Anyone have anything they'd like to rant about?

[jackstraw]

Guy on local Craigslist advertising paid tours of local trail systems.

"I also know of some secret trails and jump lines if interested, just ask"

Just what we need, douchebags profiting from blowing up off menu trails.

Just no. Wtf

[toast2266]

Guy on local Craigslist advertising paid tours of local trail systems.

"I also know of some secret trails and jump lines if interested, just ask"

Just what we need, douchebags profiting from blowing up off menu trails.

If the trails are on federal or state land, forward that to the land managers. Paid guides generally need a permit.

[ASmileyFace]

Like Toast said, the government doesn't take kindly to folks making money as guides if they don't have permits. I'd send an email about that.

Small rant here; Partner's mother offered to let us keep our bikes in her garage since we are limited for space in our place. Since it's snowing already at my house I'm psyched and say sure. Find out yesterday that when she broke up with her live in BF he moved a bunch of stuff out of the garage to make space, including our two $3k+ mountain bikes. So our bikes were sitting outside, unlocked, for 3+ days in a town where I've had three bikes stolen over the years. I nearly had a heart attack when I found out, but my gf is much more level headed and explained how they might be on the hook if the bikes disappeared. Somehow the estranged couple was able to find a way to move the bikes back inside for now, but priority one on my day off is to head to town and grab my bike.

[Falcon3]

Like Toast said, the government doesn't take kindly to folks taking money as guides if they don't have permits. I'd send an email about that.

Small rant here; Partner's mother offered to let us keep our bikes in her garage since we are limited for space in our place. Since it's snowing already at my house I'm psyched and say sure. Find out yesterday that when she broke up with her live in BF and he moved a bunch of stuff out of the garage to make space, including our two $3k+ mountain bikes. So our bikes were sitting outside, unlocked, for 3+ days in a town where I've had three bikes stolen over the years. I nearly had a heart attack when I found out, but my gf is much more level headed and explained how they might be on the hook if the bikes disappeared. Somehow the estranged couple was able to find a way to move the bikes back inside for now, but priority one on my day off is to head to town and grab my bike.

….so you’re saying GF’s mom is single?….

[J. Barron DeJong]

….so you’re saying GF’s mom is single?….

love this place.

[frorider]

Guy on local Craigslist advertising paid tours of local trail systems.

"I also know of some secret trails and jump lines if interested, just ask"

Just what we need, douchebags profiting from blowing up off menu trails.

Link ? I know someone who can have a constructive conversation with ‘em

[evdog]

Not seeing it now, hopefully flagged and taken down. The trail systems listed were all local - city/regional not State Park or USFS but I'm sure those would be options along with the secret stuff.

[skaredshtles]

Not seeing it now, hopefully flagged and taken down. The trail systems listed were all local - city/regional not State Park or USFS but I'm sure those would be options along with the secret stuff.

Our county open space requires permits for any commercial use - even the pro photogs need to pay up to take pictures in the parks.

[Wes Mantooth]

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[climberevan]

Trailforks.

Yeah, I could just leave it at that since it's probably sufficient to trigger everyone, but I'll elaborate.

Our local org (Muscle Powered, yay!) and USFS just finished a big new trail that links the town network to the Tahoe Rim Trail. It's a big deal, and a ton of people are riding it in the past few days before snow shuts us down.

So I thought, "I'll put this on Trailforks". Silly me. I very carefully checked my gpx track and verified it against 2 devices. I wrote an explanation of what the trail was and how it had subsumed an existing spur and part of a jeep road to become one big new trail.

NOPE. Trail was rejected by some guy in Arizona who must not have read my text or looked at the file and said it overlaps existing trail. I had previously tried to upload it with an actual error, but my second try was 100% right.

I'm not going to bother anymore. If Outside wants people to contribute to their paid service for free they can make it easier.

[Benneke10]

Link ? I know someone who can have a constructive conversation with ‘em

https://sandiego.craigslist.org/nsd/...550003168.html

[jackstraw]

Trailforks.

Yeah, I could just leave it at that since it's probably sufficient to trigger everyone, but I'll elaborate.

Our local org (Muscle Powered, yay!) and USFS just finished a big new trail that links the town network to the Tahoe Rim Trail. It's a big deal, and a ton of people are riding it in the past few days before snow shuts us down.

So I thought, "I'll put this on Trailforks". Silly me. I very carefully checked my gpx track and verified it against 2 devices. I wrote an explanation of what the trail was and how it had subsumed an existing spur and part of a jeep road to become one big new trail.

