{"id":119005,"date":"2026-04-25T19:07:14","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/dirt-camp-celebrates-30-years-of-building-singletrack-culture-in-quebec\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T19:07:14","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T19:07:14","slug":"dirt-camp-celebrates-30-years-of-building-singletrack-culture-in-quebec","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/basketball.runfyers.com\/index.php\/2026\/04\/25\/dirt-camp-celebrates-30-years-of-building-singletrack-culture-in-quebec\/","title":{"rendered":"Dirt Camp celebrates 30 years of building singletrack culture in Quebec"},"content":{"rendered":"

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When riders start arriving at Bromont and Mont Blanc at the end of June it will mark the start of 30 years for Dirt Camp<\/a>. Those two camps are just the first two of another summer full of week-long riding camps spread across five mountains surrounding Quebec City. At the helm, as he has been since the start back in 1996, is Jeff Silas.<\/p>\n

30 years is a long time for any business, let alone a camp in a sport so new as mountain biking. But when I catch up with Jeff over the phone, he sounds as full of youthful enthusiasm as ever. That could be because, after a few years mostly behind the desk organising the camps, he\u2019s stepped back into the fray as an on-the-ground coach.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, it was so fun! With adults, I don\u2019t know if I\u2019d be so stoked. But with kids? It was so fun,\u201d Silas enthuses. \u201cWhen you get them over a bit step-up that they were really scared of all week? They\u2019re elated, like, the kid can\u2019t even contain himself. That\u2019s it. It makes the whole week worth it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Riding the waves in an ever-changing sport<\/h2>\n

Dirt Camp includes options for more cross-country focused weeks and, as you might have guessed from the above, more gravity focused camps at locations like Bromont and Mont Blanc. Silas says the skill of the riders he sees now compared to when he started running camps is impressive.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re getting so good so early. The most advanced groups we have? I can ride with them, but I don\u2019t try impress them,\u201d Silas admits freely. \u201cThey grew up in this era of big bikes and nicely built jumps, reliable suspension, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n

The massive change in rider ability is just one of the many shifts Silas\u2019s seen in the sport since he started. Suspension, trail design, riding styles, boom and bust cycles in the industry, Dirt Camps rolled with it all.One of the bigger changes Silas sees is in the demographic of the parents.<\/p>\n

\u201cThrough 2005-07, when downhill was going through a big boom, we were super busy. After that, it slumped. And then after that? It became a family sport. Suddenly, in like 2015, parents are showing up with their bike and their kids bike on the back of the car. For almost every family that signs up for camp, parents are riding in some capacity. It\u2019s very cool. It became skiing.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Dirt Camp includes plenty of off-the-bike time, to keep young riders fresh, safe, and having fun all week.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Blazing trails in singletrack<\/h2>\n

Becoming skiing sounds better than the usual refrain, that its becoming like golf. But whatever sport you compare mountain biking too, it wasn\u2019t like that in the 90s. The sport was new and\u00a0it was very much still a wild west. Silas first started instructing by helping out a \u201cIntroduction to Mountain Biking\u201d CGEP course as a mechanic. By the end of the first course, he was doing most of the teaching. Then he taught another. And another.<\/p>\n

\u201cEventually, I wrote the manual for the class,\u201d Silas tells.<\/p>\n

That turned into a job helping run a camp for younger riders in the early 90s but, when that fizzled out, the prior owner handed the keys to Silas, saying \u201cYou\u2019re the heart and soul of this thing, so go do it.\u201d That was in 1996. Silas was still just 20 years old. \u00a0While there was no curriculum to follow, beyond the one he wrote for the CGEP course, and no formal guidelines, Silas says it all came easy.<\/p>\n

\u201cI understood that it needed to be progressive, that choosing the right terrain was the name of the game. I mean, I made some mistakes. And maybe I don\u2019t have all the right answers, but it was all very natural to me. Maybe I have that pedagogical thing in me. I just felt like, why aren\u2019t more people doing this?\u201d<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor me, that\u2019s the definition of mountain biking\u201d<\/h2>\n

That curriculum is very much focused on basic skills. \u201cWe\u2019re not trying to create reckless riders. Just because you survived a trail doesn\u2019t mean you did the trail. Show me your tires weren\u2019t skidding all over the place, you weren\u2019t over-breaking like crazy, then you\u2019ll have my admiration. Show me you can be light on your bike on the trail, that you can pop some stuff along the way, you can do some high-lines here and there, that you can be super calm,.\u201d<\/p>\n

As you can maybe start to see in that description, Dirt Camp isn\u2019t, like many youth camps, focused on racing. Instead, the program is squarely focused on the culture of mountain biking.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacing is a tangent of mountain biking. Racing is great, I race once every year. But for us, it\u2019s about the sport, it\u2019s about the community,\u201d Silas says. \u201cIt\u2019s about party laps. You know, a bunch of pals doing a trail they\u2019re comfortable with, hollering the entire way down, stoked with whatever the guy in front of them did. For me me, that\u2019s the definition of mountain biking.\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe that\u2019s why, three decades later, Silas is still doing it with such genuine enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

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Mont Blanc remains a staple of Dirt Camp weeks<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

New venues, same focus<\/h2>\n

The latest change came with the pandemic. Silas says Dirt Camp had to shift to day camps from nearly exclusively boarders. While more riders are getting back into boarding, there\u2019s still a lot more sticking to day camp.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat worked out in the end, of course. The pandemic was really good to us, right? Everyone threw themselves into mountain biking,\u201d Silas says. While the rest of the industry might be struggling with the aftermath, and registration has trailed off a bit, it inspired Dirt Camp to expand beyond Bromont.<\/p>\n

\u201cNow we\u2019re at these locations that have chairlifts, but they might not have the resources to have a mountain bike school. They see the value in what we\u2019re doing. It\u2019s not that I make or break their year, but, for example, there are times at Mont Blanc where we\u2019re the only people on the mountain on a Tuesday afternoon. It brings a bit of life to their place.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Dirt Camp<\/a> expands to include newer venues, ones that don\u2019t have the same storied history as Bromont, a legacy often tied to racing, the emphasis on riding culture Silas prioritises over speed seems prescient.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m 50. I look at the trail very differently than a 12 year old. I want to look and find all the secret jumps. These kids just want to go as fast as they can,\u201d Silas says. \u201cI look at that and think, you\u2019re missing the point, you know? There\u2019s a whole dimension to the sport that you are just eclipsing. You can wear your racer hat, but you can also wear your flow hat, and your jibbing hat. There\u2019s just so much to this sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

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