Strava ruining trails?

rockmonkeysc

We have noticed on the local trails loads of corners getting cut and new (faster) lines being created. It seems to be Strava users trying to beat a time who are doing most of it and then others following. It's going to slowly turn all our nice winding single track in to boring straight lines. More importantly it looks really messy and is more likely to upset other users of the forest.
If your trying to beat a time then surely your efforts are wasted when you start cheating? It would be better to learn to carry corner speed instead.
Is it just my local trails or is this happening everywhere?

njee20

How do you know it's caused by Strava users? That's always happened, Strava has changed nothing!

rockmonkeysc

Because it's the people who are always talking using about Strava who have been seen regularly cutting off corners.

nicklouse

RockmonkeySC wrote:

Because it's the people who are always talking using about Strava who have been seen regularly cutting off corners.

but are they using? or are you presuming.

Corners have always been cut.

mainly by people who cant corner as speed.

fyldesmurf

I was speaking to the ranger at Haldon forest yesterday about this, and he said that the main problem with Strava is people ruining themselves, not the trails, trying to beat the fastest times

Northwind

njee20 wrote:

How do you know it's caused by Strava users? That's always happened, Strava has changed nothing!

+ root vegetable. Having said that, I do reckon it's on the increase. Like at Glentress, sections which were mostly fine til recently are now getting shortcutted to death, like falla brae- it's always had some shortcuts but now people are bypassing every wiggle. Drives me nuts because there's a blue trail parallel which already goes in a mostly straight line, go and ride that if you can't do corners.

Richie63

Recent DIRT mag has had a piece in just on this subject and mentioned that Cy Turner fom Cotic had thought that the Strava use of a trail had put it the worst condition in years. added to the fact that making a segment doesn't take in to account if is actually legit to ride it.

cat_with_no_tail

IMHO the poor state of some trails are more a result of the massive increase in trail users over recent years, as already stated, people have always cut corners, it's just that now the 1% of users who are corner cutting assholes represents a much bigger number of people than it used to. It just happens to coincide with Strava.

YeehaaMcgee

Northwind wrote:

njee20 wrote:

How do you know it's caused by Strava users? That's always happened, Strava has changed nothing!

+ root vegetable. Having said that, I do reckon it's on the increase. Like at Glentress, sections which were mostly fine til recently are now getting shortcutted to death, like falla brae- it's always had some shortcuts but now people are bypassing every wiggle. Drives me nuts because there's a blue trail parallel which already goes in a mostly straight line, go and ride that if you can't do corners.

Wow, this is a strange world. Corners are the fun parts of riding, surely? What the hell is wrong with people?

Northwind

Eventually they'll take it to the logical conclusion and just ride down the fire roads.

cooldad

YeehaaMcgee wrote:

Northwind wrote:

njee20 wrote:

How do you know it's caused by Strava users? That's always happened, Strava has changed nothing!

+ root vegetable. Having said that, I do reckon it's on the increase. Like at Glentress, sections which were mostly fine til recently are now getting shortcutted to death, like falla brae- it's always had some shortcuts but now people are bypassing every wiggle. Drives me nuts because there's a blue trail parallel which already goes in a mostly straight line, go and ride that if you can't do corners.

Wow, this is a strange world. Corners are the fun parts of riding, surely? What the hell is wrong with people?

Strange world filled with very strange people who find it important to compete with random strangers on the internet.
Almost as weird as people who's social life is centered around communicating with total strangers on random websites.

I really must get out more.

nicklouse

cooldad wrote:

I really must get out more.

is that permitted?

cooldad

nicklouse wrote:

cooldad wrote:

I really must get out more.

is that permitted?

Nah then I'd be expected to do stupid things. Like ride a bike or something.

Roastie

Northwind wrote:

Eventually they'll take it to the logical conclusion and just ride down the fire roads.

And then maybe work out that you can roll even faster on tarmac roads, at which point we can resume normal service.

ditchit

Why change the trail? If you were road racing you wouldnt cut across a field to save 1/2 mile on your route so cutting corners etc on a trail means you havent truely run the trail you have created a 'bastard' trail in its place. There you go, are you thinking what i'm thinking?

fyldesmurf

ditchit wrote:

If you were road racing you wouldnt cut across a field to save 1/2 mile on your route

Depends how many drugs you've taken http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtZhG2kWVLY

Northwind

ditchit wrote:

Why change the trail? If you were road racing you wouldnt cut across a field to save 1/2 mile on your route

People do. And people take drugs, or jump in taxis and say they've done a marathon, or cut bits off XC race courses, or break the tapes on enduros then say "The organiser should have taped it better"... Course, with Strava you're really only cheating yourself but that doesn't seem to bother people, "winning" is more important than not being a ****.

I'll tell you what's crap about Strava actually, side-rant but there's no way to remove one segment from your ride if it's wrong. I did a lap of glentress black, it was passably quick and I was happy but looking at the segments it also picked up segments I didn't ride! But I can't get rid of them. There really needs to be a quick "Disqualify my own ride" button for when you know it's not right.

benpinnick

Strava is definitely the cause IMHO. Since it came out, corner cutting which used to be infrequent is now the norm - almost all our local trails show corner cutting a shortcuts now, whereas they never used to. Maybe something else has coincidently caused it.... um, maybe.

paul.skibum

Strava sucks b*lls. Fact.

Clank

benpinnick wrote:

Strava is definitely the cause IMHO. Since it came out, corner cutting which used to be infrequent is now the norm - almost all our local trails show corner cutting a shortcuts now, whereas they never used to. Maybe something else has coincidently caused it.... um, maybe.

The good folk at Chase Trails refer to these ever-increasing short-cuts as 'Strava-lines'.

cat_with_no_tail

Northwind wrote:

side-rant but there's no way to remove one segment from your ride if it's wrong. I did a lap of glentress black, it was passably quick and I was happy but looking at the segments it also picked up segments I didn't ride! But I can't get rid of them. There really needs to be a quick "Disqualify my own ride" button for when you know it's not right.

If you "report" the segment, do Strava remove the whole ride, or just that segment? I'm pretty sure they can just remove segments, but I've never tried it. Worth firing off a email to them.