Discover Some of the Best Apps for Cyclists
Smartphones, smart watches and smart devices, plus satellite connectivity, have enabled some very helpful apps for cyclists.
Dozens of apps serve to track your rides, connect you to fellow cyclists, train effectively, research or plan routes, guidance to repair your bike and even how to administer medical treatment in case of accidents and much more.
There are apps are for road, mountain biking and trail cyclists.
Cyclists use some apps to connect with family and friends. Think social media app for cyclists. They follow each other’s rides and workouts on a bike, running, walking, or swimming. Even Florida cycling clubs use apps below to connect their members. Apps are also a great way for cyclists to share routes with others so they can discover new routes to enjoy.
There is quite an array of apps. So, we’ve listed some of the more popular and highly rated ones. Most have an iPhone and Android version and offer a free version. Or you can upgrade to a paid version giving you more bells and whistles. And most are Bluetooth enabled, so you can share the information across smartphones, laptops, smart watches and GPS devices.
Apps for Sharing Your Rides with Friends
STRAVA - one of the most popular GPS cycling apps. It also tracks running, walking and hiking. Strava uploads activities you have recorded using GPS units like Garmin, Wahoo and smartwatches. Once uploaded they appear on your Strava profile.
Think of Strava as an athletic social network. It tracks your activity, plus you can add photos, video clips, notes and post friends who rode with you. Friends and family can give you a “thumbs up”, which can be a good motivator.
In its most basic version, Strava tracks speed, time, distance and elevation gain. It’s available for iOS and Android. They offer a free subscription, premium, family plans and student discounts.
Ride with GPS is another popular route building and planning app with an extensive library of user-uploaded routes. See where others have ridden, then create a route that works for you and send it to your smartphone or bike computer.
The free version lets you record your ride, create your own routes and organize these into collections, as well as upload and sync these via your device. Routes can be built and planned on a desktop browser or on the app itself. The Basic upgrade gives access to a suite of mobile app tools, for an expanded planning and navigation menu.
Apps for Finding Bike Paths and Routes
Bikemap app brings together over 9.9 million cycling routes in more than 100 countries, providing navigation for riders of all kinds — with the option to filter by paved, unpaved and gravel surfaces as per your bike, and even view mountain bike trail gradings. You can browse popular routes nearby - and can also search for bike shops and public bathrooms.
Komoot is being used by over 10 million cyclists around the world for planning and recording routes. It’s all about exploration and simplifying the route planning experience. This user-fed system allows cyclists to log rides which, in turn, helps others plan their own. There is an extensive bank of routes, including off-road and gravel, for you to explore.
Select your discipline (road, MTB, run or hike), pick your start and endpoints, and Komoot will provide the distance, elevation, profile, estimated time to complete, and more. Available in desktop, IOS and Android, versions allows you to search for a route on any device. There are a number of filters including surface, length and elevation to help you pinpoint your search.
Trailforks has more than 160,000 trails everywhere in the world, mapped by crowd-sourced information. You can use those maps for free and you can add your own routes to contribute to the community.
To find new routes, just hover over an area of interest and click “Discover.” The app will then show you all mapped trails, along with the skill level you need to ride them.
Trailforks is a community-led app that helps mountain bikers find and rate local trails. It allows you to identify trails on the map as well as update their current condition. Information like this can really help cyclists find new places to ride and plan their rides accordingly if they know whether or not a trail is rideable.
This intuitive approach and impressive level of detail make it one of, if not the best free cycling app for iPhones. If you’re not familiar with an area or are a bit lost, you can use the app to find your way around the different trails, and even plan out your whole day. You can use it online, or download it from the Google or Apple app store.
AllTrails is a platform and app designed for outdoor enthusiasts who like to go hiking, running, backpacking, cycling, or any other nature-bound activity.
Over 10 million members from over 100 countries use AllTrails, making it one of the leading hiking apps in the world.
Apps for Safety
FLARE is a free safety cycling app available in the U.S. and Europe. It turns your smart phone into an incident detection, prevention, and near-miss reporting device. And it’s gaining popularity with cyclists. If a user is involved in an incident, Flare gives them 30 seconds to move or respond. Users can sign up for free with their email and use the app while riding. It’s location-tracking system has been chosen by many businesses and emergency services for its pinpoint accuracy.
The First Aid by American Red Cross app has been created with the aim of making it easier to administer first aid care in the event of an emergency.
The app will help you identify the type and the severity of an injury and give you step-by-step instructions on how to provide first aid support for those injuries.
If there is an app not listed that you really like, mention it and why in a comment below.
Ride often. Ride safe.
Bruce
$1/week unlocks the whole enchilada.
If you like what we’re doing, please consider becoming a premium subscriber. $1/week for premium is like a weekly $1 tip, to say “Well done. Keep going. Thanks for giving me full access.”
Becoming a premium subscriber unlocks and gives you full access to all past and future newsletters. We are a cyclist-supported publication.
