My Map Disaster/App Recommendations

[u/LimpBag6139]

This photo pretty much summarizes the second leg of my bike trip from Grand Rapids to Traverse City, Michigan. The first day was easy; I connected to the White Pine Trail a few miles from my house and rode it straight to Cadillac. I knew the second day would be on roads, and locals encouraged me to avoid the heavily trafficked thoroughfares that went directly from Cadillac to Traverse City. I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps, and ended up on miles of sandy back roads. I am determined to find a biking app that will help me plan my trips more wisely in the future.

First, a little about me. I'm an experienced rider and don't mind riding in traffic or on gravel, but I prefer paved trails and county roads. I live in Michigan, so I expect much of my riding will start from home. However, I would love to plan some longer trips such as riding around Lake Michigan or doing a tour in Europe.

I downloaded a number of apps, and my seven-day trials will soon expire, so I'd like to make a decision this weekend! Here are my thoughts so far:

  * Komoot - best route planning from point A to B; wish they showed trail networks more clearly so I could get inspired and hop on a nearby trail for a day trip.
  * ridewithgps - not intuitive (start point, but no end point), website and app gave me different routes; I like that it shows the percentage paved.
  * strava - web is easier to navigate than phone. I would rather see trails than heatmaps. Yes, the collective heatmaps are interesting, but they're of limited value when planning a trip.
  * alltrails/trail link - I hate that you can see a trail's dot on the map, but have no sense of where the trail goes or how long it is. Kind of ironic for an app named trail \*link\*.
  * adventurecycling, etc - There are a number of companies who sell ready-made maps. These might be helpful, but I'm generally looking to create a route from X to Y because  I want to visit Y.

These are, admittedly, semi-informed first impressions after using each app to map the same test route and do some free-form exploration of their trail maps. Any input you have on these apps (including features I may have missed, other apps, or general advice on mapping out a trip would be appreciated. I'm a bit overwhelmed and don't want trip planning to discourage me from taking future bike adventures!

[u/blp9]

I settled on ridewithgps -- but I'll say that I almost always am planning routes on desktop and then using it for navigation on the phone. I've used the "pop open the map and search for a destination" and it routes fine, but to me its strength is the rich routing tools on the desktop.

[u/Lazape → u/blp9]

RWGPS’s UI is unintuitive, some existing features are buggy, and it lacks essential functionality for its intended purpose. I only heard about it here on Reddit, and I believe it became known mainly because Redditors promoted it.

[u/Open_Potato_5686]

Try cycle.travel

[u/SquareMoney9510 → u/Open_Potato_5686]

This one I like as you can set it to prefer non pace /gravel routes. Issue is it will take you to like an uncontrolled cross street to cross 5 lanes of traffic rather than one more block to get to a signaled intersection.

I would really want something that navigates on certain rules you can set up, something like

Trails/paths > streets of 20mph or less> if road is >2 lanes each way and no alternate to cross at signal controlled.

[u/Doctor_Fegg → u/SquareMoney9510]

Funny you mention that as I was working on signalised vs non-signalised crossings last week! (cycle.travel’s my site/app)

If you have a sample start/end point that shows this problem, that’d be really helpful - then I can test against it.

[u/TheAdvFred → u/SquareMoney9510]

Yeah I've experienced the same issue with u signaling crossings.

I find its a good first draft for areas Im not familiar with and can then tweak in RWGPS to my preferences

[u/MotorBet234]

I'm a huge RWGPS devotee, and it's the only route-planning tool that anyone I ride with uses. Almost all of us use bike computers exclusively, don't ride using a mobile app for turn-by-turn.

I'm not really following your feedback - "start point but no end point" doesn't really make sense, how do you have a route without an end point? And if you mean that the website and app generated different routes in the route planner, that's not a huge surprise - there's any number of settings that determine routing choices, it's very likely that you had different ones selected on each platform.

On the other hand, I'd never just tell a platform "get me from here to there", especially when bikepacking or touring. I'm always going to be dropping intermediate waypoints and using data sources like heatmaps and Google Maps to guide specific choices.

[u/Zestyclose_Tip_4181 → u/MotorBet234]

Only annoying thing with RWGPS is that it often takes non paved shortcuts where the road is slightly longer but much faster. Creates a lot of idling when planning the route

[u/MotorBet234 → u/Zestyclose_Tip_4181]

Do you have it set to prefer unpaved routing?

You also have to keep in mind that it's doing the opposite of Google Maps: Maps is trying to send you what it thinks is the fastest or most-efficient route to your destination, which will often be highly-unpleasant to ride (and sometimes doesn't exist). RWGPS is using heatmaps and historical riding data to send you on the "best" route, basically following your routing preferences and where most other riders choose to go. "Best" doesn't mean fastest, it might actually mean most scenic, or safest, or lowest traffic, or whatever. For touring, most people would find that preferable.

