bike GPS apps & sites

[mack_turtle]

I was asking about bike computers last week and I bought a Wahoo Bolt. I also have a Garmin watch that serves as a GPS route tracker for shorter rides when I know exactly where I am going, as well as a HR monitor that syncs with the Bolt. I was looking at the apps on my phone and I feel like i have a severe glut of tech now! I would not call myself a minimalist, but I don't like having extra stuff bogging me down.

• Garmin Connect syncs with my watch records and organizes my activities that are recorded on the watch. I can also change the settings and the order of the screens on my phone with this. this seems essential.
• Garmin IQ is where I can get new apps and stuff for my watch. seems a bit superfluous as I don't need a "back to the future skin" on my watch. this might go away because I have not changed anything on my watch in a long time.
• Strava is the Facebook for riding. I like the social aspect of seeing what other people are doing on their bikes. I can save other people's routes as favorites and download the GXP files and hopefully put them on the Bolt for navigation. I use this enough to be worthwhile, even if I only use the free version.
• Trailforks has some really detailed maps of trail systems with trail names, including trails that are "not official." I wonder if I can jettison this one from my phone. in the past, I've used it to navigate unfamiliar trails by pulling my phone out of it's safe hiding place. that's kind of a drag and why I bought the Bolt. it's pretty darn nice, even just the free version.
• Wahoo app- I set up the Bolt with this initially but I don't know if I need it because I have...
• Wahoo Elemnt app: I think this is what really allows my phone to talk with my Bolt. I should be able to upload and export map files to the Bolt from my phone. I am sure this is essential.
• My fitness Pal: this is Under Armor's fitness tracking app. I was mostly using it because I can enter foods that I eat to know if I am overstuffing myself with calories on a lazy day. it syncs with Garmin to determine approximately how many calories I spent on activities. I rarely have take the time to enter foods anymore and I have a pretty good sense of when I am being a glutton.
• Ride With GPS (RWGPS): I don't keep the app for this on my phone, but I use the mapping feature with a free account on my desktop computer often. It as several useful layers of maps that show a surprising amount of trails. you can string together a route and get a darn accurate idea of distance and elevation. the line will snap to known routes accurately most of the time, and when it fails, you can just draw lines. then you can export the GPS file and use it on other devices.
• Komoot: honestly, I don't know what this does. someone told me I needed it. Do I?
• Gaia GPS: I have not tried this one yet and I don't know if it's useful. Supposedly it competes with Komoot and similar services.

That's a lot of stuff to keep track of. something has to go!

I wrote these down partially to assess what I am doing, and also to discuss what everyone else is using. props to you if you're a curmudgeon who just rides and navigates by sticking a moist finger in the air! for the rest of us techno sapiens, what's in your navigation/tracking arsenal? what is the bare minimum? what works best? what did you try and find to be not worth the processing power?

Edited March 10, 2021 by mack_turtle

[AntonioGG]

Garmin Connect replaced ride with GPS for me as far as mapping.

My fitness pal I only used for when we had to log stuff (steps, workouts) for work in order to get healthcare credits.  As soon as they stopped requiring that I got rid of it.

Strava, I'm with you on this.

Trailforks I've only started using it recently, but did run into some issues with its maps of RPR.

[mack_turtle]

29 minutes ago, AntonioGG said:

Garmin Connect replaced ride with GPS for me as far as mapping.

I have not tried using Connect for mapping, just tracking what I just did. Did you say you're using a Garmin bike computer too? that might make a difference.

Texas government agencies have a program called Get Fit Texas. for a few months, you're supposed to track your active minutes. the agency that has the most consistent record for getting off their butts 150 minutes per week gets a reward. they have a way to sync it to Fitbit but no other programs. linking health insurance to activity could be problematic, but it seems like a good idea. it seems that people who can and do stay active ideally should not pay as much for health insurance.

addendum: whoa! I just discovered that Garmin has a route-making map function. this is new to me. might replace RWGPS. thanks!

Edited March 10, 2021 by mack_turtle

[AntonioGG]

My wife works for the state so I logged my hours to help her agency move up since spouses were allowed to participate...but they were not the best.  TCEQ I think had a dominant lead.  That was months ago and she changed agencies and hasn't asked me to log any more.

[Barry]

I like Strava's route builder pretty well. And it helps that you can overlay your personal heat map and/or the global heat map. And you can set preferences for maximizing or minimizing elevation. And you can set preferences for paved or unpaved paths. But I don't particularly like using Strava for navigation. And the act of route building is a bit cumbersome other than the advantage of those preferences. 

RideWithGPS works amazingly well for navigation, with turn by turn like Google Maps. And while it doesn't appear to have mapping preference settings like Strava, it isn't quite so cumbersome to use as a route builder. 

Another one is Caltopo, which @schoolie has used with great success. But I've only used it to download his files. 

I did try Garmin Connect once. I don't recall why I dismissed it. I'll give it another shot. 

 

[CBaron]

I'm a navigation neanderthal under normal circumstances.  I just began riding with Strava about 4 yrs ago and just primarily as a tracker of my activity (and social tool [I'm not on FB]).  When traveling to CO or places in the past I used a good old fashioned paper map.  But more recently in the past few years I've found a fondness for Trail Forks.  I began with MTB Project, but found it lacking a good bit.  But TF was very nice for my use case.  This past Fall I spent weeks out in CO and Utah riding solo on new (to me) trails and it never let me down.  I've used it in NM and Bentonville with great success too.  Locally, I hard ever pull my phone out of my pocket so YMMV there.

