“The International Trail Rating System or ITRS for short, is aimed to slowly replace the existing trail rating systems in the world for off-road cycling. By combining various existing systems and adding in any missing parameters, they aim to have a solid solution in place for grading bikeparks, purpose built features and obstacles, natural singletrack and anything in between. ” https://www.imbikemag.com/articles/issue76/itrs-slaying-the-trail-rating-dragon/
KingOfYourMountain on
I feel like this will lead towards the sanitization of trails as orgs and builders focus on designing a trail to fit a pre-defined difficulty vs building a trail based on the environment in which it is built.
The intentions are there but I don’t think it is practical.
Pre ride or walk. Re ride. Free ride. Much simpler and if you need any more help then what the locals define as easy, hard, difficult, etc then maybe mtb isn’t for you.
BubonicPython on
Very IMBA. Not a fan of how complicated it is.
Imagine seeing a map with all of this plastered on it. People are just going to ignore it.
If anything I’d rather see the “wilderness” and “exposure” ratings promoted as additional warnings rather than rated for every trail. Easier to implement–wouldn’t require replacing all of the signage for a trail system. Many regions also just have a baseline for how exposed or how deep in the wilderness all of the trails are.
My problem with “physical exertion” is that very different styles of trails could fall into each of those higher categories–a long downhill trail, a short and punchy XC trail–and is dependent on how accustomed a rider is to that discipline.
4 Comments
“The International Trail Rating System or ITRS for short, is aimed to slowly replace the existing trail rating systems in the world for off-road cycling. By combining various existing systems and adding in any missing parameters, they aim to have a solid solution in place for grading bikeparks, purpose built features and obstacles, natural singletrack and anything in between. ”
https://www.imbikemag.com/articles/issue76/itrs-slaying-the-trail-rating-dragon/
I feel like this will lead towards the sanitization of trails as orgs and builders focus on designing a trail to fit a pre-defined difficulty vs building a trail based on the environment in which it is built.
The intentions are there but I don’t think it is practical.
Pre ride or walk. Re ride. Free ride. Much simpler and if you need any more help then what the locals define as easy, hard, difficult, etc then maybe mtb isn’t for you.
Very IMBA. Not a fan of how complicated it is.
Imagine seeing a map with all of this plastered on it. People are just going to ignore it.
If anything I’d rather see the “wilderness” and “exposure” ratings promoted as additional warnings rather than rated for every trail. Easier to implement–wouldn’t require replacing all of the signage for a trail system. Many regions also just have a baseline for how exposed or how deep in the wilderness all of the trails are.
My problem with “physical exertion” is that very different styles of trails could fall into each of those higher categories–a long downhill trail, a short and punchy XC trail–and is dependent on how accustomed a rider is to that discipline.
IMBA trail rating. Boring to most boring.