Anyone else bothering to write a trail guide?

[Bother, that previous post went wrong – sorry]

http://www.singletrackworld.com/trailguide/write-for-us/

I got Singletrack jersey for doing “The Mendip” guide. It only took me an hour to prepare.

Do it.

I have considered it, but haven’t quite got round to it.

see my post on other thr

Is it supposed to say “trail centre”? I can understand asking for people to write guides to their local/favourite rides, but trail centres are surely the last thing you need a guide for.

A lot of people don’t want to draw extra attention to where they ride. It might sound mean-spirited, but there’s a big difference between showing your mates a trail and publicising it on the internet where anyone can look at it. Hence most magazine routes tend to stick to legal/official stuff, or obfuscate things when it comes to the cheeky.

“A lot of people don’t want to draw extra attention to where they ride.”

Yeah but this is us – the STW possy: share and enjoy. Tho I can understand a cautious approach to legally sensitive trails and so do the STW Eds: they deleted part of my submission as they saw fit – fine.

Its a sensitive one this. I wouldnt ever publicise trails, but I’d like others to lol. The reason I dont is that I put a lot of effort into publicising the beach I used to kitesurf at. Very soon there were so many people involved that the local council wanted a club to talk to, wanted permits and insurance, the beach was so full you couldnt move for learners (bless them) clogging the shoreline, “egos” took over the club and decided it was their beach and anyone else was just “in the way” making it unfriendly…. What a mistake, totally ruined one of the best spots in the country.

Wasn’t there a thread about this before the site got hacked? The ST bods were saying that the trail guides were going to be for legal stuff only, and any dubious stuff would need to be removed.

In which case, I don’t see any problems with publicising good rides, and I would, if I had any really good rides that didn’t involve at least some dodgy stuff… and unfortunately most of the good stuff isn’t entirely legal.

this is us – the STW possy: share and enjoy

True enough, but it’s also anyone else who wants to look at the site or the trail guide (remember only a fraction of the people who look at the site post on the forum). I’m speaking for myself here, if anyone knows some fantastic routes on legal routes or even issues-free cheekiness* then of course they should share them.

The trails I know are round Bristol, where there are problems with erosion, user conflict etc, so I wouldn’t do up maps of the “grey” trails for anyone to look at – a lot of them have degenerated badly or caused problems just as a result of word of mouth. I think I recall Chipps writing something similar on here and in the mag.

*Although I don’t really believe such a thing exists in England.

Funkynick – I started a thread on it before the hack, it got quite heated. I guess we can do it again….

My thoughts are: If it’s on bridle ways then fine. If it’s not then don’t – access can be withdrawn.

Or possibly, if you built it then tell anyone you want, if you didn’t then you’ve no right to ruin someone else’s hardwork…