Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[evdog]

Yeah I was in the middle of adding some new trails and reports for a bunch of others.

This morning I got rejection notifications for "my trails" I allegedly added in Spain and France. I've never been to either.

[Relico]

Best practice is to wear 1 ear bud or zero, not 2. It's a safety thing and a courtesy thing. It helps to keep it positive between riders because you can avoid some collisions if you are riding in the city.

Always keep it positive!

[singlesline]

Trailforks had been going downhill for a while now. It's so cluttered with obscure features that the basic functionality of the app is suffering.

I'd like to say the onX / MTB project merger has produced a worthwhile alternative, but so far it's just not quite there.

Sent from my SM-S901U using Tapatalk

Someone from onX was on Reddit out recruiting people for compensated uploading of trails/content. So they are willing to sink money into improving it.

But will they just lock it all up and monetize the he’ll out of it?

I saw someone suggest that the only place people should be voluntarily uploading trail data is to OpenStreetMap. Put the data there and other services can use it, but they can’t monopolize it. OSM doesn’t really have a good UI for mountain biking, but the backend supports different trail types and everybody from Trailforks to Wahoo already uses OSM data for a lot of stuff.

[evdog]

OnX reached out to our local trail group about having paying people to update/upload our local trails. I was interested. Amounts per trail were reasonable for the effort but their max was $3k/person. Their contract requires the mapper to maintain worker's comp insurance and general commercial liability insurance with OnX as additional insured. And they require mapper to indemnify and defend OnX in the event of any claim in relation to the work done. I can't think of anything specific that might cause a claim to arise, but you don't know what you don't know and having to defend a corporation would exceed the contract amount on day 1. They responded that they'll waive the insurance requirements but not the indemnity. I passed on working with them.

Edit to add. The contract was only for MTB trails and only for MTB Project. But I'm sure they'll migrate that data into OnX at some point. MTB Project is still free for now afaik but OnX is paywalled for a bunch of features the same way Trailforks is, though I don't think the app is paywalled by location.

[smmokan]

How about the new "feature" of Athlete Intelligence on Strava? Whoever created that should be slapped, and whoever approved it should be kicked in the nuts. 100% worthless.

[rideit]

But it tells me how incredibly well I’m doing!


It’s like the Stuart Smalley app feature.

[Abies]

Trailforks just decided that a local network we keep on private due to restricted access is no longer viewable on my phone, only desktop. Same account.

Would love open street map or MTB Project to be an alternative but it’s a hard sell to tell our volunteers to upload everything to two platforms, and Trailforks is pretty ingrained.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[singlesline]

OnX reached out to our local trail group about having paying people to update/upload our local trails. I was interested. Amounts per trail were reasonable for the effort but their max was $3k/person. Their contract requires the mapper to maintain worker's comp insurance and general commercial liability insurance with OnX as additional insured. And they require mapper to indemnify and defend OnX in the event of any claim in relation to the work done. I can't think of anything specific that might cause a claim to arise, but you don't know what you don't know and having to defend a corporation would exceed the contract amount on day 1. They responded that they'll waive the insurance requirements but not the indemnity. I passed on working with them.

Edit to add. The contract was only for MTB trails and only for MTB Project. But I'm sure they'll migrate that data into OnX at some point. MTB Project is still free for now afaik but OnX is paywalled for a bunch of features the same way Trailforks is, though I don't think the app is paywalled by location.

What out of touch lawyer wrote those fucking rules.

Nobody is dealing with that shit for a max of $3k.

Just waiting for them to lock up the Mountain Project app similar to how Trailforks is. Years of free user contributions monetized and locked away from the same public that helped them reach critical mass.

[evdog]

^^ Yeah that's what I told them. If MTB Project had a better app I might have pushed harder but they were pretty insistent on the indemnity thing.

FWIW, I checked TF just now and it seems like they have finished their data migration. So I can get back to trail uploads.

[J. Barron DeJong]

But it tells me how incredibly well I’m doing!


It’s like the Stuart Smalley app feature.

I went a little slower than I have been on my ride today and it was like: hey, that was pretty shitty, but maybe you’re trying for recovery?

[ironhippy]

How about the new "feature" of Athlete Intelligence on Strava? Whoever created that should be slapped, and whoever approved it should be kicked in the nuts. 100% worthless.

I immediately opted out of that

[Boissal]

Not really a rant, more of a shit that annoys you post but we don't have one of those specifically for bikes...

