{"id":63603,"date":"2026-08-07T12:26:57","date_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:26:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aresweden.com\/?p=63603"},"modified":"2026-08-07T12:29:55","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T10:29:55","slug":"are-a-biking-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aresweden.com\/en\/see-do\/are-a-biking-story\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00c5re – a biking story"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Text: Tobias Liljeroth \/ Magasin \u00c5re<\/a> (translated)<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

If common sense and economical interests had been allowed to govern, \u00c5re would never have become one of the world\u2019s greatest biking resorts. Fortunately, the locals have never really listened to those sorts of arguments. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When J\u00f6rgen Lindman and March Archer dragged their prehistoric mountainbikes onto the \u00c5re cable car in the summer of 1987, neither of them had any idea that 35 years later, \u00c5re would have become one of the world\u2019s biggest biking resorts. Nor did they believe that the rough, bumpy, rocky and brutal terrain they then navigated with their bikes (without suspension forks but with steel frames and cantilever brakes) without wearing much more than styrofoam helmets, would have \u00f6ver 30 biking trails that even children could manage. At that point, it was more a question of survival. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201dI was introduced to the mountain biking phenomenon circa 1987-88, and as a skier, it was love at first sight\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johan Lindstr\u00f6m was also there, in the very early days of mountain biking in \u00c5re. Trendy as ever, and at the time a complete madman who, among other things, managed to get his ski pass revoked after jumping over the funicular with skis, for him this new pop sport from North America seemed to be a perfect complement to skiing during the bare ground season. The feeling was the same, as was the playground. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first years on \u00c5reskutan were tough. Biking was rock hard and the consequences of falling were major. We had no nice flow rides and the only lift to the top was Kabinbanan. This often meant stopping halfway down, at Hummeln, to change the brake pads as the old ones were usually ground down. The only trail that in any way resembled a modern bike trail was the Serpentine transport trail, where there were actually a couple of velodromes and jumps\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s preposterous to compare that to today\u2019s Cobra or Shimano trails, but by the standards of the time, the feeling of flow and flying were pretty similar. Because while biking as a sport has evolved enormously over the last 35 years, the basic sensations have not. Biking was fun and exciting then, as it is now, and elicited adrenaline and endorphins, just like today. The bikes looked and were deadly when used on a mountain like \u00c5reskutan. With very steep angles, high seats, no or poorly functioning suspensions, narrow handlebars and brakes that only marginally slowed down the pace, the demands on the cyclists were high. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biking during the early 90\u2019s was not for the faint-hearted or the common man; It was tough, uncompromising and injury-inducing. And crazy fun. In other words, it was a perfect sport for \u00c5re, especially at a time when the village was virtually empty in the summer and every visitor meant precious income for struggling village traders. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A hell of a drive<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

If ski lift operators and landowners were sceptical about a large-scale investment in biking, the village\u2019s cyclists saw only opportunities and an enormous potential in this new sport. Within a couple of years, competitions at the highest national level began to be organised under the banner of the \u00c5re Slalom Club and even a biking festival, \u00c5re Bike H\u00e5llidey 1992. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as usual when it comes to \u00c5re, it didn\u2019t stop there, fuelled by enthusiasm, entrepreneurial spirit and (as usual) a dose of hubris. \u00c5re was going to organise a mountain bike world cup. Period. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lindstr\u00f6m picked up a carved wooden cap from \u00c5re Hemsl\u00f6jd and travelled to the 1993 World Mountain Bike Championships in M\u00e9tabief, France, tracked down the top brass at the International Cycling Union (UCI), presented said wooden cap as a gift and declared that \u00c5re wanted to organise the World Cup too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months later, a fax arrived saying that the UCI was interested in organising the World Cup in \u00c5re. However, the only dates available were 27th and 28th of May, at a time when the weather conditions in \u00c5re can be whimsical at best. But as everyone in the village was convinced that it would work, the organising staff agreed.
And of course, the winter of 1994\/-95 was one of the best in living memory and when it was time for the World Cup, there was so much snow on the mountain that the lifts were still transporting skiers and the downhill track had to be dug out. Just in time for the races, the temperature reached 20 degrees C, creating a mud puddle of epic proportions for the world\u2019s best cyclists to tackle. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the usual order, the ambitions of \u00c5re cyclists did not stop there and it was soon decided that \u00c5re would organise the World Championships. This was during the first golden age of mountain biking. The sport had just entered the Olympic programme in Atlanta in 1996 and was growing explosively. Major international TV channels were broadcasting the races, the top riders were raking in huge amounts of money and teams like Volvo-Cannondale had gigantic budgets to work with and setups that almost resembled Formula 1 teams in scope (well, ed. note). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mountain biking was simply a big thing and \u00c5re was chosen to organise the World Championships in the midst of the madness in 1999. The only problem was that no one in the village or the municipality knew about it\u2026 The organising staff with J\u00f6rgen Lindman, \u00d6rjan Hansson and Johan Lindstr\u00f6m, had not established the idea of the World Championship before they launched it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe were a bunch of people who didn\u2019t ask too many questions, we just got on with it. We applied for the World Championship and we got it, but it took a few months before we dared to say anything to the decision-makers in \u00c5re. \u2018Excuse me, but we\u2019ve got the World Mountain Bike Championships 1999, is that okay?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n

