Riders want more technical trails, and he's happy to build them
Singletracks Mountain Bike Podcast
Singletracks.com
4.7 • 574 Ratings
🗓️ 11 March 2025
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Thomas Schoen is the CEO of First Journey Trails, a trail building company based in British Columbia. He's also the Director for the Williams Lake Cycling Club, the Aboriginal Youth Mountain Bike Program and is the President of the Cariboo Mountain Bike Consortium.
- How long have you been building mountain bike trails professionally? How did you get started?
- Which aspects of a trail build do you enjoy the most?
- Is everything on track to get the First Blood trail officially opened this season? What's left to be done?
- Are you seeing increasing demand for more technical trails? Do you think trails are too easy because our bikes are so good, or because bikers are getting better?
- Considering all the trails you and your team have built over the years, which one is your favorite trail to ride?
- What's the expected lifespan for a wooden bridge on a trail in BC?
- What do you think makes for a successful mountain bike destination?
- Tell us about your work with aboriginal youth First Nations trail builders.
- What's the next big thing for you and for trail development in BC?
You can learn more and connect with Thomas and First Journey Trails at firstjourneytrails.com.
An automated transcript of this episode is available at singletracks.com.
--Keep up with the latest in mountain biking at Singletracks.com and on Instagram @singletracks
Transcript
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| 0:46.3 | Until the 2nd of February from 11am includes one pre-selected book or toy whilst it's last. |
| 0:50.3 | Hey everybody, welcome to the single tracks podcast. |
| 0:53.4 | My name is Jeff and today my guest is Tom Schoen. |
| 0:57.1 | Tom is the CEO of First Journey Trails, a trail building company based in British Columbia. |
| 1:03.3 | He's also the director of the Williams Lake Cycling Club, the Aboriginal Youth Mountain Bike Program, |
| 1:09.6 | and is the president of the Caribou Mountain Bike Consortium. |
| 1:13.8 | Thanks for joining me, Tom. |
| 1:16.1 | Absolutely. Thanks for having me. |
| 1:17.8 | I've enjoyed your podcast for a long time and I really love the magazine. |
| 1:22.8 | So I appreciate you having me on. |
... |
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