I think its worth mentioning that all my navigation is from my phone which is kept in my pocket.  I pull it out to check directions/navigation and put it back.  I see that your wanting something to assist you with a constant feedback head unit type functionality.  So my experiences may not prove useful

Later,
CJB

[TheX]

This is an area that the Hammerhead Karoo excels in. 

[mack_turtle]

26 minutes ago, CBaron said:

I think its worth mentioning that all my navigation is from my phone which is kept in my pocket.  I pull it out to check directions/navigation and put it back.  I see that your wanting something to assist you with a constant feedback head unit type functionality.  So my experiences may not prove useful

Indeed I do. I used the phone-in-the-pocket for a while and riding some trails forces me to stop every 50 feet to check the map. the western reaches of Barton Creek are like that. I feel like I am missing a lot of interesting terrain because I turn too soon or take the second left instead of the right turn right before it. you know, the one by the tree after the three rights and four lefts you skip after that one drop... it gets old fast. I'll see how TF meshes with my Bolt for those purposes though.

I have 99.9% of SATN saved in my head now, but I don't often ride anything new because stopping all the time to figure out how to not get lost, or to find the "good" stuff is exhausting.

I busted out the OLD Iphone 4S the other day to see if I can put any nav apps on it and it seems to be a brick now. the iOS version is too old. it probably needs to be repurposed as a dashcam or something. too large for me to want to put it on my bike anyways.

Edited March 10, 2021 by mack_turtle

[Barry]

Since the battery lasts forever (with data off) and it's tiny, I use my work iPhone for heavy navigation duty. I'll put it in my pocket if I'm not constantly navigating, but I make great use of it on a bar mounted Quadlock. RideWithGPS doesn't even need the screen on to lead me on a road route. 

Edited March 10, 2021 by Barry
Rode road wrode

[Shanerpvt]

1 hour ago, TheX said:

This is an area that the Hammerhead Karoo excels in. 

Seems like Karoo is the best display and turn by turn, what is the best way to load trails/routes on a Karoo?

 

thanks,

Shaner

[TheX]

1 hour ago, Shanerpvt said:

Seems like Karoo is the best display and turn by turn, what is the best way to load trails/routes on a Karoo?

Log in to the dashboard and create/import/etc. The routes show up on the device automatically.

[mack_turtle]

I'm having pretty good luck so far by just finding routes that others have ridden in Strava (free version), and saving them as one of my own routes. I can't edit those routes with any detail, but I can give each one a name. Since Strava is linked to Wahoo, all those routes show up on my Bolt without any additional drama. I think I can make routes from scratch using RWGPS and connect them. I can create routes on Garmin Connect but it appears that I can't link those to Wahoo. I'll keep playing with it.

[Shanerpvt]

1 minute ago, mack_turtle said:

I'm having pretty good luck so far by just finding routes that others have ridden in Strava (free version), and saving them as one of my own routes. I can't edit those routes with any detail, but I can give each one a name. Since Strava is linked to Wahoo, all those routes show up on my Bolt without any additional drama. I think I can make routes from scratch using RWGPS and connect them. I can create routes on Garmin Connect but it appears that I can't link those to Wahoo. I'll keep playing with it.

If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose the Wahoo over the Karoo?  Are any of the Garmin devices good at turn by turn?

 

I am kinda in the same boat you are.  Trying to sort this complicated world out.

 

[mack_turtle]

1 minute ago, Shanerpvt said:

If you don’t mind me asking, why did you choose the Wahoo over the Karoo?  Are any of the Garmin devices good at turn by turn?

 

I am kinda in the same boat you are.  Trying to sort this complicated world out.

 

Mostly, the Karoo costs nearly twice as much. I was choosing between the Garmin Edge 530 and the Bolt because they are similar in price and features, but it seems like the Bolt is easier to work with and has fewer superfluous features. b&w screen and no silly metrics like "grit score."

[TheX]

If price is a determining factor, the Karoo isn't it. I have both Karoo versions, I like them now that the software has been refactored and the UI changed. You can sideload apps also.

[Shanerpvt]

@mack_turtle & @TheX,  thank you both for your thoughts on this!

 

Cheers,

Shaner

[mack_turtle]

Shakedown ride went well. I saved someone else's Strava  route from yesterday and the Bolt made it available. Started my ride from home and pedaled to the starting point.I know how to navigate these trails but there are always 100 possible routes and I wanted to see if it would help me follow a very specific route.

The map on my stem was easy enough to see but not in a twisty segment of trail. The GPS kept up with my progress as expected. I took a wrong turn and decided to follow it anyways. The right side zoom out buttons helped me find my way back.

My only annoyance is that, when you turn on "auto pause," the screen tells you so by taking up half the display with that message.

If you pause for two seconds at a trail crossing to confirm which way to turn, the map gets blocked so you can't do that. It took just a second to turn off that feature using the phone app. I don't really need to auto pause my ride, but if I did, that would get old fast.

Edited March 11, 2021 by mack_turtle

[taco_junkie]

At least on my older Wahoo pressing page once would get rid of the auto-pause notification and not actually change the page you are on letting you read the page you are on while stopped. YMMV.