Most often, as events like the International Trails Summit move forward each day, new acquaintances become friends, and conversations pick up where they left off the day before. Relationships deepen. Community forms. It almost starts to feel like family.

I didn’t get into Reno for the International Trails Summit until last night (Monday). That means today was my first full day which is perfect because it was the first full day of all the festivities starting at 7 am. Knowing there were too many great workshops and speakers to listen to, I spent my first day simply connecting and meeting people. Before I left Portland, Greg Mazu of Singletrack Trails asked me if I’d be interested in serving my Loam Coffee at his booth. I thought, why not? That was one of the best decisions I had ever made. Why?

Ok, long title. Trust me, it wasn’t my first title idea … Trail Builder Mag Invades Reno? Trail Builder Mag Occupies the International Trail Summit? Nah, we’re just showing up and hanging out with everyone there. Some of you may be wondering …. what is the International Trails Summit (ITS)? In recent conversations with several trail builders, some hadn’t heard of it. Here’s what it’s about …

These professional builder profile interview series have been a blast! We get to hear from trail builders from all over the world who are making a go of it as professionals doing this for a living. Seemingly all professional trail builders start as volunteers. Along the way, they begin wrestling with questions like … “Can I do this full-time and make a career of it?” This series is to inspire you and share their stories. Hopefully, some of you will realize this may be the nudge you need to turn your dream into a reality.

Life has a way of throwing curves at you. Most often, these unintended intrusions become enormous shaping influences on our lives. An illness … cancer … a disability … a job loss. These are all pivotal moments in our lives. As we emerge from them, we’re simply not the same. No longer can we view life and the world around us the same way. The same goes for me, mountain biking, trail building, and sustainability.

We’re excited to announce the beginning of a new interview series featuring women trail builders. One of the movements we’ve been paying attention to here at Trail Builder Mag is to rise of women trail builders and women-only trail building events. There’s a growing movement, and it is exciting to see! For our first article, we’re interviewing Heather de Choudens who is the Education Project Manager for Evergreen Mountain Bike Alliance in Washington. Without any delay, let’s jump into this!

As we’re ramping up to the official release of Volume 1, Issue 1 of Trail Builder Mag, we couldn’t be more excited about the growing momentum. We have a wide range of articles coming out in this print issue exploring trail building and related topics in a variety of different countries. As has been mentioned repeatedly, trail building touches on so many topics that there will never be a shortage of what to explore. That is great news and exciting! Not only that, but we have new content and articles being worked on for our website. We hear from many of you through emails, DMs, and comments, so we know you’re excited about what we’re building together.

For this series on interviewing professional trail builders, I’m intentionally moving the conversation around from country to country and continent to continent. So far, we’ve visited the United States, Canada, Australia, and now Germany. I love that there are mountain bikers and trail builders literally everywhere. From deserts to farmlands to rainforests and everything in between. Our most recent interview is with Janis Vogt and Luca Schmidt, co-founders of Schanzenwerk in Germany.

In our last feature highlighting a custom builder set-up, we showed Glen Gollrad’s B.O.B. trailer, modified to hold trail tools and other gear. I love the D.I.Y. ethos, and it started me thinking about how I could pimp my ride.

But, I’m also lazy, so I was pretty psyched to see Martin Ready’s email showing his set-up which uses a kit specifically for B.O.B. trailers; B.O.B. Gear Tool Rax for YAK & Ibex Models.

Trail Builder is a magazine for trail builders written by trail builders. In other words, it is community-generated content. Each week, I receive countless emails from trail builders all over the world. Wherever mountain bikers are building trails, we're hearing from them … from you. Any chance I get, whether in person or through emails and social media, I reinforce that the scope of this magazine is global. As a result, I hear from you no matter where you live.