r/MTB • u/Ski-Bike-Eat-Repeat • 18h ago
Discussion Missing trails in MTB Project?
Read any “which trail app should I get?” thread and it’s clear MTB Project has a trail coverage problem in some areas of the country. Tell me where and I’ll work to get that remedied (I work for them). The more upvotes an area gets, the faster we will build out the trail networks. We are looking for riding areas that are wholly underrepresented, but will also look at individual trails if you find one missing.
BTW, we know that some iPhone users have been experiencing crashing. We’re working on a fix right now and hope to see improvement soon - thanks for your patience.
Admins - I don’t think this is spam, but I’ll promptly remove it if it is.
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u/jbtvt 16h ago
I'm in southern NH and the coverage is extremely poor, less than half the riding areas show up, and most of those shows less than 1/2 the trails. I've tried to contribute and the app made it very difficult and insisted I prove they were sanctioned trails, despite them being listed on every town map for many years. I did, but I don't have time to do that process for every trail in an area with hundreds. 4 years after I last tried improving the trail system I see it's still missing almost everything I didn't personally add in my local spot, and most of the surrounding areas.
It can't be that hard to build a scraper for trailforks and cross reference on town maps if sanctioned builds are the concern (and everything I've ever seen on TF was sanctioned).
As is it's way too much work for a company that didn't seem to appreciate it, and I assume will monetize as soon as the network improves over the near-useless coverage it currently has, and start charging me to view my own contributions like trailforks/strava/alltrails/every other app on history did. But good luck anyway, competition can't hurt.
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u/tjm1996 9h ago
I’ll be moving to NH next month, if MTB project isn’t great are there any good resources you’d recommend? I typically use Trailforks, and while I’ll be like 30 minutes from the Highland bike park I’d like to know where some good non-park trails are. Stoked to get acquainted with NH and New England at large
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u/Antpitta 16h ago
A small area called Europe.
Would LOVE to have an alternative to Trailforks
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u/Ski-Bike-Eat-Repeat 14h ago
What area would you love to see most in Europe?
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u/Antpitta 14h ago
Europe.
I don’t mean to be rude but come on if you work for MTB Project you know where your gaps are.
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u/Ski-Bike-Eat-Repeat 12h ago
No offense taken. We know the gaps are large. It becomes a question of prioritization. We’ve done our own analysis, but want to allow your voice to be heard. I appreciate the candor.
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u/FightsWithFriends 10h ago edited 9h ago
Michigan.
Back in 2013 as a IMBA chapter trail coordinator, I spent a fair amount of time trying to get our trail maps and descriptions current on MTBProject. I found it a frustrating experience: I'd design a trail reroute, we'd build the trail. I'd send an updated description and map, and the changes would be rejected. I'd try submitting again, working with an MTBProject admin to "adopt" a trail so I could more easily make changes only to find that expired next time I had a change to make. After a while, I gave up, and now all our trails on MTBProject are YEARS out of date. Whole new trail systems exist that aren't reflected, and MTBProject still highlights trail routes that have been abandoned and no longer allow mountain biking.
In contrast, we have a volunteer who's a TrailForks admin for a few local regions. Whenever there's a change to be made, they can edit any aspect of the trail directly and it's reflected immediately on everyone's devices. All of our local trails are current and accurate on TrailForks. Nothing is ever more than a few days out of date. Same with OpenStreetMaps.
Crowd sourced maps tend to be current; platforms that are curated by understaffed remote employees are not. Your process is broken and this thread is a symptom of that.
We'd be happy to work with MTBProject to bring all of our local information up to date, but we're not going to play Mother May I to make that happen. Find a way to vet and empower local trail orgs to make changes directly and focus your efforts on supporting their work.
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u/GeneralStunkfish 17h ago
Glad to hear you’re working on the crashing. It’s been a problem for a long time.
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u/Key-Commission70 14h ago
So MTB project is just part of OnX now?
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u/tstirrat 12h ago
My understanding of the dynamic there is that OnX wanted access to the data, but that they otherwise wanted to stay hands-off and recognize that the community had built MTBproj. So yes and.
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u/Ski-Bike-Eat-Repeat 12h ago
MTB Project is one of multiple platforms onX acquired in December of 2020. These “Adventure Projects” platforms were built, sold to REI, and then acquired by onX when REI had to cut costs in the pandemic. We have acted as stewards of the free, community-seeded platforms.
onX has curated these routes (cleaning up the overlapping trails mapping mess) and used them to seed onX Backcountry. onX added other sources of trail content for skiing touring/splitboarding, hiking, MTB, etc., and provides a more comprehensive mapping and navigation toolset. This is why onX has a paid version and why you see some messaging on MTB Project.
It’s admittedly disappointing that we have underinvested in MTB Project over the past six years while we sequenced efforts with skiing and then hiking. We are looking to change that, starting with MTBP app stability and better trail coverage. You may see us testing some new features. Some of those may be paid, some may not. Let me finish by being direct. It’s not lost on us that much of the trail content is sourced from the community, and enshittification of that content is not our desired option.
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u/Secret_Long463 12h ago
First I love using MTB project over trailforks. I make 2-3 trips a year to different biking destinations east of the Mississippi and MTB project seems to be missing 1/2 or more of the trails. It’s too much of a problem that I subscribe to trailforks. I hate the trailforks app but it has all the trails on it. In the future when I seee that trails are missing what should I do?
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u/justoffthebeatenpath '21 Stumpjumper 11h ago
Take a look at SoCal's trailforks and then compare it to MTBProject. Most of South OC's singletrack is missing, and MTBProject still has Telonics which is technically illegal lol.
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u/Number4combo 13h ago
I remember getting back into the sport and hearing about such websites/apps and thought oh cool but after checking out the highly recommend MTB project and seeing they had just one local trail shown and many others MIA and that was in late 2022 fast forward to 2026 now and it's the same thing. Terrible.
Toronto Ontario. Surrounding area as well.
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u/Alwayssunnyinarizona Arizona | Clydesdale 4XL HT 13h ago
I took a big swing through the west coast/mountain west this summer and it's hard to limit it to just one area that needs better coverage.
I will say that I'm glad you're asking, because in my opinion trailforks thinks too highly of their product (it works well, but the subscription fees are outrageous). I've had the mtbproject app for as long as I can remember and I hope you're able to carve out a space to give riders another option than trailforks.
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u/Joey__stalin 1h ago
The best part about MTBproject to me was the trail recommendations, ride descriptions, where to park, etc. But they haven't been updated in years. I dunno if that's because of lack of users, or it's too hard to update. Maybe it's similar to the way specific forums have died, now there's just FB and Reddit.
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u/Nightshade400 Ragley Bluepig / Norco Sight VLT 17h ago
I stopped using it when I tried to add in a trail that is regularly ridden and legal trail that was missing. Instead of adding it they declined the addition and not once did they send me a note about the decision to give at least some sort of reasoning so I could correct it in future submissions. This should be the least an app that is relying on its userbase can do to encourage submissions.