federal certificate."

In any case, what is more important for the sport of biking is that mountain biking in the Alps and therefore on single trails continues to gain support.