There are many reasons why we are organising Gisburn Skills day. As well as the benefits you will get if you attend one of these skills course tasters, Gisburn Forest and other people involved in the area can also see some reward.

You

Firstly, the skills taster days are here to help you. Whether you consider yourself an experienced rider, you only ride every now and again or are new to the world of mountain biking. If you have never attended a skills course before and have self-taught yourself to ride, then these skills course taster could be a great way to fine tune your basic techniques when cycling to not only make your riding more fun, but to also make sure it is safer.

Gisburn Forest Trail Builders

The skills course taster days are organised and run by volunteer trail builders at Gisburn Forest. Along with the Forestry Commission, we help build exciting new trails as well as maintain the existing ones. When you pay to attend a skills day then your entry money, all of it, goes back into the trails. Your money will go towards vital new tools and materials to help the trail volunteers keep Gisburn’s trails in tip top condition.

If you want more information on trail building at Gisburn Forest or you would like to volunteer your time on dig days, then please check out and join the Gisburn Forest Trail Development Facebook Group or view the Gisburn Volunteers page on PMBA’s website.

Gisburn Forest

If you feel more comfortable riding at Gisburn, then you will be more likely to visit. If you really enjoy yourself then you might bring along some friends or recommend the forest to other keen mountain bikers. The more people that visit, the more money that will be generated by the car park which means more money for new single track trails, which is always a good thing.

Also as Gisburn has become more popular over the years, there has been an unfortunate rise in accidents with people coming off their bikes. By offering these skills course tasters we hope to educate riders to make sure that everyone can ride safe.

Skills Coaches

As these are just skills course tasters, we hope that you will want to learn more and hopefully book yourself into a full skills course day with one of our coaches. The skills coaches have very kindly given up their time to help with these taster days. The skills coaches are also part of the trail builders here at Gisburn Forest so know the area very well with most being locals.

Forest Den Cafe

The new cafe at Gisburn, the Forest Den Cafe, has kindly allowed us to use their seating area as the meeting point for our taster days to those that are taking the skills day. So please help them out by treating yourself to a panini or sandwich, also you will find it hard to resist one of their cakes. Have a look at the Forest Den Cafe Facebook Page.