- For best results, the ridelog must pass by either the starting or ending point of the trail within 30 meters.
- Trailforks loops through each GPS point of a ridelog, checking to see if the point is within 30 meters of the potential matched trail.
- At least 80% of your ridelog's matched distance must match the distance of the trail. This means that 20% of your ridelog's points can NOT match the trail in question and still get a "full match."
- If the ridelog matches 50% of the trail's distance, we consider this a "partial match."
- Trails under 100m are generally excluded from the matching process.
- You must ride the ENTIRE trail from start to finish AS MAPPED on Trailforks in order get a match. This means that you cannot ride the first 30% of a trail, then ride another trail, and circle back to the original trail to finish the ride. The trail will not match in this way; it must be a continuous ride on the trail in order for the matching process to occur.
For timing and trail leaderboards, the time calculated to ride a trail is automatically cropped from the trail's starting and ending points. We do this to filter out the time standing at the trailhead in comparison with the true timing of riding a trail.
When creating trails, it's sometimes best to split trails into sections where a rider is likely to diverge from the line to a different trail. This will result in better matching results and more accurate timing.
When creating badges with trail criteria, the rider must ride ALL of the trail AS MAPPED on Trailforks. Choose your trails carefully; if most riders only ride a portion of a trail, then turn off onto a different trail, the original trail may not be the best option for badge criteria.
Why didn't my ridelog detect that I rode a trail?
GPS tracking, especially in mountains and within forests, is often not acutely accurate, and your GPS track can be quite a bit off, or it can drift. The trails mapped on Trailforks could also be created from a less accurate GPS track. However, the trails on Trailforks can be edited by any user to increase GPS accuracy by using ridelog heatmap data in order to provide better trail matching results.