In the last two weeks, we’ve updated more than 4,600 miles of routes from Australia to Bosnia and California to North Carolina. Read on to see what we’ve been up to in our latest batch of improvements…

Maintaining our more than 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) of routes is no easy task. We’re constantly doing our best to incorporate feedback from riders and updates from route creators to ensure our route guides provide the best information and on-the-ground guidance possible. This often involves confirming route alerts that are sent in by readers with one of our local Route Stewards and working with them to devise a reroute.

Sometimes, we get a new file from a Route Steward or Guest Contributor that they want to change the ending of their route to make transportation easier or incorporate a new stretch of singletrack. Or we contact partner organizations to confirm trail status for our readers when we know there has been a natural disaster. It’s a collaborative process that can sometimes take significant time to complete, but we’re happy to report we’ve made some substantial progress recently. Read below to learn about some updates we made to a few of our route guides just this month.

The Otway Rip

Route Creator Ben Kampshchoer incorporated feedback from riders to come up with a new ending in the town of Colac. Specifically, this makes train transportation to and from this end of the route far easier. It also added a few more dirt miles to the overall route makeup!

BC Trail

We received an alert from reader Chris Bukowsky that the Chilliwack Outdoor Club and Trails BC had spent six days and over 300 person-hours of trail maintenance to clear the Trans Canada Trail from Chilliwack Lake almost to Hope, British Columbia. Our own Miles Arbour updated the route guide and made some other revisions to the route file to avoid some other long-term closures noted on the route.

The Bosnian Highline

Thanks to reader and rider Tyler Torres, we were alerted to a minefield along the route that we did not have marked. We updated the route map with a new marker and we were able to add an unmarked fountain that Tyler had noted too.

The Eastern Divide Trail

Route Steward Karlos Bernart made some significant updates across the Florida section of the Eastern Divide Trail. We incorporated some reroutes to avoid storm damage and private land in the panhandle section of Segment 7. We also updated the Segment 8 file to include new codes to access Buckman Lock, as well as some other route relocations to ensure maximum use of public land where possible. We updated some of the ecological information too. In Segments 5 and 6, we added alternate route options to avoid a few remaining Hurricane Helene closures affecting the route corridor. Those are included in the Trail Notes sections of those Eastern Divide segments.

Other Western North Carolina Routes

State and federal agencies have done incredible work to reopen our national forests and state-owned public land. However, there are still a few closures affecting our Appalachian Gravel Growler, Wilson’s Ramble, Appalachian Beer Trail, and Trans-WNC routes. We’ve added alternate routes to those route guides as well. Although some of the alternates are not ideal, we made a few minor updates to ensure the routes still retain their character. As of today, all but one route in Western North Carolina is completely open or has posted route alternatives.

The Tahoe Twirl

With ongoing trail closures at Spooner Lake State Park reported by a number of our readers, we reached out to Bones to Blue event director Forest Baker to ensure we had the best possible alternative for Tahoe Twirl riders. We have added this to the Trail Notes section of the route guide as well.

Thanks and Future Updates

We’re currently in the process of researching and updating a number of our other routes due to significant route alerts or updates submitted by route designers. We also want to send a huge thank you to everyone who takes the time to send in a specific route alert and for everyone who takes the time to drop some notes in the comments section for other riders to read. Stay tuned for future improvements!

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