So I built some nice trails clearing branches, doing some pruning, improving the drainage but making the trails so it looks like a deer track. I don’t want to make things too obvious as the game keepers brother fixes my car, my bro is a game keeper and family are local farmers. The next thing I notice is that on my local private strava rides my trails are getting created as segments. Great, I love people using them as for one it spreads the joy and means that I don’t have to clear all the fallen trees but why oh why do people have to set them up as segments? I have them as segments but private ones but now they will get trashed or worse still blocked if the land manager gets peed off.

What do you do in this case? Do people not understand that somethings you do not draw attention to as you are shooting yourself in the foot? And what do I do now as I have changed some of the trails to include some big steep drop offs and what was mine is now shared so I don’t want to cause strife.

Then there is the issue of segments being created on private land that should only be ridden at certain times otherwise the whole spot could become closed off.

What is the legal duty of care for strava, seems strage it is not simple to flag a segment as illegal. I would be pissed if I was the land owner and strava was directing hoards of storm troopers to ride across the triple si I was meant to be protecting with no easy way to get it removed.

Of course I do get the benefit of a private richmtbguru moment as I am way faster than anybody else.

build a trail – a couple of people ride it.

put it on strava and hundreds will flock to have a go.

Mate…some of your private trails are a bit on the curvy side…can you make the corners a bit straighter and flatter please.

#komhunter

Weird, I don’t know anyone who has ever ‘flocked to’ a random Strava segment on the off chance it’s rideable or even worth hunting out in the first place.

Can you not ride your bike without using strava?

The landowner likely to use Strava?

Sounds to me your gripe is only its a Strava segment than the actual fact people riding it.
KOM outa your ability I guess ..

So hang on… You illegally built a trail, but Strava are solely responsible if anything happens because it might have shown a couple of people it’s location?

Ooook

Mate…some of your private trails are a bit on the curvy side…can you make the corners a bit straighter and flatter please.
#komhunter

This made me laugh.

Have not read my post?

Sounds to me your gripe is only its a Strava segment than the actual fact people riding it.
KOM outa your ability I guess

I love people riding my trails just not making them public.
I don’t expect the landowner cares about Strava, they will start to care if loads of people start scaring the wildlife away and trashing the woods.

I did’t illegally build any thing. I cleared some dead wood while out for a walk.

If it is on private land without permission and not on a right of way then it is an illegal trail. Do you have the landowners permission?

By trying to remove segments from Strava are you trying to keep it secret from the landowner or other cyclists or both?

I love people riding my trails just not making them public

.
What do you think posting them on the Internet via Strava does then?

The OP mentioned that his Strava rides were private and so not available for Joe Public to view.

Hee hee. This is not going the way I was hoping. As well as the trails that I have found what do you do about people making segments where there is a local agreement that you can ride there with discretion but posting them on strava creates a free for all.

I feel for you. This is why I’ve never bothered with strava.
Maybe just go out + set up loads of random segments all over the area, so the sensitive trails that won’t cope with increased use by people that don’t understand access/sustainable use e.t.c. get “hidden”.

Jeez…

Strava is probably more of a side-effect than a cause of other people using the trails, IMO.

So you have the landowners permission to ride on private land and don’t mind a few people riding there but not too many.

Strava is probably more of a side-effect than a cause of other people using the trails, IMO

Once it starts getting ridden by others a bit of a free for all is inevitable. Strava is just a bit of a by-product which doesn’t do anything to help keep people off your trails on private land.

The only solution is to keep them properly secret and disguise all trailheads and so on. The other solution is make the trails properly rubbish so no-one bothers to come back 😀

You can mark it as hazardous, and it’ll usually get taken down. Whether that’s right or wrong is up to you and your conscience but if there’s a chance the land owner finds out then I’d want as few people knowing as possible…

Strava is probably more of a side-effect than a cause of other people using the trails, IMO.

If i’m going to a new area to ride that i don’t know i’ll take a quick glance on strava to see where people are riding and use to help build a loop along with an OS map. I can’t be alone in that.

The other solution is make the trails properly rubbish so no-one bothers to come back

This approach didn’t seem to work at Llandegla though.

😉

Ride it and flag it. Flagged segements don’t seem to show up in “explore” mode unless you’ve actually ridden them.

It’s one of the negatives with Strava, stuff gets publicised to an uncontrolled audience, people definitely scour Strava to find trails they otherwise wouldn’t bother to scout out. OP Starva has no “duty of care” here, just look at the fuss that has to occur for Twitter or Facebook to take down racist or sexist posts. It’s in Stravas financial interest for lots of people to use their site so they are not going to do anything to reduce usage, in fact quite the contrary.

The folk I know that build trails make quite a big effort to hide them, especially the entrance, don’t make an obvious line off a bridleway or track, ride different lines in to the trail proper.

