Hari Milburn: Keeping Our Trails Clean with Trash Cat

Adventure rider, social seeker, creative and nature enthusiast. I seek out new places to explore and want to bring everyone along for the ride!

Riding bikes fills my heart with joy, ignites my passion for life, and inspires me to encourage others to join in too. My main goals don't revolve around riding fast or competing at the top end of races. While I've tackled rides like Race Around Rwanda and Gran Gauche Gravel Audax and one day gravel races, my primary focus is simply to spend time outdoors. By day, I run my own commercial Interior Design company, crafting experiences for exciting brands in the retail design, hospitality, events, and brand activation industry. However, this often means long hours at a desk. Cycling awakens my senses with its smells, sounds and visual beauty. Being on a bike gives me much-needed clarity and headspace for my desk-bound days.

The birth of Trash Cat

On long, solo rides, I find my imagination and mind often have space to run away…Where ideas flow, the head is freed, flowing with fantasy, and thoughts of what lies at the end of a Holloway. Or sometimes a more focused headspace with ideas for rides, routes and adventures. It was on one of these long rides, the idea to mix my love of geo-caching, and passion to clean the trails from single-use pollution, that I knew I wanted to create an event where people come together for a very different approach to group rides. Trash Cat was born.

Two events down and four more on the cards for this year, Trash Cat is a fun, interactive and memorable event, bringing together riders from all backgrounds to achieve a common goal of cleaning up waste on our trails. Riders are encouraged to work in pairs, choosing a team name upon sign-in. You discover geo-cache style checkpoints and create your own route. There are prizes for the most waste collected, largest waste item, longest route, best outfit and more.

Cleaning Up Trails and Promoting Sustainability

A focus of the events is to limit or eliminate the waste we produce on the day. Shopping local, making your own food and using reusable packaging is encouraged. Food offered on-site is aligned towards the same mission, all aligning with TFT’s approved event guidelines. Do you really need to stop at a supermarket and grab a meal deal? We are fortunate to pass through some remote and beautiful places so let’s make sure we fund the independent businesses we pass, rather than national corporations.

A new way to explore the outdoors

Trash Cat is about looking at the bigger picture problems, where we aim to educate and promote great habits in our riding routines. We want to create talking points that get passed onto others, so together we eventually limit the amount of waste on our trails and open up a new way to explore the outdoors.

At our first event, we had 90 riders who collected 1,047 items from the trails. One person even carried a full shopping trolley on their back – taking home the prize for the biggest item! The second event was at local bike brand Temple’s HQ as part of our social ride. Here we reached our goal of collecting more items than the previous event, with 1,291 pieces removed.

The response from putting on these events leaves me speechless. You have no idea who will show up, if the event will be a success or if your idea was any good. But the endless joy and sense of achievement across the board from riders clearing the trails from single-use pollution feels special. This style event feels the first of its kind,riders crossing paths from all backgrounds, sharing roads and trails, and hanging out all day together, doesn’t happen often!

Since founding Trash Cat, I am now part of the A-TEAM for Trash Free Trails. A team of volunteers who represent TFT’s and support our mission across all their programmes.TFT’s mission is to (re)connect people with nature through the simple yet meaningful act of removing single-use pollution from wild places. It’s a great opportunity to be part of a global community with the shared passion to look after the places we travel through on these fantastic adventures. I knew very little about the brilliant work they do before Trash Cat, and excited to gain more knowledge as I interact with the people behind TFT’s other A-TEAM members.

So, what’s next for Trash Cat?

We're about to launch ‘Trailer Trash’, a flat, trailer-safe route aimed at bringing the whole family together. It felt important to create a space specifically to encourage children from a young age about the importance of clearing the trails. Trash Cat also has its first event planned outside of Bristol, heading up north to the Restrap HQ in Leeds. This is acting as a trial for our ‘Trash Cat on Tour’. September we will host our Bristol Weekender event including DJ sets and a social ride by Newtown Park.CC on the Sunday. For more information on events make sure you follow our Instagram @trash__cat__

Trash Cat has shown me the power of coming together, turning a simple bike ride into something meaningful. It's not just about picking up single-use pollution; it's about making a difference in our own small way. So, as we celebrate Earth Day and all the adventures ahead, let's remember to keep that spirit alive every time we hit the trails.

Hot Links:

• 🛍️ Kit: Universal Colours and Restrap
• 🚲 Bike: Stayer Ultra Gravel (UG)
• 📖 Book: The Language of Trees
• 📱 App: Komoot
• ☀️ Cycling group: Trails & Ales part of Newtown Park.CC
• 📼 Video: Trash Mob Academy
• 🌎 Trash Free Trails 😼 Trash Cat Instagram