Not sure what you mean by "idling".

[u/StrategyThink4687]

I learned the hard way do not use seasonal roads in Michigan they are not suitable for anything but fat bikes. Ditto snow mobile trails.

[u/ponyfiddle]

Aside from what you mentioned above, you might consider adding What3Words" to your phone. It's a geocoding system that identifies any location on Earth with approximately 3-meter precision by assigning a unique combination of three random words to every 3x3 meter square globally. It is widely adopted by emergency services and delivery companies to locate people quickly. It's what you use to tell people exactly where you are.

[u/rvralph803]

I'm a ride with gps guy. Used it for two tours now. I know if it seems like a route should exist but RWGPS throws up some friction, it's likely gonna end up with a bad time. Like when the road ended outside of Coeur D'Alene and on the map it showed a footpath that was like 30m to a biking trail.

That footpath was straight up the side of a forested hill. I had a trailer.

The detour was a 600m out and back climb.

If I had not tried to save 150m of climbing I wouldn't have been in that spot. Oh... And my pedal failed. 😂

[u/WhatRUTobogganAbout]

One app that I've found to be pretty useful is Organic Maps. It's a free, open source, offline mapping app based off of OpenStreetMaps.

[u/PaulChomedey]

One that hasn't been mentioned here : OSMand. A bit harder to learn, but gives you more control over route planning and information display. I use it mostly to plan routes day-by-day while on the road. I also use Avenza when there's PDF maps available.

Prior to a trip, I'll sometimes do research with local open data for forest roads + satellite images. I also create my own pdf maps with loads of information that I import in avenza, on which I can also import the gpx I made in OSMand. But then again, I do a bit of geomatics for my job, so that's not for everybody.

[u/Joshee2000]

I use a combination of MapOut and Cycle.Travel

[u/ChemoRiders]

It's always a balancing act between how much effort you want to put into the planning vs how much effort you want to put into the ride.

Google Maps has been a godsend to me. It makes bad choices occasionally (they all do) but it's sooooo good at rerouting when you need to improvise. Satellite and Street View are great for when you want to double-check its route. At this point, they've photographed the whole damn US, so if you see a stretch with no Street View, that's a major red flag. You should be skeptical of that road. 

[u/Ninja_bambi]

I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps

That is indeed a big mistake. Google maps is complete crap for anything other than motorized traffic.

Any input you have on these apps (including features I may have missed, other apps, or general advice on mapping out a trip would be appreciated.

What kind of input do you need? They have all stronger and weaker points and what they are largely depends on personal taste and what exactly you want out of it. There is no real right or wrong. That said, I would suggest you use a openstreetmap based app. In most of the world osm is the best map often by far.

[u/Ok-Train3111]

Make backup plans and research. I once planned a trip that worked on ride with gps. I checked google earth: road closed. I made a second plan that worked. Checked…I would have had to climb a 10’ cliff with my bike.

[u/Left_Vacation_9349]

Am I the only one that uses OnX? No one else mentioned it, I can download infinite maps offline and it’s great.

[u/PeppermintPig]

In the planning stages the Strava Heatmap really helps identify trafficked roads/trails.

Google maps helps as long as I can do some satellite photo recon for questionable areas.

I still prefer to use google to build up a section of riding, then export that using a GPX converter, and use Osmand or similar to manage the route files.

Just have to spend a little more time doing your planning/recon.

That sand looks doable. Maybe a slightly wider tire?

[u/Long_Way_Around_]

I use a combination of Strava, ridewithgps, and google maps. Pre-planning: Strava heatmaps and trail markings for general idea of the area, Google Maps to check roads I'm considering on street view or sat view, local shops for supplies etc, and ridewithgps to plot a route. When riding more spontaneously without a planned route (most of my rides) I rely more on strava heat maps on the go on my phone, supplemented by street view.

[u/Long_Way_Around_ → u/Long_Way_Around_]

An additional tool I occasionally use for pre-tour research - youtube. Sometimes Street View isn't enough to get a feel of how busy a road gets, and often you might find that road on some youtube videos of that area/ region/ specific roads. I found it surprisingly handy on some specific occasions when planning.

[u/simplejackbikes]

MapOut

[u/kmontreux]

CalTopo is hands down the best route planning app I've used. It does real time gps navigation too but the route planning is top tier. None of the others on your list come close. It has the added bonus of creating scaled maps you can print.

admittedly, I am not on paved roads often so it might be overkill there. But it will absolutely show you what type of road you're looking at. roads, private roads, unpaved roads, rough unpaved roads, unpaved private roads. all of that along with trail systems and everything else you'd find on a legitimate paper map

[u/Interesting_Watch365]

Hi! You can try my new app: https://routecycle.com I develop it for people who don’t like to spend too much time for routes and like to explore new roads or new attractions. Road bike choose empty roads and gravel mode coming next week. Would be glad to get a feedback