No matter what you want to do, from being a better mountain biker to learning how to code, you’ve gotta practice. Practice is what takes natural talent and amplifies it! But practice also takes a complete lack of natural talent and makes up for it! So when you feel like you’ve reached a plateau while you’re trying to improve, you should learn the art of deliberate practice!

With the massive influx of new mountain bikers, I thought we could all use a quick refresher on trail etiquette for both riders and builders. In this video, I talk about why secret trails matter, how we can protect them, and offer tips for both riders and builders.

Strava is fantastic for ride data, especially to those who are training or just obsessed with the numbers. But, a feature on the app, called the Heatmap, is attracting too much attention to secret spots. While the Strava Heatmap is awesome for hunting down new places to ride, hike and ski, it can also bring too much traffic into very fragile areas. If you’re not careful, even you may be the one to doom the spot by accidentally attracting the wrong person into secret trail terrain! With great power comes great responsibility, so as tempting as it may be to use Strava freely, do trail builders and locals a favor by updating your privacy settings on the app.