trailforks, why should i use it instead of strava?

It just seems like a similar thing but without all the data.

What am i missing out on?

Its just for identifying routes isn’t it, not for fitness tracking.

yes but i cant see that many routes on it. where as strava has loads

Depends where you are, perhaps. I use both – Trailforks more when travelling, when it’s invaluable.

same with that kamoot thingy.

Certainly worth using Trailforks through July.

https://www.pinkbike.com/news/enter-the-return-to-earth-30-day-trailforks-ride-challenge.html

You can connect your strava to Trailforks so that it auto uploads to trailforks. I tend to use trailforks to find trails when riding places I’m not that familiar with.

Yep, Trailforks for when you are heading to somewhere new.

yes but i cant see that many routes on it. where as strava has loads

Quantity, not quality. TF is pretty much all the good stuff, Strava is polluted with stupidly short pointless segments.

I use both, if I know a trail is there somewhere but it’s not on TF, chances are it will be a segment on strava.

I use both but don’t really use them. Strava for logging effort/distance and the actual ride. Trailforks mainly as I’m an area admin and I can see combined data from all rides to get an idea of busy times.
Trailforks can be used to log rides or you can import from Strava. Both rely on riders uploading data. Some areas have people concerned about traffic levels on trails so don’t share anything, others have ‘poor’ trails so think they aren’t worth sharing, others just don’t want to or don’t know about the sites.
Both are good but I use them in different ways.

Where does trailforks get it’s data from? Garmin?

Trailforks for finding specific trails, Strava is just a platform for me to see everything in an easy to format.

Strava is useless for trail hunting IMO. Especially when the same trail can be on there countless times, all with a different start point, variance etc, because people are too lazy to check before endlessly creating new segments.

Trailforks has been brilliant abroad too.

I thought the main selling point was the local “trail rep” could rename trails to their own liking, instead of what the original trail builder named the trail. ;-0

Trailforks has its own app but you can upload data from devices.

because people are too lazy to check before endlessly creating new segments.

Not really surely, as Strava warns of similar segments. It’s just people who want the bit of that trial they ride to be a segment (or whose ride didn’t “count” on the segment).

Anyway, Strava = glorified odometer. It’s not great for showing off road segments really, especially if you’re in an area with a lot of road segments.

Trailforks = good trail data (with an acceptance that gradings are variable), including reports on the state of the trail, which proved really useful the other weekend when I used it for the first time and discovered a trail I was thinking of heading down had been blocked by forestry work.

I think if I’m going to do the July challenge I need to upload some local trails, otherwise I’m just going to be taking a detour on my commute to do trails that are on it but might be no good (I guess this is a predicted side effect of the challenge!).

I’ve always found that Strava is useless for finding trails. If you do a segment explore it doesn’t show half of the ones you are looking for where as trailforks has all the legit trails, the proper names, there aren’t hundreds of the same trail that are slightly longer or shorter just because someone thinks they might have the KOM if it starts a bit further on. Plus most importantly they are graded so you have some idea of what you are getting yourself into.

Different things serving somewhat different purposes. There’s some overlap of course.

It used to be the case that you could add a near duplicate segment on Strava but now the segment creator has a minimum length and it also moans at you if your segment is too similar to existing ones but doesn’t prevent it AFAIK. Strava doesn’t have “area admins” so there’s no drive to remove existing duplicates, it’s one thing I’ve thought would help.

Oh the other thing about Trailforks – about 15mb or so and you get all the trials in the UK (without the mapping data, but enough for you to follow on your device of choice with no reception.

So basically you should use it alongside strava.

Trailforks is awesome for exploring in Scotland.

Less awesome south of the border where access laws appear to make it problematic.

its only as good as how many trails are loaded into it. very few in my area and I put most of those in. Its not a smooth and simple process to load up trails so I could only be bothered to do a few.

Trailforks to find actual named MTB trails (officially sanctioned, or otherwise)

Strava to record rides, and race on random bits of public paths, and on random bits of slightly uphill fire road where the thing auto creates segments for you.

Komoot to find and create routes to plug all the bits together (and pay for the privilege of getting free maps and downloading to yer garmin/wahoo)

There’s loads of these services, all have a slightly different spin. All are only as good as the user contributions. And some of those become the fashion in one geographical region (gpsies, komoot etc. in Germany, trailforks in UK/US etc.), although some eventually catch on in different areas.

Using Strava to find routes/trails used to be useless. A map window no larger than an old (non-mapping) Garmin, and it’d only show a KoM segment if the entire thing fitted inside the visible section of map… zoom in and then it’d disappear cos now it no longer fits.

I’ve always found that Strava is useless for finding trails. If you do a segment explore it doesn’t show half of the ones you are looking for

You need to be a detective to find stuff on Strava and it takes more effort but you can find a lot more stuff than trail forks. You are right, segment explorer is not very good, I think it only shows the more popular trails which tend to be the boring ones or road sections. What you need to do is find one promising segment (maybe the climb to the top of the hill) and then view the leader board. Open some of the associated rides. If its a climb don’t pick the rides near the top of the leader board as these will be the racing snakes who prefer riding uphill – go somewhere in the middle. If there are photos do they show pictures of cool looking trails. Check the segments for the ride – any interesting names? You will see segments that do not appear on segment explorer. When you find a good ride Strava wont let you export it unless you pay them money…but they will let you create a route from it – which you can then export as a GPX (don’t know how they let that one slip?). Anyway you can then upload that GPX to a proper mapping tool like viewranger.

I use that method for planning – out on the trail I use Strava heatmap to find even more cool stuff where there might not even be segments.

I do use trailforks as its an easy to use introduction to an area – although many areas are hardly covered at all

https://www.doogal.co.uk/strava.php

try this if you dont like the strava segment explorer

Slight aside – exporting routes as a GPX from Strava is very hit and miss. I used to think that you could only do it from activities of those you follow but some activities I can and some I can’t, similarly for activities by other riders found by @ndthornton’s method.

I prefer “nadgery” stuff rather than DH style trails and Strava heatmap is great for that: find a suitable area using something like Streetmap then inspect it using the heatmap to see what turns up.

Trailforks has lots of stuff in Scotland but south of the border it’s a bit of a desert: there’s just six trails in Swaledale marked and that’s pretty much all that’s there for the whole of the Yorkshire Dales.

Trailforks has lots of stuff in Scotland but south of the border it’s a bit of a desert: there’s just six trails in Swaledale marked and that’s pretty much all that’s there for the whole of the Yorkshire Dales.

Not necessarily a bad thing. Some places have a perfectly functioning local riding scene with local riders and landowners either oblivious to each other or in various states of tolerance/animosity.

Then the outside world finds out about it and it gets busy. Sometimes that results in a very open Tweed Valley, other times a more constricted Swinley, most of the time bulldozers come in and flatten everything.

Great if it’s showing legal trails, not so great if the trails are a bit more discreet.

chakaping

Subscriber
Trailforks is awesome for exploring in Scotland.

Less awesome south of the border where access laws appear to make it problematic.

Trailforks is awesome for exploring in England.

Less awesome north of the border where the lack of midge warnings make it problematic.

On a serious note, Scottish access laws allow you to ride wherever, but not dig new ones. And let’s be honest here, most of what we’re discussing are mountain bike trails, not paths that have just been found. You can find those on OS maps (even if they don’t then appear on the ground).

https://www.doogal.co.uk/strava.php

I like this!
thanks

Scottish access laws allow you to ride wherever, but not dig new ones.

Some say dig, some say liberate…. 😉