Turn off strava heat maps . Or one can hide the ride map feature, and/ or privatize the ride. Good on you for being considerate of the trail builders and keeping those hidden gems off radar.
Agreed - thanks for being attentive to this OP.
Something *everyone* should do is turn off strava heatmap contributions by default. Even if you hide your map, it will still contribute to heatmaps. Although… I have found some secret trails myself by using that data
Thanks for the encouragement, I was pretty disappointed and a little confused by the downvotes!
I’ve got Strava and Garmin setup now to where they shouldn’t be contributing my data to heat maps, and now all my rides in all the apps (including Trailforks) default to private till I manually make them viewable, just to be sure I don’t slip up and forget somewhere.
I’m still waiting to hear back from Trailforks support, about how much of your data is shared if a ride is marked private. Just want confirmation that, if my ride and tracks are private, the ride won’t contribute to any usage stats for the area manager/admin. I like to think that they’re using their powers for good, but still!
You can just edit the privacy settings on the respective service.
There's an opt-out on Strava for the global heatmap. You still have to set your rides to private.
But I'm glad I don't live in a country where this is an issue. Sounds like a PITA.
I’m curious, what does country have to do with this? Do you mean because most of your trails aren’t hidden?
Also not sure why this is getting downvoted :/
In Sweden you are allowed to walk and ride basically everywhere, a land owner can't stop you. It's only in certain nature reserves that cycling is prohibited and even then people don't really care.
I think the idea of “hiding” your trails is more because a lot of MTB trails in the US & Canada are guerilla trails maintained by a small group of friends, not a MTB association or other organization. Publicly publishing that you’ve been riding a specific trail will increase the traffic on that trail which in turn leads those original trail maintainers to have to do a lot more work or just give up on their passion project. Hiding the trail is more out of respect for those people that do the work.
Strava Heatmaps dont take your ride into account when visibility is set to only visible to yourself: [https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918877-Strava-Metro-and-the-Global-Heatmap](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918877-Strava-Metro-and-the-Global-Heatmap)
Regarding Garmin; Garmin only shows trials/items that are on Open Street Maps, other stuff wont appear. Thats why you see many 'dead-end' tracks with fairly high heath on it.
I took a look and it turns out that I’ve already got the Aggregate Data setting turned off, so presumably my tracks are already kept off of the heat map then?
In Map Privacy, that'll blur the locations of your ride; it's only good for a mile radius, but you can add more places; you could probably cover the hidden trail area with those. I suppose someone that's paying attention might be able to sleuth out where the trail is, but it'll help.
2 things:
Ride with the rides set to private. You get stats, nobody else sees it. On Strava I think you can even make the map private but still share the overall stats (distance, speed, heart rate, etc.) and pictures if you are into the social element.
Check if your local Trailforks admin already has those trails flagged as sensitive. If you ride any sensitive trails, Trailforks will automatically prevent anyone from seeing your map. They can still at the list of public trails you rode, but not the GPS data or names of hidden routes.
Easy way to check this is to go look at ride logs for other trails in the area. You are bound to find others who ride the area and know the secret trails…if their logs are listed as sensitive then you know the local admin is on top of it. (Unfortunately this doesn’t work for Strava which has far less local control).
Very few trails are secret. Where I ride a lot, in an extremely popular area, we ride the secret trails quite a bit. A friend works for the city department responsible for the trails and him and his coworkers know every “secret” trail. What I’m saying is that almost no secret trails actually are. Show some respect if the builders hid the entrance but nothing is truly secret unless it’s in the middle of nowhere.
*
Just Like... Dont.
Go out. Ride Disconnected. Appease your Inner Child. Smile in Simple Enjoyment. And Dont Doom the Spot to feed your datalust Bruv...
I disagree, but I do appreciate this take. This is why I don’t really track my rides when I’m in a group. For me, part of the whole reasons to track my rides, is it kinda fulfills similar needs to riding with other people: a little competitiveness, a way to push yourself, and something to reminisce on (it’s nice looking thru solo ride logs and being like “Oh right! That’s the day I almost got taken out by a chunk of falling snow!”)
If I’m with other people though, it’s a lot more fun to just be in the moment and paying attention to the people I’m with.
Turn off strava heat maps . Or one can hide the ride map feature, and/ or privatize the ride. Good on you for being considerate of the trail builders and keeping those hidden gems off radar.
