The Wellington Park Management Trust is using data from fitness app Strava to track illegal mountain bike trails being cut through protected bushland on Hobart’s kunanyi/Mount Wellington.
Four significant pieces of illegal track work have been uncovered in the park in less than 12 months – two reported by riders who spotted them on Strava and two found by rangers themselves.
Ben Masterman, education and regulations coordinator at the trust, described the uptick as a worrying trend.
He said unauthorised tracks show up when riding activity is layered over the park’s official trail network.
Strava is a fitness tracking app that allows users to record, share and compare activities such as running, cycling and hiking.
“If you switch it to cycling, you can see where the heat map line deviates from the track line because there’s an overlay of all tracks and trails and fire trails and roads,” he told Pulse.
“If you can see these little ghosty lines heading off into the wild blue yonder, you can think, ‘Hmm, somebody’s been riding that.'”
Masterman said the lines only appear once a certain number of riders use a route, and grow bolder with more traffic.
“If you look at Pinnacle Road, it’s lit up like a Christmas tree, but if you look carefully, you can see these much fainter lines like blood vessels, like little capillaries almost,” he said.
“This is the first time in all those years I’ve had two people contact us and say, ‘Hey, have you noticed this?'” he said of the public reports.
Masterman, who has been a ranger for around 17 years, said the illegal trails cause erosion, disturb animal habitat and fragment the bush in ways that disrupt how wildlife feeds and breeds.
He said the damage also risks turning the broader community against future mountain bike developments in the park.
“We understand that maybe there’s a bit of ignorance and innocence,” he said, stressing offenders are a tiny minority.
The trust is now working with well-known riders and mountain bike figures to spread the message and encourage self-policing within the community.
Masterman said the goal is to spark a “grown-up, robust conversation” and encourage riders to self-police.
The mountain draws more than 500,000 visitors each year.