NOPE. Trail was rejected by some guy in Arizona who must not have read my text or looked at the file and said it overlaps existing trail. I had previously tried to upload it with an actual error, but my second try was 100% right.

I'm not going to bother anymore. If Outside wants people to contribute to their paid service for free they can make it easier.

Ok, I'm a trailforks admin for four spots locally where i build. As far as I know, no admins are paid. The backend of Trailforks is pretty complex, but then again I'm just a dentist, not a computer science guy. So the track has to be clean, which it sounds like it is, but what is odd is they cannot cross over or incorporate with part of an existing trail. For instance, a lollipop trail has to have two names. One for the "stick' and another for the loop. Why? I have no clue. There is also a concern where we're supposed to know if it's an authorized trail. I don't know how's that's always possible to know, but apparently that's the goal.

I really don't do much on the admin side. I was uploading my new trails with all kinds of errors consistently and a guy reached out to me to discuss. That's when he suggested I become an admin. He gave me some training on the system and that was it. The only thing I do get is the pro version for free...like everyone up to a couple years ago.

[toast2266]

If it's a big new official trail, I would be inclined to let the organization add it to trailforks. That way it has the proper description, the proper name, the proper rating and allowed uses, it's associated with the proper land managers, etc. As well intentioned as users submitting trails may be, I've found those submissions to be pretty hit or miss on accuracy.

Trailfork admins are a mixed bag, but if the submission is from an official trail builder / land manager, any wonkiness with a local admin seems like it can get sorted out pretty easily.

[jamal]

Generally the admins are local and there are more than one. I think there are at least 5-6 of us around here.

I generally don't look too closely at how clean a track is but yeah it's easy to upload something where oops you turned off onto that other trail and then came back or stopped for awhile with gps running and it made a big ball of track points. You can manually edit tracks in trailforks pretty easily and delete and move points around though which is nice.

But what probably happened is traiflorks suggested this was an existing trail and whoever saw it first didn't look closely.

Other thing is that trails need to start and end exactly on another trail for routing to work.

Anyway yeah as a free thing I do i'm not really that motivated to spend a lot of time on it. Even our pretty small area is a shit show. Made up strange names, multiple trails through junctions as "one trail" etc.

[climberevan]

If it's a big new official trail, I would be inclined to let the organization add it to trailforks. That way it has the proper description, the proper name, the proper rating and allowed uses, it's associated with the proper land managers, etc.

That's what I'm going to do, I guess. Then I'll go back and add the fact that the trail is non-motorized and that e-bikes are not allowed as I've had to do on most of our trails. Why not just check the box when you create the trail instead of leaving it ambiguous?

So even when the reality is that a new trail extends/replaces an old one and has a new name TF won't let it through? That seems like a well intentioned idea, but it gets in the way here.

[californiagrown]

Trailforks.

Yeah, I could just leave it at that since it's probably sufficient to trigger everyone, but I'll elaborate.

Our local org (Muscle Powered, yay!) and USFS just finished a big new trail that links the town network to the Tahoe Rim Trail. It's a big deal, and a ton of people are riding it in the past few days before snow shuts us down.

So I thought, "I'll put this on Trailforks". Silly me. I very carefully checked my gpx track and verified it against 2 devices. I wrote an explanation of what the trail was and how it had subsumed an existing spur and part of a jeep road to become one big new trail.

NOPE. Trail was rejected by some guy in Arizona who must not have read my text or looked at the file and said it overlaps existing trail. I had previously tried to upload it with an actual error, but my second try was 100% right.

I'm not going to bother anymore. If Outside wants people to contribute to their paid service for free they can make it easier.

If its a new trail, let the trail builder add it. If the builder didnt add it to trailforks, there is a reason. If you arent the builder, then dont add it to trailforks. Pretty simple IMO. There are a plethora of reasons why they could be delaying its official public opening.

If its an old trail, then you better be damn sure its a legal trail if you want to add it to trailforks. It likely isnt on trailforks yet because its not legal or the builder has let the admin know to delete any attempts to make the trail public. Open-sourcing info on trailforks is meant for trail condition updates, reviews, maintenance issues, etc. It is even helpful for mapping more remote trails. But at this point, anything that remotley easy to access, and is legal, is on Trailforks already.


It is NOT meant for Joe Public to put newly dug trails into the database if they arent the trailorg/builder. Full stop.

