The Association

European Trails Bio Mischa

Your connection to trails: What draws you to them personally and professionally?

Trails play a central role in my private life since I have been mountain biking since 1991, love to hike in the mountains and go mineral collecting. None of this is possible without trails. Professionally, trails came into focus in the last 10 years, starting with being a certified mountain bike guide as a side business, and then developing and managing the ITRS – International Trail Rating System.

Key achievements: Milestones in trail development, governance, or mountain bike advocacy or similar –  that you are particularly proud of.

Regarding trails, my key achievement is developing and managing the ITRS – International Trail Rating System – together with my project partner Edoardo Melchiori (former board member of IMBA Europe and President of IMBA Italia). We are far from our vision of ITRS being the global standard for trail ratings, but the extremely positive feedback from the first countries and regions in Europe and North America relying on it keeps us motivated to persist in our mission to make trails more accessible, inclusive, safe and enjoyable through consistently rated and communicated trails around the world.

Why European Trails: Your core motivation for joining the board.

As soon as I heard about the idea of founding an association focused on trails as indispensable infrastructure for various outdoor recreation activities, and that standardizing information for trail users was one of the central goals European Trails wanted to pursue, it was clear I would love to contribute based on my professional experience, especially with the ITRS.

Vision & expectations: What you hope to see ET achieve, and how you view the future of trails across Europe.

We are dedicated to adding value to the whole outdoor community and the various associations in it. One key element is to find and successfully tap into additional funding methods to achieve our common goal of bringing more people into nature to enjoy its enormous benefits.

On the technical side I truly believe that introducing standards and digitization will also play a central role in achieving our vision of all people in Europe enjoying great trails.

Professional milestones: The key career stations that back up your expertise.

Educated as an engineer with a PhD in metal physics and several years of work experience in the metals industry I also worked for many years in strategy and management consulting – with one of the global leaders in this business and later with a smaller Swiss consultancy. In parallel I became a certified Swiss Cycling Bike Guide and in 2017 founded the guiding and skills training company Trail Therapy GmbH with my partner Christa Deiwiks, based in Visp in Valais, Switzerland. Since 2019 I supported the Swiss Bike Park near Berne in several topics, one of which was a project that led to the development of the ITRS – International Trail Rating System in collaboration with IMBA Europe. Together with Edoardo Melchiori I now manage the ITRS. We are building a global community of ITRS professionals and a supporting organisation that is at its core a non-profit but financially self-sufficient by being supported by a for-profit organisation that offers professional services around the ITRS.

Wildcard: Anything else you feel adds authentic flavor or value.

Sure – being with my kids on the trails on their bikes since they were 4 years old is so much fun and scary at the same time. The way this generation learns how to play with the terrain and physics is truly inspiring. And they also learn to deal with challenges and the inevitable crashes, but they grow on them. All kids deserve to have access to these cool natural playgrounds that trails are offering.