Trailforks Badges Help & Instructions

This guide provides detailed instructions on how to create and configure Trailforks badges. Badges are a great way to engage the community by creating fun challenges. All badges can be regional, which is a great way to involve and motivate local riders.

While the ability to create badges is not available to all users, region admins can create badges for their area. Global Trailforks admins can create badges in their regions.

Badges are closely tied to the Trailforks Contests. If you are interested in running a contest, please contact us at [email protected].

You can find the basic instuctions for creating a badge on this help page. For detailed information on all the badge options, read on below.

Main Badge Info

These are the basic properties of your badge.

Badge Name

The public name of the badge. Keep it concise and descriptive.

Description

A detailed explanation of the badge, what it's for, and how to earn it. This supports BBCode for rich text formatting.

Icon

A square image for the badge, at least 600x600px is recommended. A Photoshop template is available, and we strongly recommend using PNG format with transparent background.

Criteria

This is the core of the badge, defining what a user must do to earn it. You must first select a Criteria Type.

Be careful about selecting different/advanced combinations of criteria, as some combinations may be impossible to meet. For example if you specify a "Ride Count" criteria, and also select "Single Ride", that combination cannot be met. Use common sense when combining criteria and make the badge easy to understand for users.

  • Activity based: The badge is awarded based on user ride data (e.g., distance, trails ridden).
  • Contributions to Trailforks: The badge is awarded for adding content to Trailforks (e.g., trails, photos, trail reports).
  • Achievement: A special type for personal achievements that don't use standard criteria ("personal best"). These badges are currently only available for global Trailforks admins.

Activity Based Criteria

These criteria are evaluated against a user's recorded activities.

Activity Types

Restrict the badge to specific activity types, like Mountain Biking or Hiking. Multiple types can be selected.

Single Ride

If checked, all criteria (distance, climb, trails, etc.) must be met within a single recorded activity.

Exclude Bike Parks

If checked, activities that take place in a bike park or use a chairlift will not count towards earning the badge.

Date Range (Start/End)

Define a time window during which the badge can be earned. This is great for events or seasonal challenges. Leave blank for a badge that is always available.

Trails & Routes

  • Trail IDs: Specify a list of trails that must be ridden. You can use the trail lookup tool to find and add trails.
  • Route IDs: Specify a list of routes that must be ridden. Similar to trail lookup too, you can look up specific routes.

Difficulty

Use in combination with Trail count goal to require a certain number of trails of specified difficulties to be ridden.

Ride Stats

These numerical goals can be combined with other criteria.

  • Trail count goal: The number of unique trails that must be ridden.
  • Distance: Total distance in meters.
  • Climb: Total elevation gain in meters.
  • Descent: Total elevation loss in meters.
  • Time moving: Total moving time in minutes.
  • Ride count goal: The number of separate activities a user must complete. Only one ride per day is counted.

Advanced Activity Options

  • Ride Stats Criteria Apply to Entire Ride: If you want to count stats like distance and climb only for the selected trails, uncheck this box. Otherwise the whole activity will count towards the badge goal.
  • Criteria Per Ride: Use this with "Ride count goal". When checked, each ride that counts towards the goal must individually meet the other specified criteria (like distance or climb).
  • Consecutive Ride Count Days: When checked, the rides for a "Ride count goal" must be on consecutive days.

Contribution Based Criteria

These criteria are based on a user's contributions to the Trailforks database.

  • Add Photos/Reports/etc.: Set a required number of contributions for various content types like photos, videos, trail reports, and more. It is possible to combine multiple criteria.
  • Date Range (Start/End): Just like with activity badges, you can limit the time frame for contributions.
  • Location: You can restrict the badge to contributions made within a specific geographic region.

Location

Define a geographical area where the activity must take place. You can set this to be Global or restrict it to a specific country, province, city, or riding area. When Global checkbox is checked, the location selections will be ignored.

Miscellaneous Settings

Active

The badge must be active to be earnable. You can deactivate a badge to temporarily disable it without deleting it.

Repeatable

If checked, a user can earn this badge multiple times.

Featured

Featured badges may be highlighted on the site. This is typically an admin-only option.

Points

Assign a point value (0-5) to the badge, which can be used for user rankings or contests.

Admin & Publishing

Published

The badge must be published to be visible to users. Uncheck this to keep it as a draft.