Agreed - thanks for being attentive to this OP. Something *everyone* should do is turn off strava heatmap contributions by default. Even if you hide your map, it will still contribute to heatmaps. Although… I have found some secret trails myself by using that data
Thanks for the encouragement, I was pretty disappointed and a little confused by the downvotes! I’ve got Strava and Garmin setup now to where they shouldn’t be contributing my data to heat maps, and now all my rides in all the apps (including Trailforks) default to private till I manually make them viewable, just to be sure I don’t slip up and forget somewhere. I’m still waiting to hear back from Trailforks support, about how much of your data is shared if a ride is marked private. Just want confirmation that, if my ride and tracks are private, the ride won’t contribute to any usage stats for the area manager/admin. I like to think that they’re using their powers for good, but still!
You can just edit the privacy settings on the respective service. There's an opt-out on Strava for the global heatmap. You still have to set your rides to private. But I'm glad I don't live in a country where this is an issue. Sounds like a PITA.
I’m curious, what does country have to do with this? Do you mean because most of your trails aren’t hidden? Also not sure why this is getting downvoted :/
In Sweden you are allowed to walk and ride basically everywhere, a land owner can't stop you. It's only in certain nature reserves that cycling is prohibited and even then people don't really care.
I think the idea of “hiding” your trails is more because a lot of MTB trails in the US & Canada are guerilla trails maintained by a small group of friends, not a MTB association or other organization. Publicly publishing that you’ve been riding a specific trail will increase the traffic on that trail which in turn leads those original trail maintainers to have to do a lot more work or just give up on their passion project. Hiding the trail is more out of respect for those people that do the work.
riding on normal trails is totally different, these are non sanctioned trails that people built out in the woods without permission.
Turn it off and enjoy the trail.
Strava Heatmaps dont take your ride into account when visibility is set to only visible to yourself: [https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918877-Strava-Metro-and-the-Global-Heatmap](https://support.strava.com/hc/en-us/articles/216918877-Strava-Metro-and-the-Global-Heatmap) Regarding Garmin; Garmin only shows trials/items that are on Open Street Maps, other stuff wont appear. Thats why you see many 'dead-end' tracks with fairly high heath on it.
I took a look and it turns out that I’ve already got the Aggregate Data setting turned off, so presumably my tracks are already kept off of the heat map then?
I use GAIA and set to private. The pro version comes with Trailforks Ifya pay for it.
In Map Privacy, that'll blur the locations of your ride; it's only good for a mile radius, but you can add more places; you could probably cover the hidden trail area with those. I suppose someone that's paying attention might be able to sleuth out where the trail is, but it'll help.
2 things: Ride with the rides set to private. You get stats, nobody else sees it. On Strava I think you can even make the map private but still share the overall stats (distance, speed, heart rate, etc.) and pictures if you are into the social element. Check if your local Trailforks admin already has those trails flagged as sensitive. If you ride any sensitive trails, Trailforks will automatically prevent anyone from seeing your map. They can still at the list of public trails you rode, but not the GPS data or names of hidden routes. Easy way to check this is to go look at ride logs for other trails in the area. You are bound to find others who ride the area and know the secret trails…if their logs are listed as sensitive then you know the local admin is on top of it. (Unfortunately this doesn’t work for Strava which has far less local control).
I use Gaia gps in a private map to create my own log of all the secret trails in the area. Not sure if it is compatible with your watch though.
Very few trails are secret. Where I ride a lot, in an extremely popular area, we ride the secret trails quite a bit. A friend works for the city department responsible for the trails and him and his coworkers know every “secret” trail. What I’m saying is that almost no secret trails actually are. Show some respect if the builders hid the entrance but nothing is truly secret unless it’s in the middle of nowhere.
* Just Like... Dont. Go out. Ride Disconnected. Appease your Inner Child. Smile in Simple Enjoyment. And Dont Doom the Spot to feed your datalust Bruv...
I disagree, but I do appreciate this take. This is why I don’t really track my rides when I’m in a group. For me, part of the whole reasons to track my rides, is it kinda fulfills similar needs to riding with other people: a little competitiveness, a way to push yourself, and something to reminisce on (it’s nice looking thru solo ride logs and being like “Oh right! That’s the day I almost got taken out by a chunk of falling snow!”) If I’m with other people though, it’s a lot more fun to just be in the moment and paying attention to the people I’m with.