Big Ring Adventure Team
Ride. Research. Report.
Trail Gripes Photos | Trail Gripes Survey Results
Trail Gripes Survey Results
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Interpreting the results. The numbers are the percent of respondents who ranked a given gripe in a certain position. For example, 71 percent of respondents said "Failure to follow IMBA specs" was their biggest gripe. "Lack of qualifiers" was of minimal concern; no respondent ranked it over a seventh-place concern. The number of respondents was quite small so a few responses could skew the results, which is probably the case in the first question. In general respondents griped about failure to follow IMBA specs, poor maintenance, and bad flow. They were slightly less concerned about poor signage. They were evenly spread about faulty features, lack of ride-arounds, poor integration of segments, and failure to provide basic amenities at the trailhead. They felt a failure to access local knowledge and a lack of qualifiers were of minimal concern. Totals (from left-to-right) may not equal 100 due to rounding. The blue bars are only navigational aids and have no significance as to results.
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Rankings by Percent of Respondents (1=biggest gripe; 10=smallest gripe)
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Question
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1
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2
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3
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4
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5
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6
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7
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8
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9
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10
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1. Failure to follow IMBA specs
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71
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14
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
14
|
2. Inadequate or unclear signage
|
14
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14
|
0
|
0
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29
|
0
|
29
|
14
|
0
|
0
|
3. Faulty features
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0
|
14
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0
|
14
|
14
|
14
|
0
|
14
|
14
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14
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4. Lack of qualifiers
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0
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0
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0
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0
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0
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0
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29
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14
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29
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29
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5. Lack of ride-arounds
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0
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0
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14
|
14
|
0
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42
|
14
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0
|
14
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0
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6. Poor integration of segments
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0
|
0
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0
|
14
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43
|
0
|
0
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29
|
0
|
14
|
7. Failure to access local knowledge
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0
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0
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0
|
0
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0
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33
|
17
|
17
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33
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0
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8. Bad flow
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14
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14
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14
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43
|
14
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0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
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9. Poor maintenance
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0
|
29
|
57
|
14
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0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
|
0
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10. Failure to provide basic amenities at trailhead
|
0
|
14
|
14
|
0
|
0
|
14
|
14
|
14
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14
|
14
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Comments. Here's a selection of the comments we received. Our intention was to correlate comments with names, but that didn't work out.
I ride Town Run in Indy on a regular basis and it is a perfect example of good flow. Today I rode Rangeline Nature preserve in Anderson with the president of HMBA. It was my first impression that it has very poor flow. I LOVED IT! I had no idea what was coming next, I had no idea what speed I could go due to the fact that there may be a hill, a sharp turn, some sort of obstacle or logs coming up. I had to focus totally on the trail as far as I could see ahead which at times was only a few feet. I could tell you every turn @ Town Run and it provides no technical challenge. Rangeline is quite the opposite. I will be back!
[Another problem is the] creation of "water holes" due to poorly maintained trails that have a potential for wet/water related trail issues. i.e.: I rode at Tsali in the Nantahala Recreation Area, July 18~21. There were so many "water holes" it disrupted the legendary reputation that Tsali used to have. It used to have GREAT flow...not so at this point in time. The trail needed to be "nicked" / debermed to address the water hole issue. I left this same comment on one of the comments stubs from my $2.00 payment envelope. In fairness to the trail tech crews there...it has been a very wet/rainy July, 2009 and there were a few trail techs out creating those nicks...and where that happened, the trail started to improve....a lot !!
Along the "poor features" line, it seems like fallen trees are left out on Schooner Trace in Brown County State Park longer than they should because the trail is "supposed to be hard". However, the trail has so many good intentional features that make it plenty hard as it was designed to be, that there is no need to for a bunch of downed trees to detract from the experience.
It's all about the flooooooowwwwwww. Designing with average grades is probably the most important factor in getting good flow - something that IMBA overlooks in its training.
And one respondent's favorite trail: Haw Ridge near Knoxville/Oak Ridge, TN: "It breaks every design rule in the book, and is still one of the funnest trail systems to ride. Rogue trail building at its finest. It's amusing that so many people drive past it in route to their favorite MTB destination, and never even know it."
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