In this blog post I am going to provide you with a step-by-step guide to creating your own custom guidebook for use out on the mountain bike trail using Singletracks.com.

Why create your own guidebook?

But first, why would you want to “create your own guidebook”?

There are at least 3 different reasons:

1. There isn’t a guidebook for the area you’re traveling to –  believe it or not, sometimes there just isn’t a guidebook for the exact area that you’re planning on visiting. And sometimes if there is, it really isn’t all that great. By doing your own work and creating a custom book via Singletracks, you can ensure that you will have great information when you need it.
2. The information in existing guidebooks is old – Many guidebooks out there today are honestly really outdated. Trails have been modified or closed, or more likely there are new and better trails that have been built since the guidebook was last updated. By using the Singletracks.com database, you are getting some of the most up-to-date information available.
3. Guidebooks cost money – Why shell out cash for a guidebook that might just be mediocre if you can create your own?

A step-by-step guide to creating your own guidebook:

1. Decide where you want to travel.

Sometimes this can be the hardest part. To get started, consult the list of the best mountain bike trails in the world.

Or, use the Google map and browse through different areas of the nation.

This process can be used for anywhere that Singletracks has trails listed. For the rest of this example, I am going to use Crested Butte, Colorado since that is where I am traveling next week now.

2. Hone in on the trails in your specific area.

Next, you want to limit the trails you are looking at to those in a specific region. If you’ve found one amazing trail and you want to explore nearby trails while you are in the area, click on the name of the city.

This will bring up a list of all the trails that have been marked as being in or near that same city.

Alternatively, if you know exactly what city you are wanting to visit, just type the city and state into the search box at the top of any page and it should pop up.

3. Broaden the area, if needed.

Are there not enough trails listed for that specific town? Hit the button that says “Trails Near _____” and the list will be enlarged to show trails in the surrounding area.

A few trails near Crested Butte:

You can further broaden or restrict the area using the drop down distance menu. [Note: these distances are given "as the crow flies" and may not reflect actual driving/riding distances.]

4. Read about the trails.

It’s a good idea even if you are using a published guidebook to research the trails before you visit so that you have an idea of exactly what you’d like to ride. When you do this on Singletracks, you can also decide which trails you’d like to include in your custom guidebook, and which you wouldn’t. Of course. you could just go ahead and include every trail in the region if you’d like!

 5. Print the trail.

To do so, click “More Actions,” then click “Print Trail.”

This will bring up a printable view of the trail.

Then just click “File” and then “Print,” or just press APPLE P or CTRL P to print the page.

6. Print the trail map.

To print the trail map (if available), you have to have a paid account. This is just one more reason to sign up! For only about $20 a year (the price of one decent guidebook), you get access to the thousands of trail maps available on Singletracks.com. It’s crazy cheap!

To do this, click on the “View Trail Map” link.

Then, click and drag the trail map to the tabs bar to open it by itself. (There are other ways to do this.)

Then just click “File” and then “Print,” or just press APPLE P or CTRL P to print the page.

7. Print the elevation profile, if desired.

Go back to the previous main trail map page.

Then, click and drag the elevation profile to the tabs bar to open it by itself. (There are other ways to do this.)

Then just click “File” and then “Print,” or just press APPLE P or CTRL P to print the page.

[Editor's note: each map page also has a "Printer-friendly" function that fits the map, elevation profile, and route notes on a single page.]

8. Repeat steps 5, 6, and 7 for as many trails as you want to include in your custom guidebook.

Use your printer at work or school to make quick work of all of these trails, and to save some money!

9. Staple.

The finished product:

10. Ride!

Several people emailed this story to me on Wednesday and to be honest I was fairly ho-hum about it initially. I mean, Google Maps have included public transit and even walking directions for a while now so the bike stuff isn’t all that surprising. Commuting maps that take into account traffic flow, shoulder width, hills, etc. already exist in printed form so it’s about time they’re available in a digital, route-able format.

But this blog isn’t about commuting or road riding – it’s about mountain biking. After digging into the Google Biking Map of San Francisco I noticed something surprising: mountain bike trails. For example, this map (shown above) shows what appears to be singletrack in and around Glen Canyon Park.

I read a little more about the map data and found out that Google has also coded 12,000 miles of “bike trails” from the Rails-to-Trails Conservancy. Of course many rail trails are either paved or are, at the very least, wide, flat paths but still, this is better than riding the road.

But don’t get too excited about off-street bike routes. Here’s what a Google spokesperson said after a New York reporter found himself routed onto Central Park paths where bikes are off limits:

The parks are one of the things we need to work on. We don’t have great data for them.

