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Post by Deleted on Jul 11, 2014 7:10:17 GMT -7
Does anyone here use a smartphone app for mapping their cycling routes? If so which one is best? And is it useable for mountain biking?
Rather than buying an expensive dedicated GPS unit, I am looking to use the GPS function in our smartphones to track and map out trails in unmapped and unmarked forest areas. There are several large forest tracts around here which have up to 70 km of unmapped trails (maybe more...who knows?). Some pretty sweet riding in there, but there is such a maze of singletrack and logging trails that it's easy to get lost, especially on a cloudy day. Since at least one of us always has a phone along, it makes sense to use the built-in GPS, even if it's just stashed in a fanny pouch and pulled out when needed.
All of the apps I have looked at seem to be specific to road riding, mapping out country roads and city streets. If anyone has experience with this - maybe you are using such an app for road-only, but know that it can be used for mtn. - then I'd love to get some feedback. Especially useful would be down-loadable topo map function so the route taken could be overlaid on the map. Upload feature would be great too, so we can share and store ride data.
Cheers, and thanks in advance. Svend
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Post by superbman on Aug 2, 2014 5:33:28 GMT -7
Strava has become the 'iTunes' of biking apps. Can't fight the behemoth.
Strava 'heat maps' (google it) are the greatest tool for the 'trail explorer' to date…problematic in other ways to be sure..but I just added 20 new miles of Cape Cod mountain biking to my regular rides…
Strava is the answer.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 5, 2014 7:42:27 GMT -7
Hey Liam, thanks for getting back to me. I had not considered Strava because I had heard it could not be used for navigation, just tracking your ride in the background for later uploading and viewing on the Strava site. My daughter's boyfriend uses it, and perhaps he is not making use of all its functions(?), but he commented that it cannot display maps and location on the phone - just ride stats. What we are looking for is an app that can allow downloading of maps such as Google, show our present location on the map in real time, show our track ridden, and (if possible) show past rides so that we can find favourite loops again and show where we've been before. If Strava can do all that, then it would serve nicely. The Runtastic MTB Pro app seems to be a decent one, and for the hefty fee of $5 it might be worth a try.
That said, the Heat Maps from Strava are really something. I have already found a large loop in our favourite forest tract that I didn't know existed. If Strava can't be used for navigation, then we might just use it as a complementary app just for tracking and ride history.
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Post by JimRatliff on Aug 6, 2014 6:42:09 GMT -7
Svend: I haven't used it, but Maprika will do the overlay of your location on maps, but it's not a bike app and doesn't do any of the rest.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 7, 2014 20:18:36 GMT -7
Thanks Jim. I think we will try the Runtastic MTB app and see how it works out.
One issue that someone warned me about with iPhone GPS apps is data usage. We will have to see how a couple of 2 hour rides per month affects our data. Should be OK, but we are not big users of smartphone GPS functions so have little experience.
I will post back with how this works out. If we can avoid having to buy a dedicated GPS that we would use only infrequently, then I'd be happy.
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Post by JimRatliff on Aug 8, 2014 4:44:08 GMT -7
My experience with Waze and Google Maps is that battery is a bigger issue than data. The GPS is all processing local to the phone, so the only significant data usage is drawing the maps. In my case, most of our mountain biking trails don't have a cell or data signal, so that becomes a moot point. I do use Google Maps with the Traffic (or biking) overlays here in the city and data usage from that isn't significant.
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Post by livingproof on Aug 8, 2014 8:29:26 GMT -7
Thanks Jim. I think we will try the Runtastic MTB app and see how it works out. One issue that someone warned me about with iPhone GPS apps is data usage. We will have to see how a couple of 2 hour rides per month affects our data. Should be OK, but we are not big users of smartphone GPS functions so have little experience.I will post back with how this works out. If we can avoid having to buy a dedicated GPS that we would use only infrequently, then I'd be happy. Svend, With 2 teenage daughters, I imagine your data usage could be big time. I share a 10 gig plan with my wife, son and daughter-in-law. My son uses 80% of our allotment. Jim, not sure about GPS using phone only data. It's all phone data, but when the data goes to internet applications, such as GPS, then that should count as data. I'm not a big user of GPS, but, in my skiing app, the battery usage is an issue, but, skiing is an all day function. I may get a biking app, but, riding a 7 mile long island that is 1/2 mile wide, I don't need no stinkin app to tell me how slow I ride.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 8, 2014 11:24:48 GMT -7
Actually our daughters are pretty conscious of their data usage. One of the nice things about iPhones is that they track cumulative data usage. They check it regularly to make sure they don't go over limit. Most of their internet use is done while they are connected to wifi, either here at home or in a public zone. They are constantly scanning for public networks - malls, cafes, restaurants. Very considerate of them, ain't it? As an aside, most of their friends do this too, including at our house, and I am frequently asked to connect someone's smartphone to our home wifi. At any one time there can be a multiple such devices connected to our network...Crazy! Looking at the network map is pointless, trying to sort them all out.
The iPhone data tracking should be useful for when we ride -- just check data amounts pre- and post-ride, and see how much it burned up.
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Post by JimRatliff on Aug 8, 2014 15:24:24 GMT -7
Jim, not sure about GPS using phone only data. It's all phone data, but when the data goes to internet applications, such as GPS, then that should count as data. I'm not a big user of GPS, but, in my skiing app, the battery usage is an issue, but, skiing is an all day function. LP: I think I said it badly. Take Google maps with the Traffic overlay, for example. The Maps app is on the phone, so it's already loaded. When I open a map, it goes thru the data plan to download the map (if not cached) and the traffic information. But all of the updating of position is the GPS in the phone receiving directly from the satellite and that isn't data. Anyway, my experience with a hiking app that I tried to use for biking was that it used a lot of processor (and therefore, battery) keeping track of where we were on the trail. Data, at the Boy Scout camp, wasn't an issue because I didn't have any phone signal. YEMV (is that valid for "your experience may vary")? Jim PS. we don't use an app either, I have speedometer and cadence -- that's it.
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