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\u00c5re\u2019s biggest event<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the races started on 15 September 1999, the traffic jams stretched all the way from Bj\u00f6rn\u00e4nge into the village as the 30,000 or so spectators arrived. The area of the current Holiday Club car park was converted into a giant pit stop area for the teams, the village was buzzing and the riders took on what was perhaps the toughest XC course the world had ever seen. And when superstar Shaun Palmer threw away a given podium position by crashing on to the tarmac outside \u00c5re Hemsl\u00f6jd in \u00c5re square, five metres from the finish of the men\u2019s downhill race, one of the most iconic moments in mountain biking history was made. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

To this day, the \u201899 World Championships is the biggest event ever organised in \u00c5re, in competition with three Alpine World Championships. Biking was simply in \u00c5re to stay and it was time for the next step in the development of \u00c5re as a biking resort. New trails would be built and biking would take over the village in the summer and turn into a sustainable, long-term visitor\u2019s product for a wide target group. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then the curtains came down<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just weeks after the World Championships, it was announced that the ski lifts had new owners and they were not in the least interested in pushing biking forward. All the momentum that had been built up disappeared overnight and the future of cycling in \u00c5re looked bleak. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then, as if out of nowhere, the next saviour in need appeared and his name was (and is) Uffe Olofsson. Uffe was also a skier who fell in love with mountain biking at an early age and, together with Lindstr\u00f6m and Lindman, was one of the pioneers on two wheels on \u00c5reskutan (commonly known as \u201dSkutan\u201d). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had seen how biking on Skutan had grown in the years since the World Championships, but in a somewhat lawless way via wild events such as the notorious Mountain Mayhem. As the problems and controversies grew, he quickly realised that biking could be banned if it wasn\u2019t handled properly. People were getting injured left and right, water was running in the wrong places on the trails, and unauthorised construction was going on all over the mountain \u2013 something had to be done. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

No sooner said than done, Mr Olofsson strode into the lift operator\u2019s local office and said \u2018give me four years and a budget and I promise we\u2019ll make a profit in the summer\u2019. He walked out of there with an OK from the lift operator\u2019s local manager along with an annual budget of 500,000 to build trails. However, the project was still operating under the radar and unbeknownst to the head office in S\u00e4len and it would be a number of years before biking would be fully accepted and blessed at the highest level. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Though the budget was small and the team had to carry out a sleight of hand, it would become the basis of a project called \u00c5re Bike Park<\/a>. The idea was to bring biking to a wider audience and make it more sustainable, both in terms of visitors and the environment. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sport that had once come to the village as a pure experience and personal challenge, which then became a pure competitive sport at the very highest level, was now to be taken back to being an experience and a reason to travel, but with a goal of commercial profits. The model to build on was on the other side of the Atlantic, in Whistler, where the bike park was already attracting large numbers of visitors in the summer, with biking that was nothing like the classic downhill experience where crashes and breaks were a natural part, and a focus on the experience. They had also created a new type of cycling, performed on wide, smooth trails with jumps, known as flow trails. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the people of \u00c5re saw a video of the A-Line, the world\u2019s first flow\/jump trail for biking, the goal was to build a similar one in \u00c5re. The result was Flinbanan, \u00c5re\u2019s and Sweden\u2019s first stumbling step into the modern biking era. In all honesty, the first version of the Flinbanan didn\u2019t look anything like the A-Line, something Olofsson and his team realised when they finally made their pilgrimage to the Canadian west coast and saw the reality in front of their own two wheels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen we started this, we had to learn as we went along because there was really nowhere to get the knowledge about it. So after we had been over to Whistler and seen what was good and bad here at home, we simply had to rebuild most of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The \u00c5re Bike Park catalyst<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Despite battling constant headwinds in the early years, \u00c5re Bike Park would prove to be just the catalyst that outdoor biking in \u00c5re, and the whole of the Nordic region for that matter, so badly needed. At the same time as the \u00c5re Bike Park saw the light of day, another shift took place in the village, with more people moving to \u00c5re for the sake of biking \u2013 not for the winter as had traditionally been the case. Dedicated people who were really enthusiastic about their passion. Because just like \u00c5re\u2019s early cycling pioneers, the new wave of cyclists were not going to take no for an answer, nor were they afraid to speak up for themselves. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They persistently proselytised the message of biking and the need for development to the powers that be and decision-makers, both to be able to meed the locals\u2019 desire for more and better biking but also to create prerequisites for year-round life in \u00c5re that would attract visitors in the summer as well. Sometimes, that strive lead to practical results, and just as often it was transformed into persistent nagging concerning the same things over and over. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as the years went by, a stronger community of cyclists emerged. It was a community shaped by a love of biking in rough terrain but also of \u00c5re\u2019s unique Scandinavian environment and conditions. Inspiration was drawn from British Columbia, Colorado, Scotland, the Italian Riviera and the Alps. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A \u2018no\u2019 was always seen as a temporary answer that would soon turn into a \u2018yes\u2019, and if you were met with another \u2018no\u2019, you just kept on fighting. The local bike club \u00c5re Bergscyklister was reorganised; they started their own cycling festival, organised competitions, started social biking, dug t<\/a>heir own dirt track, started activities for children and young people and nagged the village authorities even more. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The powers that be, largely because many of them are cyclists themselves, soon realised the potential and power of biking and how it was transforming \u00c5re from a mere winter resort to a village that is alive and kicking all year round.<\/p>\n\n\n

