Snow and winter biking need to be put in their own category.

[Bikermance]

As winter biking is starting to become far more common than it used to be they need their separate category from normal biking. Problem with segments is that some fairly rough segments become as smooth as asfalt in the winter time. So any such segment just becomes a winter segment as you can't match speeds in the dry season.

One idea is to use weather service data to determine when there was a snow cover of certain depth and thus marks for a snow/winter biking ride. For example first time depth hits 20cm snow cover you have snow biking for the rest of the winter. The snow cover compresses after that so depths below 20cm late winter will still cover any small to medium terrain shapes. 20cm is roughly what you need to start covering the features of a trail.

[Jan_Mantau]

There is no weather service that knows snow heights on specific trails and as every trail is different assumptions if or when a trail becomes smooth is guesswork.

For getting PRs and leaderboard positions choosing the optimal weather is part of the game and everybody has the same chance in it.

[anchskier]

I can see what you are talking about.  I live in Alaska where we have a lot of snowbiking.  I agree that some trails become faster in the winter, but others become slower.  It is all part of the segment game, picking when the best time is to challenge for a top segment time.  Just like road biking, you wouldn't expect to hit a KOM in a rain storm, but you wouldn't just create a whole new category for monsoon season riding, would you?  

As Jan_Mantau said, there really is no good way to identify when a trail is snow covered or not or whether it is a winter season or not.  Seasons change dramatically every year.  No way to do it by date since some years a place may have snow in October, others they may be riding on frozen dirt into the new year.  Same goes for the spring.  As far as using snow depth, there is even less reliability on tracking that.  Where I live, there is dramatically different snow conditions just across town.  There is no data tracking to know what the snow pack is on one side of town versus the other, so who gets the shaft?  We could have dirt on one side of town and a foot of snow on the other.  

I really hope they do not separate the segments for different types of biking.  Personally, I like the idea of planning out when to make a KOM attempt.  I know some trails aren't touchable in the summer, so I seek out those fast, spring snow conditions to take a rip.  Likewise, I know others are much faster on a MTB in the summer, so won't bother attempting them in the winter (at least not for a KOM).  It keeps things interesting.  

[Jane]

Your idea has been shared with the product team. Right now, we aren't exploring the possibility of adding/implementing this feature, and your suggestion will be archived.  Please understand that we  receive a very high volume of feature requests, and only those that align with our current focus can be considered.  Thank you for taking the time to submit your idea and we look forward to your continued engagement in the Community Hub

[Bikermance]

There are plenty of weather services that track snow depth over areas. So to assume that an individual trail needs to be monitored is a baffling idea. There absolutely is in depth snow depth data widely available.

No it's not like road biking at all. The piece of asfalt is the same regardless of what weather you ride it in. When a trail is a snow trail it's not the same at all in the winter as it is in the summer. It sounds like you've never really ridden trails like this to make those false comparisons. No it does not keep things interesting quite the opposite. It in pracitce deletes leaderboards for all technical segments and makes them winter only segments. There is nothing interesting about that. This isn't the same as picking a windy day or the right temperature. This is fundamentally riding a completely different trail. If you want to compare it to something then it would be like doing a road segment in a car or doing a trail segment next to a road on the road, so not riding the intended segment at all. It's not the same at all riding on smooth snow practically same as asfalt vs. a rooty trail in the summer.

And yes there is quite an obvious way to determine when snow cover becomes deep enough to erase most trail features as I already explained. It's a false assumption that there needs to be such an indepth reporting that you determine each trail individually. You just set a boundary value for when an area switches from summer to winter. As I already stated in the first place once snow hits 20cm for the first time that year. Or whatever depth number around that.

And also no it's not some segments it's the majority of segments that anyone bothers to stomp down for winter riding.