Hiking trails with RC

[Saito2]

One facet of running my Tamiyas I've not yet tried is taking one along for a walk on a hiking trail. Watching videos, hearing about others doing it plus my inability to sell my CR01 have given me the inspiration to give it a go. I normally run on deserted ball fields or playgrounds far from any people. When folks with kids do show up, I pack up and leave. Obviously, this isn't quite the same as a hiking trail. I know I'll share the trail with fellow hikers, dog walkers, even the occasional mountain biker or horseback rider. Anything I should be aware of in these situations other than "get out of the way"? My wife and I generally avoid people at all cost but always strive to be very courteous when necessary.

[Juls1]

I’ve always run my scale trail rigs on Mtb trails. Downhill tracks are often a lot of fun. 

Just keep your ears peeled and keep out of the way. 

[Kingfisher]

My girlfriend and I sometimes run ours on hiking trails. I have the CC01 and she has an Axial. At walking pace, I can run it with one hand. If we see a "crawler" type obstacle, we stop walking and tackle it with the cars. If bicycles are known to be on the trail, don't let the car get too far ahead of you on corners. You never know when someone on a bike is racing through. 

[Effigy3]

I've run the trails with my CC-01, my wife with her MF-01X and my son with his Axial Deadbolt.  They have hikers, runners, mountain bikers, and horseback riders.  Most people are extremely courteous.  the mountain bikers can sneak up on us though.  They can move at quite a clip too so Kingfisher's advice about not letting the cars get too far ahead is sound.

[WillyChang]

I bought some wifi receivers some time ago (around when WildOne got rere'd)... they're proving quite handy for driving singlehanded via smartphone  especially slow crawlers.

I set mine to throttle via slider on touchscreen (use thumb) and the steering via gyro sensor (it doesn't self-centre).

Next step is self-driving follow me mode  but sadly my arduino/Pi skills are nonexistent so that might take a while... and me wondering what's the point of having an autonomous RC toy  

[Phil5556]

2 hours ago, Juls1 said:

I’ve always run my scale trail rigs on Mtb trails. Downhill tracks are often a lot of fun. 

Just keep your ears peeled and keep out of the way. 

I really wouldn't be impressed if I came round a corner on my bike to find someone playing with their toy car in the middle of the trail.

Dog walkers are bad enough to contend with.

 

Yes I have a dog and toy cars but there's a time and place.

[Juggular]

lol..

I was like "man, maybe I should take my converted TLT crawler to a trail."  Then Bam!  After Phil's comment, I'm laughing and thinking, "yep, maybe trails aren't the best place." 

We occasionally ride bicycles, but mostly we walk with our dog.  But if the trail is quiet, and if you keep the car within 3 feet in front?  That wouldn't be much different from a dog on a leash (invisible radio leash ).  If you hear "on your left," from behind, you pull in the (radio) leash and stay on your right.  A rider coming up from behind you won't even see what's 3 foot in front of you.  But if somebody sits on a log and take up a patch of the trail as a personal sandbox? That wouldn't be cool.  

[nde63h]

7 hours ago, Saito2 said:

One facet of running my Tamiyas I've not yet tried is taking one along for a walk on a hiking trail. Watching videos, hearing about others doing it plus my inability to sell my CR01 have given me the inspiration to give it a go. I normally run on deserted ball fields or playgrounds far from any people. When folks with kids do show up, I pack up and leave. Obviously, this isn't quite the same as a hiking trail. I know I'll share the trail with fellow hikers, dog walkers, even the occasional mountain biker or horseback rider. Anything I should be aware of in these situations other than "get out of the way"? My wife and I generally avoid people at all cost but always strive to be very courteous when necessary.

i usually play my rc car at pavements. yesterday i took it to the hiking trail. it was fun. 

[shenlonco]

It's something awesome and very fun to do I been doing before 2000! check out some of my youtube videos SHEN RC on youtube.

 

 

[Effigy3]

15 hours ago, WillyChang said:

Next step is self-driving follow me mode  but sadly my arduino/Pi skills are nonexistent so that might take a while... and me wondering what's the point of having an autonomous RC toy  

1

Google auto-drive on a Tamiya CC-01.  Fun mental exercise or a lot of work for nothing?  You decide!

[78Triumph]

Horseback riding trails have some unique “mud” type obstacles you may want to avoid. 

[Juggular]

19 minutes ago, 78Triumph said:

Horseback riding trails have some unique “mud” type obstacles you may want to avoid. 

