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Apps for Bicycle Directions

jakecoppinger.blog

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Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#71

Post by koyote »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #51
BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks and green lanes on a London -> Paris The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

> A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks and green lanes on a London -> Paris Yep. It's clear that Google Maps optimises for city riding and that's cool, but it does fall down badly on longer tours. To a large degree this is inevitable - only OSM actually has the level of surface quality information…

I plugged in some routes I am familiar with here (Sydney) and it did a great job at picking the roads/paths I would personally choose!

I do agree with 'overlordalex' on the 'Close Route' button. I couldn't find it at first and 'close' seems like a weird verb to use for 'clearing' the current route. Unless I am misunderstanding what the button is supposed to do. I would personally have a 'Clear' button somewhere close to the 'Get route' buttons (but then again I am no UI/UX expert :)).

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#72

Post by Naac »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #69
Naac wrote: post #23

It would be nice if in addition to free, it mentioned whether or not the app was FOSS. When I was searching a couple of years ago, there were no open source bike tracking android apps, and most of the "free" ones were trialware that popped up a subscription screen as soon as you tried to do anything complicated. Also, I love the use of the tag in this article.

Even two years ago, OSMAnd and Brouter were open source and available from the F-Droid repository.

Cool! I'll take a look at those. Back when I was looking, I was searching for something more bike specific.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#73

Post by jakecopp »

qnsi wrote: post #7
jakecopp wrote: post #2

I wrote this blog post as I'm often asked for a safe cycle route somewhere - hopefully you find this useful :D

I was so happy to read about citymapper. I was thinking I finally found cool app, one that lets me browse by safest path. sadly its not available in my city Warsaw, Poland :( Thank you for taking time

Ah no!

I'd try OSMAnd as the next best pick, it's extremely customizable and works on iOS and Android!

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#74

Post by jakecopp »

Fwirt wrote: post #33

I don't cycle, but my preferred mapping app is Locus Map. https://www.locusmap.eu/ It's packed with features, the track recording is solid, you can use a couple different online track providers or install brouter for offline routing, and the list of map tile providers is impressive. It seems to be targeted at Europe, but the US maps are excellent too. You can use OSM as a base layer (online, or pay ~$1 per state for…

Thanks for the recommendation, I'll look into it and add it to the table!

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#75

Post by jakecopp »

fredley wrote: post #43

[Disclosure: Citymapper employee] We’ve been working on improving walking, cycling and scooting recently, so it’s good to hear people are finding it useful! We recently added turn-by-turn and voice instructions (in early access as part of Citymapper Club) and we’re going to be continuing to make improvements over the coming months. Want to help out? Get in touch.

Sent you an email.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#76

Post by ako »

ar_turnbull wrote: post #66
putnambr wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I know you probably mean road cyclists, but I haven't seen Trailforks mentioned. Nothing beats it for singletrack route planning. Komoot is good too, but at least in my area of NA the elevation calculation is off by quite a bit. When I've used it for longer routes, I've ended up putting in at least 1,000 ft more of climbing than it has told me would be on the route. Trailforks doesn't have that problem. If you have a…

I've liked Komoot quite a bit for planning longer road bike loops in or near the city — surprised it hasn't taken off more but I suppose it's a pretty niche market. Integrates wirelessly with Wahoo bike computers (suck it Garmin haha) and is free for your local region too.

Agree, komoot is what I also use for planning. Shows all the different terrains, elevation, for different sports (mtb, road cycling, hiking).

I don’t ever use komoot for recording though, phone uses too much battery. Recording is done through a polar watch, synced to strava. Watch is also best for wind and kitesurfing, no need to bring a big expensive watch on the water.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#77

Post by hondo77 »

I use the bike route given by Google Maps as a starting point. Then I get into Street View so I can really see where I'll be riding. Is there a bike lane? How wide is the shoulder? What's the condition of the road? I like riding on roads with bike lanes or wide shoulders (where I don't care if cars are flying by me), if possible. Some of the popular routes in my area are on roads with tiny to no shoulders and 55mph speed limits. Sorry, not interested. I have yet to find any mapping site/app that finds a route that I am always happy with. They all need tweaking. I just find that Google Maps gives a good starting point and has the tools to let me come up with a route that I'm happy with.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#78

Post by jakecopp »

hondo77 wrote: post #77

I use the bike route given by Google Maps as a starting point. Then I get into Street View so I can really see where I'll be riding. Is there a bike lane? How wide is the shoulder? What's the condition of the road? I like riding on roads with bike lanes or wide shoulders (where I don't care if cars are flying by me), if possible. Some of the popular routes in my area are on roads with tiny to no shoulders and 55mph s…

OSM already has all this data tagged! Have a look at the granularity of the data:

https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Bicycle

Cycle apps using OpenStreetMap will try to find the safest routes. If using Citymapper you can explicitly choose between faster or safer (slower) routes. OSMAnd let's you choose particular types of lane.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#79

Post by lmm »

BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks and green lanes on a London -> Paris The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

> A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks and green lanes on a London -> Paris Even in cities Google is similarly terrible, and it's actually gotten worse over the last few years as more unsuitable routes are listed as "cycle paths". I was trying to get home through London and Google sent me about a km in the wrong direction so that it could route me onto a muddy canal bank. I found myself wishing that I could simply put it in car navigation mode but avoiding routes that aren't legal for bicycles, but that's not an option either. E.g. from Great Dunmow to Bishops Stortford, all you need is to go straight down the old Roman Road, but there's no setting for Google Maps that will send you there: in bicycle mode it sends you down a muddy track, and in car mode it sends you down the A120 where bicycles are legally banned.

(Not to mention that here in Japan it simply refuses to provide cycling directions at all).

It's just not good enough, IME. It's well worth taking ten minutes to install OSMAnd and get decent directions instead.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#80

Post by lmm »

throw7 wrote: post #11

Citymapper is a limited amount of cities. What do "real" cyclists use? I get the feeling they use a garmin-like gps devices made for cycling? In the past, I've tried to plan a route in google maps (for just driving), but once you import and try to use it, it recalculates your route.

I use OSMAnd with BRouter, the second-choice option in the article. Handles a 600km audax with no sweat.
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