Mountain Biking Is Growing — Just Not Where It Started

Over the past decade, bike parks have become one of the sport’s clearest success stories. Traditional lift-access destinations have helped define what modern progression looks like, and that model has trickled down around the globe. Shuttle parks, pay-to-ride (or park) trail networks, jump parks, and pump tracks—if it’s contained, controllable, and easy to permit, it’s probably getting built.

From a riding perspective, it’s hard to argue with the appeal; bike parks work. They’re fun, efficient, and undeniably good at getting people into the sport and helping them progress. From a management perspective, they make even more sense. Liability is clearer, user conflict is minimal, maintenance is predictable, and approval timelines are often far shorter than anything involving public land. But while bike parks keep breaking ground, public trail access still feels stuck in neutral.

Anyone who’s been involved in trail advocacy knows the reality. New trails on public land can take years—sometimes decades—to materialize. Volunteer groups do most of the work. Land managers are underfunded and overextended. Closures, restrictions, and stagnation remain common, even as rider numbers continue to climb and bikes become more capable than ever. Frankly, the origin of mountain biking itself seems a bit lost in the modern era, as the sport increasingly evolves away from the mountains. The result is a quiet shift in how and where people ride that will inevitably effect the future of the sport.

Traditional bike parks usually come with a cost—lift tickets, shuttle fees, travel expenses, and massive infrastructure—that immediately raise the barrier to entry (as if the barrier to entry in mountain biking itself wasn’t already high enough). Municipal pump tracks and city-built bike parks help, but they’re often treated as novelty projects or beginner zones rather than real trail infrastructure. When progression-oriented riding increasingly lives behind gates, paywalls, and complex approval processes, “mountain biking” starts to feel less like a public-land-oriented adventure sport and more like a transactional experience—or in the cases of many city supported initiatives the building of a new jungle gym at your local park.

Of course, there are hybrid zones like Bentonville, Arkansas that land somewhere in between traditional and transactional. Bentonville didn’t just build a bike park and call it a day. It invested heavily in public-facing trail systems—singletrack, connectors, and skills zones—woven directly into the town. You can roll from your front door onto trails, ride all day, and never scan a lift ticket, but at the same time you’re never really “out there.” It’s proof that access and growth don’t have to be opposing forces; but whether or not it exemplifies the spirit of mountain biking, or whether it will ever be the “mountain bike capital of the world,” I remain skeptical.

The concern isn’t that bike parks exist. They absolutely belong in mountain biking. The concern is that they’re becoming the default solution while public trail systems remain underfunded, under-prioritized, and painfully slow to expand.

There’s also a cultural layer to this that’s harder to quantify. Bike parks prioritize repetition, scalable features, and measurable progression. Public trails reward exploration, creativity, and self-guided learning. Both are valuable, but they shape different relationships with riding—and with the land. If one dominates, the sport gets narrower, even if it looks more impressive on paper.

If mountain biking wants a sustainable future, growth can’t just mean more bike parks and better destinations. It has to mean faster approvals for public trails, real funding for advocacy groups, and land-use policies that treat bikes as a legitimate priority—not an afterthought. Trails need to be built and maintained to preserve the shape and spirit of the sport.

Bike parks are booming, and that momentum isn’t slowing down anytime soon. But growth alone doesn’t guarantee a healthy future for the sport. Without the same level of investment and advocacy for public trail access, mountain biking risks narrowing its own definition—trading exploration and shared spaces for convenience and control. The challenge moving forward isn’t choosing between bike parks and trails; it’s ensuring that access remains open, affordable, and rooted in the landscapes that gave the sport its identity in the first place.