Oh, is it the stinky "mud" with some straws sticking out from?     

[Biz73]

I'd be mad if I was on a walking trail and some bike came flying around a corner.

Yes, I have a bike. There's a time and place for that.

[nowinaminute]

I'm lucky in a way because the little South Wales valley I live in is literally covered with trails. From the farming, former mining industry and logging too. There's tons of interesting walks around the place with varying degrees of gradient etc.

For the time being, there's also still the site of a former mine which was later just a coal washery and although they took all the buildings down in the 80's they haven't developed it so there's a nice mixture of terrain, the concrete building bases are still there spread out on various levels with steep slops between and various dirt paths, concrete paths, old roads and even a path going right up the mountain side where the conveyor system used to carry spoils up to the tip.

[racer1]

23 hours ago, Saito2 said:

 

I frequently take a car to the trails. The Path we generally walk on is paved 7.7 mile loop. My Stock Grasshopper 2 with a the 380 and a 5200 Mah pack can generally make the entire trip at walking pace which is good so I don't have to carry the darn thing. It's also durable enough that I haven't broken anything in a dozen trips or almost a 100 miles. 

People are generally interested in the cars but I do get the occasional weird look from someone wondering why a grown man is playing with a toy car.  Couple of things I've learned

 1 - Keep the car at a walking pace near you unless you can see that you have clear open path.

 2 - When Bikes are around pull the car off the trail and stop to let them pass.

 3 - When Dogs are around STOP running the car until the dog is out of range even if this means stopping for a minute to wait. People really hate when their dog goes nuts because of you car.  The Smaller the dog the more annoyed they get. 

Beyond that, just be courteous to everyone and keep the car out of the way and people will be ok with you.  I can't tell you how many times I've been stopped and asked questions on the car. 

[Juls1]

All the tracks near me are multi use. Bikes don’t have any exclusive rights to anything. I’ve ridden mountain bikes my whole life and when you ride in the bush you share the trail with walkers and any other person who has the same right to use the state Forrest as a place of Leisure. 

Obviously don’t run your RC car on a race track when a race is on or at a park with chairlifts designed specifically have millions of mountain bikers flying down it.

its common sense really. Where I live as a mountain biker if your not prepared to share the trails in state Forrest’s and national parks then we lose the right to use them at all. 

Trail driving is great fun and you can easily walk 10-15km with even realizing you’ve done it. 

[Phil5556]

4 hours ago, Juls1 said:

All the tracks near me are multi use. Bikes don’t have any exclusive rights to anything. I’ve ridden mountain bikes my whole life and when you ride in the bush you share the trail with walkers and any other person who has the same right to use the state Forrest as a place of Leisure. 

Obviously don’t run your RC car on a race track when a race is on or at a park with chairlifts designed specifically have millions of mountain bikers flying down it.

its common sense really. Where I live as a mountain biker if your not prepared to share the trails in state Forrest’s and national parks then we lose the right to use them at all. 

Trail driving is great fun and you can easily walk 10-15km with even realizing you’ve done it. 

Fair enough but you didn't make it sound like shared trails when you said downhill MTB trails. If you're on a dedicated trail then you should expect it to be clear with nothing coming to meet you other than other bikes. Shared trails are a whole different matter.

[Juls1]

Yeah sorry for the misunderstanding, even our downhill race tracks are just built in the national forrest. Bunting goes up for race day. It’s gone for the rest of the year, on any weekend there might be 5 riders doing shuttles for a few times, rest of the time it’s pretty much deserted.

I realise in other parts of the world you have dedicated facility’s for mountain bikes, of which you wouldn’t want to go trail driving there that’s for certain because the traffic would be way too high. 

Since our downhill tracks are more natural (few if any man made sections) they make crazy good trail driving tracks both going up and down. One of my locals is so steep you nearly can’t walk up it, when you stuff up a section your truck cartwheels down the mountain bouncing off trees for about 100m or more. My friends and I get a lot of laughs out of that, but none of us are carrying stocked roof racks. Probably be more careful if we where haha. 

[Biz73]

I didn't see Juls1's first comment about MTB trails, sorry Phil, I thought we were on the hiking trail subject. We have a lot of bikers that like to charge walking paths even though there are plenty of dedicated trails for them to ride. Around here, if you walk on MTB trails you are going to get hit by someone hauling booty because we have a very large bike community for the size of our population, definitely not a place for RC. Juls1 obviously has a different situation.