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Biking for everyone<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When the first trails in the Bj\u00f6rnen Trail Centre opened in 2018, it was perhaps the final sign that biking, which once started as a tough underground phenomenon, had become both accepted and a sport for the whole family and for all ages.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would this have been the case without a local community of enthusiastic cyclists who have never stopped being passionate about their sport since the late 80s? Probably not. Because while skiing has largely relied on well-founded, large-scale economic decisions since its inception, the foundation of biking has always been unwavering grassroots commitment from all parties involved. On the other hand, biking and mountain biking are still young sports in constant development, and what we have seen so far is probably just the beginning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Johan Lindstr\u00f6m, the pioneer who was involved in the early years, was headhunted to the international biking federation UCI after the World Championships -99 and disappeared from the village to, among other things, help take BMX to the Olympic Games.

After 20 years of absence, he decided to move back to \u00c5re with his family and he almost immediately realised that the vision, or dream, that \u00c5re\u2019s early cyclists set out over 30 years ago had become a reality. He was met by a village full of cyclists, where every other car had a bike strapped to the roof or on the towbar, a mountain with a vast variety of trails and a village that lived and breathed biking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was incredible to see. And we agree that biking is here to stay and that there\u2019s still great potential. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c5re is the biking mecca of Sweden, there are other players out there but none of them can compete with \u00c5re\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pace of time<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

1987 J\u00f6rgen Lindman and Marc Archer venture on their first downhill experience via Kabinbanan.
1990 Anders Hansson establishes rental and repair shop \u00c5re MTB Center.
1992 The World Cup Lift is set for biking for the first time. \u00c5re Bike H\u00e5llidey premieres with Skutan Runt, Hill Climb and other events.
1993 \u00c5re Slalom Club (\u00c5re SLK) adopts mountainbike as part of their operation and arrange a number of competitions. \u00c5reliftarna opens up more lifts for biking.
1995 The Downhill World Cup is hosted by \u00c5re SLK. \u00c5reliftarna produces the first mountainbke trail map.
1996 \u00c5re Bergcyklister is established. The 1000 meter trails is built and becomes \u00c5re\u2019s first dedicated biking trail.
1999 \u00c5re hosts the Mountain Bike World Championships.
2003 The festival \u00c5re Mountain Mayhem is established.
2005 \u00c5re Bike Park is established and Flinbanan is built.
2006 Easy Rider becomes the first easier trail from the Kabinbanan mountain station.
2007 The first part of the jump trail Shimano is open for business.
2008 \u00c5re Bergcyklister is reshaped with five members and a negative financial result (-5000 SEK).
2010 \u00c5re Bike Festival <\/a>is established.
2014 \u00c5re hosts Sweden\u2019s first enduro race.
2017 Building start for Bj\u00f6rnen\u2019s trail center.
2019 \u00c5re invests 16,6 million SEK on a biking project finansed by local businesses and EU funding.
2022 \u00c5re Bergcyklister\u2019s pump track at the Swedish Alpine National Arena is established.
2023 \u00c5re Bergcyklister have over 700 members and is the second largest sports association in the county.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c5re \u2013 a world class biking destination<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

In the years 2019 to 2022, \u00c5re Destination promoted a project for biking development in \u00c5re. The construction of the trail area in Bj\u00f6rnen is the largest part of the project, along with establishing pump tracks, events and marketing communications. \u00c5re \u2013 En cykelhistoria, describes \u00c5re\u2019s history of biking up until 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00c5re - a biking story<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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