The Story

In 2015, a local group of Aberdeen mountain bikers got together and decided it was time for Aberdeenshire to get its own dedicated, purpose built mountain bike facilities. Following a detailed feasibility study, this vision has now moved on and the new vision is now to build one of the UK’s leading outdoor adventure sports facilities.

The following short film talks about why the Gravitate North East mountain bike and adventure sports facility is needed in the Aberdeen region:

 Through feasibility studies, development of a business strategy, Durris Forrest was chosen as the preferred location for accommodating the facility.  In 2019 a lot of work was done in preparation for progressing with a fund raising campaign in 2020 with the aim to raise £150k to support the progression of planning permission and funding for the development of the site in 2021 / 2022.  Sadly as most things, this came to a halt due to lock down as the trustees were not in a position to be asking for funding from people with a lot of uncertainty going about.

In 2021, once groups were allowed to start meeting again, a development with Aberdeenshire Trail Association allowed access to adopt some trail and start manually maintaining them and get tools in the ground.  Later in the year commenced the generation of data and documentation for submission of the planning application.  Further details can be found in the following link: 

Sadly after completion of trail pits, it became apparent that the site does not have most favourable condition for taking the project forward on both an ecological and economical status.  Further details can be found in the following link:

Therefore as per the above blog the project is currently reviewing the possibility of another site and what would that new site look like in terms of the previous business model.  As part of the review the following Aims have been created with supporting Objectives, Strategies and Tactics to drive discussions with landowners and define the new way forward for Gravitate: