Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland Podcast

Dik Hamilton - Building Trails in the Tweed Valley

Developing Mountain Biking in Scotland Season 1 Episode 5

The Tweed Valley has a huge amount of iconic trails that are well known, well loved, and well ridden. There were very few people involved in the design and creation of these trails, 20 years ago, and here we speak to (he will not like this but we think he really is!) a real local legend, Dik Hamilton. 

 

Dik Hamilton, was responsible for trails such as Berm Baby Berm, which he built entirely single handedly, with his five ton digger, the free ride and skills areas, Blue Velvet, the Mushrooms, Spooky Wood to name a few at Glentress. Caddon Bank, the DH tracks and the Innerleithen XC route at Traquair, with other legends in the craft of trail building, Andy Wardman and Pete Laing.

 

We caught up with him for a walk around some of these trails and a really interesting chat about those early days. A proper insight into how those trails really shaped the Valley as a real destination for mountain biking.

 

It’s 51.25 of pure gold. We urge you to take some time and have a listen the history of these trails and share our appreciation of this very humble man and those like him who have given so many of us our love and enjoyment of the sport by giving us such quality trails to cut our teeth on and progress to.