Trailforks Pro-ouch!

Except for lights, none of the electronic devices I would mount on my handlebars survived many rides.

 

There are a (very) few places where MTB Project has better maps but overall, Trailforks is 100X more useful. There's been 5-10X where TF has made route finding so easy when we desperately needed it that I would have paid $50 just for that one "save".

Normally I'd say I'm astounded that you or anybody that rides as much as you do hasn't used TF. However, the amount of people I run across that haven't heard of, much less ridden Downieville, Hurricane or Oakridge always surprises me.

 

I have a Sirius lifetime subscription that I transferred, maybe 10 years ago. They charged a $75 fee, but the process was NBD.

 

I don't think any of these guys are strapping the phone to the bars. This is more for those "where the heck am I and how do I get out of here?" moments. The same moment that you would reach for a paper map...

 

One time when Cathy and I was up in Utah we were trying to find a trailhead. Back and forth, back and forth on the road trying to find the place based on the description. Finally we pulled up TrailForks and based on the mapping system figured out we were two miles from the trailhead and it led us right to it! Very cool App!

 

Don't forget, that$1.50 a month for early adopters is in Canadian currency....

Based on current exchange rate = $1.15

 

Ha ha ha ha ha!

 

I roll with my Iphone on my bars using Quad Lock. Never once lost my phone in 4 + years of riding but.. If I were doing jumps, black diamond trails and ski lift at Snow Summit bike park for example it would go into my pocket. 99.9 % of my rides my phone is on my bars because most of my rides are not on hardcore terrain.

 

I stand corrected!

Maybe I'm a little gun-shy... The one time I tried a bar mount for the phone, it bounced loose, and I ran it over at 30 mph.

 

I use the Rokform version. On a rigid bike. Haven't lost my phone yet.

 

I'm so confident with Quad Lock I just replaced my phone with Apple Iphone 11 Max Pro. Sure would hate to loose that phone out in the field.
** One up handle 35 mm bars are oval or kind of a flat(ish) on top in shape as it tapers towards the grips. Quad Lock doesn't offer a 35 mm handlebar mount so the Quad Lock mount I do have ( 22mm ) does work out toward the handle bar grip with a piece of tape wrapped around the bar. Still no issues rolling that way but I would prefer the phone to be mounted near the stem.- I have the One Ups handle bars on my Santa Cruz Hightower.

I use TF all the time and went ahead and paid the $ 18.00 for the service. And that doesn't mean I can follow TF trails BTW. My first attempt at riding Golden Eagle here a few months back by myself I decided TF was wrong and went up the Sandberg climb. Hot, sweaty, sticks breaking off in my spokes with tree limbs smacking me in the face as I made my way up the trail I found myself damn near close to using my bike like hammer ice pic to carve my way up the mountain- " Have a few laughs " " Have a few beers " I said to myself ( A little Bruce Willis for ya ) I eventually connected to the GE trail. Anyway, Strava would reveal that I had the third fastest HAB up the Sandberg climb. So there's that. A couple of pics of Sandberg trail at Golden Eagle.
Back to TF Pro...

 

I'm with you on the confidence in the Quad Lock. It never budged regardless of what trail gnarliness I could ride. I only stopped using it cause I was afraid I break the phone if I crashed and the bike carwheeled.

 

The reason this seems shitty and people (myself included) will complain is that we got used to the features available to us on Strava & TF, and now they're putting some of those features behind a paid subscription. No one should be mad that companies want to make money. What we're really upset about is losing something we had been used to having for years.

But I'm also tired of getting "nickel-&-dimed" left and right from a million different places. Yes, <$2/month is cheap. So is $5/month for Strava. So is a Netflix subscription. And Disney+. And $0.10/plastic shopping bag. And a $0.032/gal gas tax increase. And...

So, I don't think I'll be choosing to buy the service. Might I change my mind later? Could depend how much my user experience changes. We'll see.

 

^^^^this.
Everyone wants to go to a monthly fee so they can have steady revenue, and then you forget or don't use the service. And canceling good luck on a lot of them.
It seems small but adds up over a year with everything.

I still pay by check on a lot of things, does that make me seem old? Probably but you know what? If I don't want it anymore I just don't write a check. No calls, no fuss.
Auto pay go take a hike.

 

I don't subscribe to a lot of things, because I just don't use a lot of things. Trailforks is one service I've consistently used through multiple western states, and it's worked well for planning and navigation everywhere. For the years I used it free, I always felt it was useful (and used) enough to pay for. If one doesn't often use it, I could see it being a decision. For me it wasn't.

 

Auto pay is extremely easy to stop.

 

Ran into the paywall today. I use the app 15+ time a month, and usually for researching places I don't ride frequently.
Dude! I just went pro!

 

Like, fully?

 

No. Like, hardly.

 

I don't think there is a profit motive behind this fee. Trailforks looking to add features and functionality. The programmers needed to accomplish that are not cheap hires. The various mapping layers they are adding are not cheap. Take a look at what's there now - landowners, Google satellite, ArcGIS, etc. Those aren't free to add nor are servers and storage. $18/yr is pretty cheap for the service they provide. If you're on the fence I'd buck up for the first year. If you decide not to keep it, fine. If you don't and decide later that you do want it, you miss out on the lifetime 50% discount. Just a few days left before that option ends.

 

Never go full pro.

 

The addition of features does not preclude increased profit. But even if you're right, I'm good. The 'spend-to-save' marketing is attractive, but I wasn't already looking to spend money on a product like this, so I'm not really motivated by it.

I'll use what's left of the free version (same for Strava), until the free version isn't helpful or available any more. Then I guess I'll just ride.

 

Update: my paper map of Vernal is out of date, Trailforks saved me at two unmarked junctions...

 

Another example of a "tech" company aggregating your data, and then selling it back to you as a service.

Makes me want to go back and check their privacy statements before they went "pro". I'm sure somewhere in tiny print they say something like "all ride data becomes the property of Trailforks, to be used how and when we please, to be sold or resold as desired". In the Internet world content is king. And the best kind of content is the content that your users provide your site... for free... that you can resell.

We truly appreciate all the support of our users over the last five years that Trailforks has been free but in order to continue to be great, we have to start charging.

Trailforks is a trail database... Users can contribute data and then local trail associations have the control to approve & curate the data.

Who needs employees when your customers do all the work? For free!

 

Also be sure to understand that the discount is a 50% discount off their pricing... meaning if the price goes up in a year or so, you only get 50% off their price. That would mean the $1.50/month current price can go up to the early adopters.

How long is my discount valid?
If you sign up in the first 30 days you will get a 50% discount off of our pricing. As long as you stay a member you will maintain that discount into the future.

I'll probably sign up since i ride solo and do want to explore more areas. TF did help me find the start to Boyscout trail in WW and on Skyline in BB it helped me to know where i was in relation to the route i was taking. My other apps didn't really work well in the area with enough detail.

 

FWIW, there are now more trail runner and hiking users on the site than mountain bikers. Don't get me started about the e-bikers(!)

 

I recently heard it said that with any free app/tech service, the app is not the product. The user is, with what the user provides (data, etc.) then being resold.

 

Trailforks has only been marginally useful for me, when it was free. I am not paying for it. I just removed it from my phone.

 

Curious where you read that?

 

I just paid for a 5 year subscription (discounted rate thru an affiliate) to Gaia for off-roading and camping purposes but they also have biking and hiking trails on it too. I'm excited to learn how to use it now!

https://www.gaiagps.com/mountain-biking/