I've been bitching about my I9 Hydra hub for a while now. I bought into the hype a couple years back, thought it would be cool to have a blingy hub with 7833 poes and sound like a giant pack of angry hornets... Well, not so, the thing is heavy, draggy as all fuck, and eats bearings for lunch. I spin the wheel as hard as I can and it goes through maybe 10 revolutions before stopping. I finally decided to get something else and had a new wheel built around a Bitex hub and a Light Bicycle rim. I've had great luck with Chinese carbon so far, 3 sets of of BTLOS rims I took terrible care of, never an issue. Rim strike galore, broken spokes, hack lines through rock gardens, they've shrugged it all off. LB seems to have the best reputation of all the manufacturers so I gave it a go. The wheel arrived Fri, I threw a brand new Spesh grid gravity casing tire on it and took it for a spin yesterday. I decided to run it at 27 psi instead of 25 just in case. About 200' into the trail on the 2nd techy move (rolling over a granite block into a gentle left turn with roots) I put the wheel in pretty much the exact same spot it usually goes on a big root. I was way over the front to keep traction as it was a bit wet, no rim strike, just a loud crack. I stopped in disbelief and sure enough, I have joined the rim cracking club:





FAAAAAAAAAAAKK! Didn't lose any pressure so I gingerly finished the ride, got home, and proceeded to pull tire/cassette/rotor and move them over to the old wheel. I figured I'd service the Hydra while I was at it, the DS bearing feels super notchy after 400 miles and one of the end caps was fused on the axle due to a shredded o-ring. Now waiting for a bearing and o-ring as well as warranty info for the LB rim. I am very annoyed.

[plugboots]

Dang. My Light Bicycle rims, 6 of them, have been flawless.

[skaredshtles]

Dang. My Light Bicycle rims, 6 of them, have been flawless.

I've broken every LB rim I've owned.

Full disclosure - I was an early adopter.

[Boissal]

Dang. My Light Bicycle rims, 6 of them, have been flawless.

I've broken every LB rim I've owned.

Damn Yelp reviews! Either 5 stars or 0 stars...

Dude who built the wheel says he's hasn't seen a single of these AM930 rims fail and he's confident he can warranty that one. We shall see...

[raisingarizona13]

Probably already in here somewhere but....

People on Trailforks that comment about the awkwardness of a trail or difficulty and then are obviously changing the nature of said trail to better match their lack of skills set. Too many young and newer riders have too big of egos to realize that they aren't as good as they believe they are.

[rideit]

I spend the entirety of my trail maintenance volunteering on blocking off cheater lines these days. Drives me batshit crazy. These are sometimes the same people that complain about dumbing down or grooming at JHMR.
Cognitive dissonance?

[raisingarizona13]

I spend the entirety of my trail maintenance volunteering on blocking off cheater lines these days. Drives me batshit crazy. These are sometimes the same people that complain about dumbing down or grooming at JHMR.
Cognitive dissonance?

And those same people are the ones that complain about new trails being too easy and not challenging enough! They also won't show up for trail days or to be a part of the process. Being a trail builder/volunteer can be maddening at times.

[skaredshtles]

I spend the entirety of my trail maintenance volunteering on blocking off cheater lines these days. Drives me batshit crazy. These are sometimes the same people that complain about dumbing down or grooming at JHMR.
Cognitive dissonance?

Keep up the good fight, Don Quixote!

[bamboocoreONLY]

The LB rims are pretty good, but their warranty when I cracked one was such a hassle. They kept trying to give me the go around and then you have to wait for shipping from China. My most recent carbon wheels are from NOBL and I'm way happier, never buying LB again as I'd rather pay the extra couple hundred to NOBL for better customer service.

[evdog]

Probably already in here somewhere but....

People on Trailforks that comment about the awkwardness of a trail or difficulty and then are obviously changing the nature of said trail to better match their lack of skills set. Too many young and newer riders have too big of egos to realize that they aren't as good as they believe they are.

We've got a guy here in Socal who goes and rides remote backcountry trails that are on TF and always writes comments in various flavors of "trail was unrideable, it should not be on TF". Shit for brains, that is what the trail reports are for. If these trails aren't on TF no one will no they are there, and no one will ever go and fix them up.

[smmokan]

I immediately opted out of that

How’d ya do that?

[beaterdit]

How’d ya do that?

For real, haven't been able to find that particular setting.

[singlesline]

Even with this fancy AI, they still can’t tell when you’re riding chairs/shuttles


yeah, I just did a casual low heart rate 9k day. No big deal.

[rideit]

“And gosh darn it, people like me”