TrailACT— Trail Assessment and Construction Tools

For attendees of the 2026 Sustainable Trails Conference in Boise, Idaho: link

TrailACT builds physics-based assessment and design tools for trail construction. Trail builders, bike park designers, and engineers get repeatable, auditable decisions instead of guesswork.

Every TACT tool declares its scope explicitly: what it models, what it computes, what it excludes, and why. Results are physics-derived, not estimated. Identical inputs always produce identical outputs.

The first tool in the suite is BASE-Bf — a physics simulation engine for designing and assessing bike jumps, drops, and rollers. BASE-Bf generates geometry grounded in real G-force limits and rider physics, produces risk metrics like Equivalent Fall Height, and exports blueprint-scale DXF and PDF files ready for construction planning.

This is trailology: trail science, or trail empiricism, used to “engineer” resources to inform design and build decisions using math and rider feedback to help drive the craft. From Darwin to Sagan, to ‘Bucky’ Fuller, science is bigger than just measurements and knowledge. Science is the frame, the detail, and the picture inside is the awe, the fascination, the experience, the success, the failure, the experiences and explorations. These drive the creating and learning processes of a trail science that we can share with others. Living in the frame and in the tradition of learning to ask questions is what helps create something beautiful and smart.

The bigger things or big picture is harder to measure, or can’t be, but if the baseline uses some science maybe that’s all trail science needs.

• Know the score, do the math, then make art.

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.

Aldous Huxley