One of the coolest features on singletracks that doesn’t get a lot of attention is the ability to “tag” gear and trail listings throughout the site. In talking with folks it seems tagging may be a little confusing at first so I thought I’d share a bit more about the concept.
What tagging does
Before we get into how to tag items I thought I’d show you what tagging can do. Say you’re looking for parts to upgrade your DH rig (tires, bars, wheels, etc.) – just hit up the gear tag page for ‘dh’:
Or say you’re tricking out your bike and want all red components:
Or you want to find a mountain bike with a scandium frame:
There are dozens of ways to categorize mountain bike gear and tagging is a great way to do it. Categorizing trails works just as well and goes beyond the simple singletrack/doubletrack designations with categories like ‘forest,’ ‘fast,’ and ‘rail trail.’
How to come up with tags
So now you’re convinced that tagging rocks and you want to know how to improve the gear and trail tags on singletracks. The key is choosing words that describe (adjectives for you grammarists) the gear or trail you’re tagging. So a good set of tags for the Kona Hei Hei 2-9 might be “scandium, 29er, fs, xc, am, black, lightweight.” If you were tagging a trail, say Slickrock in Moab, you might include “hot, fast, scenic, xc, desert.” Notice that each tag is separated by a comma and you can even use multi-word tags like “entry level” or “steep climbs.”
How to enter tags
Whether you’re on a gear or a trail page, the procedure is the same. Just click the tag link in the dashboard on the right side of the page and enter your comma-separated tags into the form field. You can also click the same link to delete tags by clicking the tiny ‘x’ icons (if you made a mistake) or to add more tags later.
Get busy!
The singletracks crew has been adding tags to gear and trail listings for a while now but clearly we can’t do it all alone (plus we’re not nearly creative enough to think of everything). The next time you’re cruising the gear or trail reviews, add a few descriptive tags and check out the tags others have created. Tag – you’re it!
