Congratulations to the February Forum contest winners, Dorado and kvnrbrts. Dorado’s post, “urban riding??” received 59 replies during the month of February, earning him the sweet Giro XAR helmet and matching DJ gloves. kvnrbrts’ post, “Random trail sightings…” received 42 replies which means he snagged the Crankskins 12 mil frame protection kit.

Thanks to Giro and Crankskins for sponsoring the contest – we saw a big increase in the quality and quantity of forum conversations during February and are stoked to see things continue into the spring and summer!

Stay tuned for a BIG trail contest announcement later this month…

We’ve been pretty swamped here with new members and content this month but we’ve also found time to make a few updates:

1. Members can now edit trail information. If you added a trail to singletracks you can now update trail details yourself anytime – including mileage, configuration, directions, description, and more! Of course all registered members can continue to add trail reviews, closure information, photos, videos, and GPS data using the trail dashboard on the right side of the trail pages.

2. Trail tags version 1.0 is now live (again). Some members recently pointed out that our trail tagging system was broken and this week we finally got around to getting things straightened out. It’s simple to add descriptive tags to any trail using – you guessed it! – the trail dashboard. We’ve even posted a short blurb about how trail tags work and include some suggestions to get you started.

We plan on integrating trail tags even more in the future but for now you can view the most popular tags, find individual trail tags at the bottom of each trail page, and view your personal tags to help you organize your favorite places to ride. Here are a few cool tags to check out to see how this works: NC Triangle, fast, and technical.

3. Forum issues resolved? A few of you have reported having trouble posting to the forums with random cursor movements but now we’re hearing that things seem to be back to normal. This fall we’ll be making some big changes to the forums so look for continued improvements…

More singletracks news to come, including a post explaining how we organize and map trail information, new contest details, and much more. Summer rocks!

It’s June and things are heating up on the trail AND on singletracks.com. Here’s the new stuff to keep you in the loop:

Video Contest Winners: It was a battle royale and in the end we had 3 clear winners. Devin_P killed it with 1535 points making him the proud owner of a brand new set of Kenda Nevegall 2.35 tires! Maddslacker earned himself a PRO membership and a singletracks t-shirt while Goo is taking home the third place package with stuff from Camelbak, Nite Rider, and Mr. Smith. Thanks again to all our sponsors and everyone who contributed.

Trail Video Comments: Speaking of trail videos, the contest helped us iron out some kinks that were preventing members from rating trail videos. With hundreds of new videos added this month, it’s a great time to post your comments and ratings to move the best trail videos to the top of the list!

New Trail Pages: We’ve been getting overwhelmingly positive feedback on the new trail page design and if you haven’t taken a look yet, check out this page for an example. The new tabs organize stuff like trail maps, photos, and videos and we’ve placed all the “action links” in a convenient dashboard in the right column. With this new framework in place look for more trail page enhancements this summer and fall.

New Forums: Mongoose has been hard at work moderating the forums and he’s adding two new discussions this summer for MTB beginners and folks interested in mountain biking with families (coming soon). We’re also adding more moderators to help out with the avalanche of new posts – stop in and holla!

Gear Reviews: We’re currently testing hot new gear from Easton, Sun Ringle, Manitou, Yakima, and others and will be posting articles and reviews here on the blog in the next few weeks. Want us to review a particular MTB product? Hit us up on the contact form and we’ll see what we can do.

Top Secret Stuff: Yep, there are a few things coming down the pipe that are on a strictly need to know basis right now. One thing I can tell you: we’ve located 1,100 trails for our Google Maps project. It’s still not nearly 50% of the trail catalog but get ready for a new way to search for MTB trails coming soon…