Riding New Trails/Parks - How Do You Get Around?

Robin

Robin

Well-Known Member
I'm curious as to what others do - when you are headed to a new place to ride/new trails and have no one to lead you/give advice.

I have relied on Trail Forks on my phone to see where I am but sometimes I find myself riding a trail the "wrong way" (like climbing a fun downhill).

Do you scope out rides on Strava or TrailForks and load a file to follow? Do you "wing it"?
 
stb222

stb222

Love Drunk
Jerk Squad
Trail forks or MTB project. I used them to navigate some new trails in PA. They both are only as good as what people have added. But yes, find a file of someone who rode there to see directionalityZ
 
jklett

jklett

Well-Known Member
That was the original intent of the OOS group rides, have someone who knows the park show us the fun stuff.
 
Norm

Norm

Mayor McCheese
Team MTBNJ Halter's
jimvreeland said:
Trail Forks on the Garmin.
Click to expand...

This. @Robin when your 530 comes in 4-6 years you'll see how good the integration is. For instance, you can find a Strava ride, save it to your routes, then just follow it on the 530. Once you integrate with Trailforks/Strava the rides you save on either show up on your GPS.
 
phillychris498

phillychris498

Well-Known Member
The only reason I have strava premium is to be able to download someone’s ride route at a new place I want to check out as a GPX and put it on my garmin. I’m actually going to a new spot tomorrow with guidance from my garmin and a strava route I found!
 
cbiker

cbiker

Active Member
Trailforks if you have it in topo mode you can usually figure out the best direction to ride the trail.
 
KenS

KenS

JORBA: Director
JORBA.ORG
Remember to check routes in Trailforks and see if the popular way on a trail conflicts with the direction listed. Overall though I really like Trailforks if the local club has added content.
RSAmerica said:
I just download someone’s ride off Strava in to my Garmin. And follow the course.
Click to expand...
 
chemgirl

chemgirl

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
I look at trailforks to see if there are any good trails to ride (preferably in the downhill direction). Then I use Strava to find other's rides that used that trail. I recently learned how to save other's Strava rides to my archaic dinosaur Garmin. Some Strava folk have that feature blocked, but I just keep searching until I can find a ride.. I'm following some strangers ride at the Blueberry lake trails in Vt tomorrow doing exactly that.
 
rlb

rlb

Well-Known Member
I usually map out all of the trails (using any and all gpx files I can find) then create a custom Garmin map, and load in a few tracks that seem to be good routes so I can follow those.

I have the trail networks mapped for most of the popular parks, and my intention was to put them all together into a publicly accessible map (something like trail forks etc) but it would be web based and not app based. I never found a good way to make that work. Then I bought a house, had a kid, etc. I barely ride these days let alone execute a side project like that...
 
bergsnj

bergsnj

Well-Known Member
I'll check whatever maps I can find in advance and then just wing it and use trail forks. Thinking of getting a garmin 530 for this reason
 
Captain Brainstorm

Captain Brainstorm

Well-Known Member
I have the 520 Plus, so I'll either download from Trailforks, or ask someone to send me a GPX file. Usually though, I'll just wing it. I recently did the winging thing at Wildcat. It was both painful and rewarding.
 
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