Hey guys,

many times during a ride, I notice new trails, however, I usually don’t take them. It’s either because I’m lazy and don’t want to risk turning back in case of dead end, or I am in a hurry and simply cannot risk loosing time.

I’ve been searching for quite some time and I must say I haven’t found any websites/apps, which would show me a routable heatmap of all the trails, other bikers have ridden and the terrain type. This is why me and my friends have decided to take a shot and create a website/app, which would be aimed at exploring new trails and creating GPX routes.

I am turning to you to better understand the specific problems you’re facing during search for new trails and route creation. I am kindly asking for your help. By completing the survey available at https://goo.gl/forms/azOi4ONDrCmuAbIH2, you would help us a lot. The survey has 13 questions and should not take more than 5 minutes of your time.

Have a great weekend, hopefully on a new terrain 😀

Trailforks is good but doesnt seem too easy to just tap in and get it to draw yr rout which i think would be a cool feature when riding off piste.
that said ive not really tried too much so it might just be my incapacity

Yep, I’ve checked Trailforks, but it seems that it only works with the tracks, uploaded by the users. The OSM ways are not included in the routing algoritm.

Because my area (Slovenia), barely has any tracks, uploaded by the users, the application is useless. I’ve checked the Trailforks global heatmap and it seems that the situation is quite similar elsewhere. I noticed that most areas (apart from the world’s most popular MTB destinations) remain unmapped by the Trailforks users.

For Germany, I’d say Trailforks is pretty useless, so would imagine the same is true for other nearby countries. Useless in terms of usability (somehow it “knows” i’m in Germany, and is reluctant to let me choose another country). From what I can tell there are very few German trails in Trailforks too.
Most of these sites tend to become preferred by users in a specific region. So gpsies (etc.) are way more useful for those (a) in Germany, and (b) locations where German resident MTBers ride (Austria, Slovenia, Switzerland, Dolomites, etc.)
Only heatmap I’ve used is Strava one, but then you need to filter out why a route is “hot”. Roadies? Major cycle paths used to get from A to B ? Somewhere in there, there will be a hot singletrack.
If the app can filter out that, ignore hot routes on fast forest cycle paths, and give me an alert when it sees a twisty hot route off to the side, then I’d be in.

Trailers is bobbins…no better than Strava. There doesn’t seem to be a decent one available – most rely on people uploading their ride data so if no-one has ridden those trails that you are spotting and then uploading them then the system won’t know about them.

I’ll do the survey just now as it sounds a decent idea.

Thank you guys for your help and input! I’ve also been playing with Strava for quite some time. I think it’s a great app for performance oriented bikers. However, for those more into discovering/navigation (like me), the heatmap should be routable and there should be a way to filter out paved roads. You’ll be the first to know, when we have a test version out 😉

Let me know, what you would change (in comparison to Strava/Trailforks etc.) or any other suggestions, should you have them.

How about a map.

I’m probably out of step with most, but IMO things that aren’t bridleways or other marked and mapped trails belong to word of mouth and not the Internet.

Stuff ends up online, million riders descend on a trail that previously saw five a week and it gets ripped up and becomes a useless mudfest or if it was ‘cheeky’ the landowner stops ignoring the low lowlevel trespass and takes steps to shut it down.

Plus, what’s wrong with exploring with a map?

heat map is useful to check if a route goes. I’ve done that in the past. So, frequency, speed, overlay on a map – OS map – is almost a given. If only one person went a route in the last 4 years, or at 2 mph, or turned back, I’d like to know that info — and yes filter out paved stuff (though maybe needed to link routes).

Maps don’t tell me what a trail is like.
Maps don’t tell me where might be popular.
And in the case of Slovenia, maps might not even say there’s a trail or path even there (although OSM is pretty good now in most places I’ve been).
Still use maps though, along with heat maps, opencyclemap, gpsies/wikiloc/outdooractive, local MTB or hiking area websites, etc.

Where in Slovenia are you ?

Have you tried Ride with GPS ?

@peteimpreza: I’m from Ljubljana. I’ve tried RideWithGPS, however, “Cycling mode” does not work in Slovenia. So I am only left with the GPS track database.

Have you looked at the strava apps or developing with their API?