Ride with GPS: Bike Navigation

RWG is the best bike app I’ve tried. I’m not looking for a workout app, just an app to record my bike rides, and this one is the best for me. I like that it displays the map and pertinent stats all at once on the screen. I can see my trail, plus speed, distance, duration, averages, etc without changing screens. I’ve tried several apps lately and none other will do that. I even biked with 4 apps open and recording at the same time so I could switch between them while riding, and later compare final results, and RWG easily won out. A review wouldn’t be complete without listing a couple of negatives: You can’t see the map until you press “Go Ride”, and it seems that it is not locking in on the gps until that is done, so occasionally it will write a phony start location onto my trail. That can be removed later, but only with the paid version. I think this problem could be eliminated if you could view the map before pressing the start button. That way you could watch the gps dot until it settles down, the press Go Ride. One other feature would be very nice: Add an option to mask your start-stop location like Strava does. I want to hide my home location, but can’t do it with RWG. I hope you guys read this and consider it.

Ride With GPS is pretty great, though is biased more towards mapping and navigation more than metrics and fitness. The route planning and voice-guided navigation is really impressive. While it’s wonderful to be able to connect to my Garmin Varia (which Cyclemeter cannot do), many of the settings menus are only accessible during a ride and not easy to find. It would be nice to have a selection of screens to choose from, as the majority of the screen is dedicated to the map, making few, small font metrics visible on screen. The Apple Watch heart rate connection worked easily. I was able to connect it to my Duotrap (Trek speed and cadence sensor) without an issue, but it seems unnecessarily difficult to get recorded workouts pushed into Apple Health or Strava. For instance, I swore I had enabled to switch for Apple Health, but when I finished my ride the workout did not get pushed. Unfortunately, there’s no way to retroactively get completed workouts sent to Apple Health. And the Strava connection does not occur on the device, only by connecting your RWGPS account to your Strava account online. Incredible potential, needs just a few tweaks. I’m not sure I’m ready to commit to an annual subscription just yet, but I could definitely see subscribing on an as-needed basis for a week/month at a time. The guided navigation was so helpful during a 100 mile ride on a route we’d never taken before.

I am so grateful for the RideWithGPS app. I’ve ridden over 7,000 miles with its assistance over the last 2 years. Routing is fairly seemless, though there is some serious memory hogging through the website platform in Safari and Chrome on Mac(save regularly!). I am recently disappointed by load failures in the segment portion of both mobile and browser platforms. Segment data often does not load, mobile notifications and emails open empty pages in app and browser, and it is difficult to find or create new segments. In a huge cycling community like NYC, it would be great to have better social integration in this regard. PLEASE don’t become Strava or anything so Facebookish, but the segment section is the one area that UI improvement could help connect cyclists riding similar routes, for fun and safety (buddy system for the win!). Thank you again for such a great app🙏 Final feedback is more for Garmin - make Edge 1030 Plus more seemless with RWGPS; without an internet connection, it is difficult to share routes created in the app and routing through the garmin connect app pales in comparison to RWGPS on mobile🤌