The folk I know that build trails make quite a big effort to hide them, especially the entrance, don’t make an obvious line off a bridleway or track, ride different lines in to the trail proper.

That was the point I was trying to make. If building sensitive trails then do everything you can to keep them secret.

Sure Strava won’t help if published but locals wondering where an apparent deer track off a bridleway or whatever leads will annoy the landowner just as much as people further afield using Strava explore. Once it’s visible or known to either group you can’t do much to control the number of people riding there. Or, you could always ask the landowner to erect signs everywhere saying “cyclists are easily confused for pheasants and will be shot on sight” 😀

the game keepers brother fixes my car, my bro is a game keeper

Sooo… you fix your own car? 😉

You can ask the Strava support people to delete them… they may or may not do this, but deleting them is no guarantee that someone won’t recreate them.

Your best bet is probably to ’flag’ the segments as ‘hazardous’ – it won’t remove them, but it removes the competitive elements.

I think that in general if you ride some where were you do not have the legal right to ride if makes sense not to promote that riding on the internet.

So it to me it seems sensible not to post photos, descriptions, of logged tracks of non right of way rides. Well photos that make it obvious where the ride is

Tricky thing really. Strava isn’t the issue, though it publicises them more, but once people find the trails and word spreads, more will ride it.

However a lot of people do feel that a trail is to be ridden and find it a bit weird that it’s secret to a few especially if it’s illegal in the first place (and clearing a trail if it’s on private land without permission is technically criminal damage. Unlike just riding it which is only trespass and not a crime).

But on the other hand popularity can make it a lot of work to maintain, and potentially lead to intervention by the land owner. Yet people enjoy riding it, but they want to keep it to themselves. Is that right?

As I say tricky. My local MoD trails for example are an issue as they’re great, some created by the army themselves, but too many people causes issues for the army and it’s getting to the point of kicking everyone off the land.

Strava does advertise. I was out exploring today and using Strava to find the start of trails. Though they’re not secret as such, they’re just tracks in the wood. Anyone can ride then if they find them, plus people walk them. Yet another way of looking at it is I’m looking for less trafficked trails as the local stuff is very popular, so I’m looking for other areas, taking the pressure off the popular stuff by finding other things off interest on Strava.

All that said, I’ve long wished for Strava to add group level privacy to segments so they only appear to a group and the leaderboard is only within that group.

This is a problem with some of the people who use Strava and unfortunately some people lack the nous and awareness to use it properly.

Near where I live there is a great bit of sweeping, swooping trail that runs basically along the line of a footpath with little lines into the bordering woods and a few little kickers. There are three or four gates along it to control wildlife.

I rode it when it was dry with the permission of the landowner and the farm manager who I know well and their view was that as long as no damage was done then why not.

Last summer though I went up there to find the farm manager up there with his crew putting in a barbed wire corridor fence on the line of the footpath. We got chatting and he said he had to, because over the space of a few months the place had been overwhelmed with bikes flying along, leaving the gates open, scareing the sheep and shouting at walkers. Discouraging them by putting in the fence with kissing gates every 100m was his only option.

I went home, and sure enough some tosser had created a Strava segment on it and it was clearly being sessioned so that some pillock could claim bragging rights. Cheers guys. That’s my favourite bit of singletrack within 20 miles of me gone then just because your ego was bigger than your common sense. Grrrrrr

So, OP you have my sympathy. Try blocking off the entrance or moving the entrance is maybe worth a try?

What is the legal duty of care for strava, seems strage it is not simple to flag a segment as illegal. I would be pissed if I was the land owner and strava was directing hoards of storm troopers to ride across the triple si I was meant to be protecting with no easy way to get it removed.

How on earth would ‘Strava’ know whether it was ‘legal’ or not?

so you ride a trail, have it tracked by gps, upload it to a public website and are still surprised that its no longer ‘secret’

are you new to the internet?

Gwaelod +1

The moment you build a trail it’s no longer yours and yours alone.

so you ride a trail, have it tracked by gps, upload it to a public website and are still surprised that its no longer ‘secret’

are you new to the internet?
Not quite sure if you read my posts.

There are two problems. The trails I found are not illegal. The landowner does not mind as long as things are kept low key with respect to the other users of the land (aka gamekeeper) and wildlife. The other thing is trails that already exist which again the landowner does not mind but this only works if it is also kept low key.

Strava turns everything into “just a trail” so you need no local knowledge, do not need to have any respect for the other land users and not give a toss about the long term. Yes Strava is fun but it does bring out the selfish “w****r” in you, me included as I have logged some public rides on foot paths just because there was a segment on it when really it would be better to keep all such activities underground.

Yeh I get a buzz out of going fast but I am getting sick of everything turning a bit Redbull.

so you ride a trail, have it tracked by gps, upload it to a public website and are still surprised that its no longer ‘secret’

are you new to the internet?

Read it again the OP did not do this