Trail Therapy
ITRS: Technical Difficulty
Defined according to the riding skill level that you need for mastering the technical features of a trail
Beginner
Green is suitable for families with kids that are safely able to ride a bicycle. No MTB specific experience required.
Examples
Required riding skills
No special skills are required other than being able to safely ride a bike.
Intermediate
If you have taken a beginners course or have equivalent bike experience you should be able to try blue trails.
Examples
(C) Swiss Bike Park
Required riding skills
Correct body position and actively adapting it to the trail is required, as well as braking techniques on unpaved surfaces.
Basic cornering skills, good line choice and visual focus (knowing where to focus when looking ahead) are helpful.
Basic jumping skills will increase the fun.
Advanced
You should have finished an advanced riding skills course or equivalent bike experience and you have automated all basic riding skills before trying out red trails.
Examples
(C) Swiss Bike Park
Required riding skills
Automated ability to constantly adapt your body position and confident brake control in steeper terrain and on varying trail surfaces is required.
Corners can become so narrow that accurate line choice and visual focus is needed.
Advanced and confident jumping and dropping skills are required.
Lifting the front and/or rear wheel will be helpful to overcome obstacles.
Experts
One or more expert riding skills courses and/or a lot of experience are required to try riding a black trail. Typically, you love to play with the challenges of the terrain.
Examples
Required riding skills
Fully automated, precise and instinctively fast adapting of body position and brake power are mandatory; excellent balance is a prerequisite.
Corners may be so tight that pivoting on the front wheel becomes necessary.
Jumps and drops can be much bigger and higher so expert skills and a very high level of confidence are required.
Obstacles may be so high that confident bunny hop and drop skills are helpful.
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Extreme
This level is for a few exceptional riders only and requires professional downhill, freeride, slope style and/or bike trial skills.
Examples
Required riding skills
Professional downhill, freeride, slope style and/or bike trial skills are absolutely necessary.
Always be prepared to face an unexpected obstacle, especially if you are outside a managed bike park, trail center or equivalent. So adjust your speed. Trails are subject to environmental influences like erosion, growth of vegetation etc., and the actual difficulty of a trail may change over time.
In wet conditions the trails can be much harder to ride - the rating is done independently on the weather conditions.
Comparison chart with other systems
Visualization of the ranges of the difficulty levels
For the complete documentation please go to the ITRS website's download section
All ITRS materials are licensed to Mischa Crumbach, Visp, and Edoardo Melchiori, Torino, under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
