Single track (mountain biking)

The term single trail is a path that is so narrow that you can not drive or walk next to each other there. First, he was used in the field of mountain bike sport, lately he is also used in the field of trail running. In general, single-track trails are about 30 to 60 cm wide. Often a trail is designated by the term that is used for mountain biking or trail running. Since single trails have quite different levels of difficulty, there are some approaches to classification, analogous to the difficulty scales when climbing.

In English, the single trail is called Singletrack.

Environmental impact

Trails are an integral part of national parks and forests and necessary to ensure access to and maintenance of remote areas. In areas of higher visitor interest to concentrate the impact on the smallest possible area and can help to keep particularly sensitive areas from harmful influences.

Although most of the trails were originally designed for hikers, shows the majority of the studies conducted on this topic that hardly distinguish the environmental impacts of mountain biking on trails from those of hiking and well below the harmful effects of riders.

Widespread consequences of improper use of trails by hikers, bikers and horse riders can be:

• Vegetation loss
• Compaction of topsoil
• Soil erosion
• Change in the flow behavior of precipitation
• Adverse change in the conditions surrounding habitats
• Disturbance and permanent displacement of the resident fauna

Another often observed effect is the creation of new trails to circumvent particularly impaired, such as muddy or eroded, sections. This medium results in a widening of the area occupied, and a gain of the above-mentioned effects.