Getting Started With Cycling Navigation Using Your Phone

I love the freedom my bike gives me to discover new places. Initially I was held back by the fear of getting lost but using my phone for navigation has enabled me to travel to many new places. In this guide I’d like to share my experience of how I plan and follow routes.

It’s focused on bike adventures between towns rather than commuting in a city, for commuting I would recommend different tools. Also my experience is using my phone rather than paper maps, there are many advantages of paper maps but they will not be the topic of this guide.

To be able to look at your map on your phone you can attach it to your handlebars. I use a holder along with a waterproof/shockproof case.

Mobile Data is not required for navigation if you use an app which supports downloading maps to use offline. This means you can turn on Aeroplane Mode to save battery but on a sunny day with screen brightness turned up your phone will drain battery quickly. Not ideal if you are relying on your phone.

I carry a battery pack in my jersey pocket which I connect to my phone as I’m riding. This wire can be a annoying at times and is the main reason I’m soon buying a Wahoo Elemnt but cycle specific GPS units are expensive. One option could be to strap the battery pack to your frame with gaffer tape or zipties? Let me know if you have a solution for this.

I use the Anker PowerCore 5000 because it’s light and keeps my phone going all day with lots of power in reserve. If you are away from power for days you might need something larger but in this case you probably already have a dynamo 😉

A file type called .gpx is used to share route information in a way an app on a phone can understand.

If you’re traveling in an area you are unfamiliar with I highly recommend using routes carefully created by a human, I’ve suggested some sources to find these above. Computers have got a lot better at planning routes but all route planners take you bad routes occasionally. Fences, massive roundabouts, mud tracks, are the kind of things humans will avoid when planning their routes but computers don’t seem to mind so much.

That said, sometimes you want to go somewhere and you can’t find a route. Don’t let that stop you, you can plan your own.

There are two tools I’ve used to do this and they both work in a similar way. You can add waypoints and it will work out a route that goes between those places. You can look at the route it created and then drag it around if you don’t like it.

Both show you elevation data for the route you’ve planned, so you can avoid (or include) hills.

A nice feature which both of these share is you can change the map type to Open Cycle Map. This means you can see where the National Cycle Network is and plan a route using it.

I started off using RideWithGPS, I used it to go from London to Birmingham and found the route it created fairly good. However, it did take me on some sections which would not have been suitable for a road bike.

Komoot (£30 for all regions)
https://www.komoot.com/

Komoot gives you information about the types of road the planned route uses. It gives you the option to specify Bike Touring, Mountain Biking or Road Cycling.

I haven’t used Komoot and RideWithGPS to plan the same trip so I can’t compare the quality of their routes, I think I should do an experiment. Also, I’d be particularly interested to hear from anyone who’s used Komoot to plan Road Bike trips.

Now you have a GPX file you need an app on your phone which can open the file and display the route on a map for you. I’ve used two apps.

GuruMaps lets you download maps so you can use Aeroplane Mode to save battery, it shows you where you are on the map along with your route. It will enable you to follow the route you planned but it won’t talk to you and if you leave the route it won’t recalculate a route.

⚠️ GuruMaps Warning ⚠️ It will not tell you if you leave the route you’ve planned. So you may have to occasionally check that you haven’t missed a turn.

As well as route planning Komoot also lets you open any .gpx file and will help you follow the route. It has voice navigation which isn’t always easy to understand but the voice does help you know there is turn coming up. It will recalculate to try to get you back on the route but be aware Komoot can be pretty stubborn to get you back on the original route you planned. If you decide to go a different direction it may keep trying to turn you around rather than working out your intention. It will correct itself when you get back onto the originally planned route.

⚠️ Komoot Warning ⚠️ Komoot hates it when you try to start a route from the middle. When I went from London to Dover I went to visit a friend in Canterbury. I restarted it and was confused by the direction it was taking me. I realised it had calculated a route to get me back to London. It makes sense, I’d given it a route from London to Dover and I was in Canterbury, I must need to get to London first. When I turned around and got back on to the planned route it did change its mind and start directing me to Dover again.

I hope these tips help you to go on bike adventures. There’s lots of places to explore and remember that getting lost is part of the adventure.

Remember not to be distracted by a GPS device, find a safe place to pause if you need to look at the map.

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