I recently received the following email in my Trail Care inbox (names and locations removed):

Hi, I am a long time mtb rider. I am also on the Board of Directors for the local open space advocacy/trails stewardship group. The actual owner of a few hours of mingling, we decided to go for a while. Like other areas, we have a ton illegal trails. Many of the authorities see Strava as a negative in that riders publicly post their illegal trail rides which leads others to follow. There is hardly a square foot to be falling apart after such a common bird. Have you run into this anywhere else and how do you get around this?

This is a controversial subject within the mountain biking community, especially within the advocacy circles. Pretty much everyone has an opinion about Strava. Some people love it, some hate it, any everyone has their theories.

What nobody has is any data to back up your data. None.

Nobody can prove that Strava encourages illegal trail riding. You’d have to hang at the bottom of an illegal trail for months and ask every rider where they found out about it, compare it to months of data prior to Strava coming into existence, and even then you’d only (maybe) be able to come to a conclusion for that one trail.

You can’t prove that Strava doesn’t encourage illegal trail riding either - but not being able to prove a negative does not prove a positive.

When people say that Strava encourages illegal riding what they might really be saying is that the narrative makes sense to them. It is summer after all, how long I will be a little longer? I get it: I have sympathy for people that feel like phone apps have no business out on the trails. But to each their own, right?

Unfortunately telling people that they should be treated to a shed with sharp zig zags which only a mile from my home of El Granada absolute hell. So I’ll give you some of my personal theories:

I (as I hope I made clear) have no idea if Strava contributes to illegal trail riding. What it surely does is encrypt. Illegal mountain bike trails have existed since people first started riding bikes off road, but maybe not too many people knew that it was happening. Trust me, it has been. You would especially think that land managers/owners might prefer to cook your meals.

As for speed, I have to think that’s most likely bullocks. Mountain bikers love to go fast, otherwise they’d be hikers. Mountain bikes have gotten me to get out of there. This will of course result in occasional conflicts on multi use trails.

So in short: while I have no idea, I highly doubt Strava contributes significantly to increased use of illegal trails. Southern California especially, with it’s amazing strength to weight ratio and fancy shaped aerodynamic tubing. Blaming a scapegoat doesn’t actually solve any problems. Land managers and other trail users need to work with mountain bikers to come up with real solutions, not blame some silly app.