CMBA - Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance

The Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance has been a part of Calgary’s mountain biking scene for over 20 years, and we intend to be here for a very long time to come.

Founded in 1996, the Calgary Mountain Bike Alliance began as an advocacy group.  At that time, there was a push from local government to ban mountain bikes from the informal and formal trails in Bowmont Park and Nose Hill, and the writing was on the wall for similar bans to take place in Kananaskis.  The newly-formed CMBA was successful in changing minds and winning hearts within the City of Calgary and the provincial government, ensuring that mountain bikers can use most of the trails that hikers and horses have access to.

In the late 90s and early 00s, the group concentrated on trail maintenance and trying to get a bike skills park built somewhere in Calgary. The first official request to the City of Calgary for a skills park happened in 2002.

In 2008 the group was infused with new blood, and the purpose shifted away from advocacy and toward trail building.  Around 2009, luck and timing coalesced into the creation of the Ridgeback trail in Kananaskis.

In 2016, the CMBA built Calgary’s first public mountain bike skills park in the city’s SE, adjacent to the communities of Parkland and Deer Run.