Map coverage is certainly limited at the moment and a quick check of my area shows some pretty questionable road choices – and no trails. Google Bike Maps may also be of limited to use to mountain bikers for another reason:

Many cyclists will tell you that going downhill is annoying for a different reason: you may have to ride your brakes all the way down. All else equal, we try to avoid routes that require a lot of braking.

Ahem, downhill is annoying? Clearly we disagree and our bike trail maps (covering almost 10,000 miles of trails) will continue to include the good stuff . Watch the video with more info about Google’s bike mapping project.

If you read our review of the Garmin Colorado 400t last month you know the latest Garmin GPS units allow you to load custom basemaps in KMZ format. Today we’re stoked to announce that we’ve created KMZ formatted files for all our Colorado trail maps (158 and counting) and are working feverishly to get the other states completed as well.

The cool thing about this new map format is that it’s not just for Garmin GPS units. We suspect it will only be a matter of time before you can view and navigate KMZ files on your iPhone and other smartphones (we’ll keep you posted). No smartphone or GPS? If you have Google Earth (free download) you can view KMZ files like the map of Captain Jack’s above and there are other desktop programs that are KMZ-friendly as well.

We’re stoked about the latest trail mapping tech and are committed to giving you options for using your singletracks map data. Stay tuned for more this spring!

This week we added the 700th mountain bike trail map to singletracks and it’s amazing to see how many people are riding with GPS units these days compared to just a couple years ago. Officially singletracks members have mapped 706 trails covering 8,409 trail miles and 1.5 million feet of climbing (!). Assuming someone could ride each trail at an average speed of 9mph it would take a person nearly 40 days of continuous riding to cover all the trails. Of course you’d need to factor in some travel time since the mapped trails span 4 continents!

We’re constantly working to improve the map data and just yesterday we rolled out new and improved elevation profiles on all the maps (see the image above). Even bigger improvements are in the works including high res maps and easier GPS data uploads/downloads.

Don’t forget we’re giving away $10 HuckNRoll.com coupons with every subscription purchase this month while supplies last. Now is a great time to upgrade your membership to take advantage of this amazing resource!

Most MTB trail maps by state

Colorado: 136 maps
California: 86 maps
Georgia: 53 maps
North Carolina: 53 maps
Wyoming: 37 maps

On Wednesday we announced our project to pinpoint singletracks trails on a Google Map and we’re stoked to report that we’ve received nearly 100 trails locations in just 36 hours – keep ‘em coming! Other cool features that were added this week:

• New trail map interface. Trail maps still look *mostly* the same but we’ve added a tab that allows you to view tracks and waypoints on an interactive Google Map in addition to the topo view (screen shot above). We’ve also cleaned up the look a bit and added a quick link to take you back to the trail listing page (don’t know why we didn’t do that sooner). Up next: improving the trail listing pages and adding more trail map download options…
• Video comments and ratings: Yep, now you can rate and comment on YouTube, Vimeo, and Broadband Sports videos without leaving singletracks. We’ve also added support for more video services like Viddler and VHoldR.
• Good news for lurkers: now you can share your two cents on our MTB gear reviews without signing up for a (free) singletracks account. The tradeoff: guest reviews will be moderated before they’re posted and you won’t receive any contribution points for your efforts.

That’s it for now, thanks to everyone for their feedback and help with all the new stuff. Ride hard this weekend!

It’s the feature request we hear most often: offer a searchable (Google) map of mountain bike trailhead locations on singletracks. We love the idea ourselves but it turns out it’s a little complicated since most mountain bike trails don’t have street addresses (no mailboxes either – strange).

Anyway… We need your help! We just added a function that lets you pinpoint MTB trail locations on a Google Map – it’s simple and should only take a second. The good news is that we already have a head start from the 600+ trails with GPS data plus another 100 trails we’ve located ourselves. The bad news is that’s still just 25% of the entire singletracks trail catalog and we figure it really doesn’t make sense to put up state maps until at least 50% of the trails have been located.

There are no contribution points this time around and it’s not a contest – it’s a goodwill, help out the community kind of thing (though we reserve the right to randomly reward folks with gear from the schwag bag ).  Once we locate 50% of the trail catalog we’ll post new and improved maps for finding and viewing MTB trails. In the meantime you’ll be able to get driving directions and view trailhead maps of those trails that have already been pinpointed.

We’ll keep everyone posted on the progress here on the blog and in the forums – maybe we should get one of those cartoon thermometers and fill it in as we go… Sweet.