Shenandoah MTB Coalition makes Day Pass sales super easy

HARRISONBURG, VA – Shenandoah Valley Mountain Bike Coalition (SVBC) announced exciting news for summer visitors to their mountain bike trails on the western slope of Massanutten Mountain.  Day Passes to ride the trails can now be bought with the LuvTrails mobile app, reducing the current cumbersome paper-based process to a few easy taps on a mobile device.

The LuvTrails App (iOS and Android) was developed and launched earlier this year to help local non-profit trail organizations to get more donations from users of their trails to help fund the volunteer trail work they do year round on public and private land.

The App lists participating trail organizations and alert users to local trails with the help of the geolocation function of the mobile phone. It then links those listed trails to the relevant local trail organization which is responsible for building and maintenance of those trails. The donations go directly to the beneficiary organization.

SVBC has identified a unique problem it had with rogue mountain bikers riding without passes on their trails on private land on the Western Slope. The landowner required riders to sign a liability waiver when they buy a pass. Having no physical presence at the trailhead, SVBC relied on riders’ honesty to log in to a website to buy a  trail pass, sign a waiver in a separate process, and then submit everything to the SVBC admin office, where the whole process is filed days after the actual ride took place.

The alternative was to go to a local bike shop miles away from the trailhead (none of the bike shops are open on a Sunday) to buy a day pass and sign a waiver. That process required SVBC to physically collect that information and money from the shops. These disparate processes just to get a day pass from a visiting rider had become totally out of touch with the reality of how users nowadays process payments and pay for access. It also did not help to discourage rogue riding.

Instead, LuvTrails App makes this whole process very easy. You sign the liability waiver in the app, complete the payment with a credit card, and receive the electronic receipt and waiver via email with a copy in the App as proof of sale. SVBC back office gets rider information in real time to monitor access and traffic on the trails. Day pass administration became a super easy process.

An added benefit of encouraging people to use the LuvTrails App is that SVBC can, like all other trail organizations, encourage people to donate in the App as well. The App is perfectly suited to get riders to make small donations to trail volunteers that look after the trails they love to ride. All of this could be processed on or off the trails.

Several other trails and organizations in western Virginia and the Shenandoah Valley – from Johnson City, TN in the south to Harrisonburg – are already listed for donations in the App.

LuvTrails invite all non-profit trail organizations countrywide to get their trails listed. It is a very easy process and they could be receiving public donations within days.

SVBC encourages visitors to the region to use the App and give them feedback. See the SVBC announcement here.