history

Over the last 20 years we have been creating and maintaining advanced mountain bike trails on Telegraph Hill, near Exeter. These have progressed into a 5km network of well built and maintained trails with unique features that attracted riders from both locally and nationally.

Over this time we built up a good working relationship with Forestry England, who own the land that the trails are on. Whilst the trails have never been officially recognised by the Forestry, we worked together to ensure that the trails and features we built were of a very high standard, were safe, and that the ecology of the site was protected and respected.

We also established a relationship with Exeter College, and had classes visiting the site to see how we approached trailing building, our relationship with Forestry England as the land owners, and how we worked within an ecologically sensitive way.

In 2021 Forestry England decided to take a new national approach to unauthorised trails on their land, and at that point we were asked to no longer ride or build upon the Cafeside site while this was implemented.

However, Forestry England recognised the benefit that the Cafeside trails offered to the wider cycling community, and they are fully supporting the Cafeside trails being taken on by ourselves to provide an offer not currently catered for by their own site. To this end, subject to the relevant planning approvals, Forestry England are going to support CafesideMTB by granting a licence to use the woodland as an advanced trail centre.