[evasive_MT]

Generally the admins are local and there are more than one. I think there are at least 5-6 of us around here.

I generally don't look too closely at how clean a track is but yeah it's easy to upload something where oops you turned off onto that other trail and then came back or stopped for awhile with gps running and it made a big ball of track points. You can manually edit tracks in trailforks pretty easily and delete and move points around though which is nice.

But what probably happened is traiflorks suggested this was an existing trail and whoever saw it first didn't look closely.

Other thing is that trails need to start and end exactly on another trail for routing to work.

Anyway yeah as a free thing I do i'm not really that motivated to spend a lot of time on it. Even our pretty small area is a shit show. Made up strange names, multiple trails through junctions as "one trail" etc.

Same. I’m a statewide admin in Montana so I can approve race routes myself without needing a local admin or bugging TF staff to do it. That was a bigger deal when we were more concerned with keeping routes confidential until a few days before the race. But I generally limit my trail admin activities to local areas that I’m familiar with.

For a while I tried to keep up with new submissions and spent a lot of time cleaning up peoples’ garbage GPS tracks. Eventually I decided their paid staff could do that.

[scrublover]

new tires get sealant dumped in with most of the tires on, just a small edge not done yet.

big 60ml bulb syringe (picture a turkey baster) from work for sucking up sealant from the old tire to transfer to the new.

smaller luer lock syinge works great to top up an existing setup with the valve core removed.

just picked this up randomly while grocery shopping. should work better for topping up a setup. 4.99 usd
had to trim the pointy tip and clean it up a bit after, but fits beautifully into a valve stem. only hold 30ml, but if i'm just topping up a bit, doesn't really need more.

[jackstraw]

. Why not just check the box when you create the trail instead of leaving it ambiguous?

So even when the reality is that a new trail extends/replaces an old one and has a new name TF won't let it through? That seems like a well intentioned idea, but it gets in the way here.

Ebike thing is probably just an oversight. You can leave fields blank and close out not realizing it.


You'd need to delete the existing trail and then add the new one. An Admin familiar with what's going on or in communication with you would need to do that.

One guy that's an admin with me is computer guy and I just let him do all the work. I just build and tell him the names of the trail. He'll ride a trail 10 times in a row to get a good gps track. I'm not that guy.

[Andeh]

I wonder if you'd be better off walking a trail to establish a baseline GPS track (slower = more data points = more accurate), especially if in wooded areas or on the side of a steep hill.

[Falcon3]

I wonder if you'd be better off walking a trail to establish a baseline GPS track (slower = more data points = more accurate), especially if in wooded areas or on the side of a steep hill.

But how would you get Strava KOMs going slow

[toast2266]

I wonder if you'd be better off walking a trail to establish a baseline GPS track (slower = more data points = more accurate), especially if in wooded areas or on the side of a steep hill.

Anytime I've put together a track for trailforks, I'll record it on whatever gps device, and then go back in on Google Earth or some other gis program and edit the track to be perfect. Any raw track data always has some weirdness in it. But it's pretty easy to smooth that out and delete any errant points in the track.

[jamal]

the old garmin base camp program is good for editing tracks. it pulls up a window of them all and you can select and delete one or a bunch at a time. But you can also edit and clean up the tracks directly in trailforks and that works fairly well too.

[evdog]

But at this point, anything that remotley easy to access, and is legal, is on Trailforks already.

Dunno about that, I've added a ton of trails in various areas that are legal, well known and well used. Some areas just don't have people who are active at adding trails.

I wonder if you'd be better off walking a trail to establish a baseline GPS track (slower = more data points = more accurate), especially if in wooded areas or on the side of a steep hill.

I don't think it matters TBH. When you are adding a trail you can click on edit track and it should show faint lines of all the tracklogs that include the trail you're trying to add. I generally take mine and move a few dots around to get the "average" of all those tracks. They're usually not far off but this is a good way to remove any of the anomalies from the track you're uploading.

[evdog]

Oh and since we're ranting about Trailforks....

People who add dirt roads as green, blue or black "trails"

Saw a trail a while back I was interested in, click on it for more info and it turns out who ever added it did so as 17 segments ranging from 1/2 mile to maybe 2 miles each, tops. So you're trying to figure out how big of a day this will be and now I have to add up mileage and vert for 17 segments? Fuck off! All that work to separate and add them, but no description. https://www.trailforks.com/trails/mcct-17e02/