Is there an app that give you directions?

rog2e

New Member
So I've used Strava, and have seen Trailforks and maybe I'm just not using them correctly but are there apps that will give you realtime directions as you ride? So far with these apps I see it tells me where I've been. I also do see it gives me a loop's route from top view but was wondering if there is something that shows it to you more like 3rd person view like when you are using a GPS in your car. Was riding the other day and I lost the trail because of leaves. I had to pull up the map on Strava's top view to get an idea of where I was.
 

UtahJoe

Team Workhorse
Team MTBNJ Halter's
My garmin will do this (edge530)....it works, its not a gps in your car good tho....If you are road riding, its not terrible, if you are in the woods, its impossibly annoying.
 

Magic

Formerly 1sh0t1b33r
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This ^. I have a Wahoo Bolt and in the woods I've blown through intersections before. It won't give you turn-by-turn in the wood. I just look at the line and see which direction it goes on the map, but it also has a slight delay. As Utah said, they typically work much better on the road. The Wahoo will display a left or right, and the street name.
 

MadisonDan

Well-Known Member
Team MTBNJ Halter's
This ^. I have a Wahoo Bolt and in the woods I've blown through intersections before. It won't give you turn-by-turn in the wood. I just look at the line and see which direction it goes on the map, but it also has a slight delay. As Utah said, they typically work much better on the road. The Wahoo will display a left or right, and the street name.
Pretty sure the newer Edge models (520/530/820/830/1030) give turn by turn, with an audible warning as you approach..... definitely better on the road, but I'd think it would work on a trail also...
 

1speed

Incredibly profound yet fantastically flawed
Unlike with your car, a Garmin (or Wahoo or any other cycling GPS device) doesn't come pre-loaded with maps. If you want to follow a specific route on- or off-road, you need to load it on to the unit first. That means that you need someone to have ridden the course you want to follow. If you're just talking about riding in a park somewhere, there are probably any number of routes out there. Strava lets you rip the GPX track from anyone who uses a device that supports that functionality - you can just download it and then upload that track on to your device. You don't even have to follow the rider you get it from to pull the track. RidewithGPS allows you to do that for pretty much everything they have (and in multiple formats - FIT, GPX, TPX.) I've had a pretty good experience with this - both on- and off-road. I can see where they can fail sometimes, but I've been in pretty remote areas and the track kept me in line the whole time. But I'm not aware of any cycling app that has preloaded maps of trails that will give turn-by-turn directions without you first loading an existing track.
 

rog2e

New Member
Thanks guys I will check out those devices. Do those devices know about the trails like they do in Strava and Trailforks or are they recordings of rides you've been on?
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
^^^ i'll add to this that some apps have track/route builders.
Strava premium has this, and I think Trailforks does too.


google maps, set it to bike, create a route, send to phone!
 

Patrick

Overthinking the draft from the basement already
Staff member
Thanks guys I will check out those devices. Do those devices know about the trails like they do in Strava and Trailforks or are they recordings of rides you've been on?

you "load" the trail systems in - like all of NJ at the same time.
they have plenty of room.
then the route you build on them is overlayed - so looking at the screen, you see the turn coming.
 

rog2e

New Member
you "load" the trail systems in - like all of NJ at the same time.
they have plenty of room.
then the route you build on them is overlayed - so looking at the screen, you see the turn coming.
OK cool looks like I may have to pay for premium features lol...
 

shrpshtr325

Infinite Source of Sarcasm
Team MTBNJ Halter's
Pretty sure the newer Edge models (520/530/820/830/1030) give turn by turn, with an audible warning as you approach..... definitely better on the road, but I'd think it would work on a trail also...


it works well if you have routable basemaps on the garmin, it DOES work in the woods, but not great im not sure if its a gps thing or just the fact that railmaps lag roadmaps in detail/accuracy.
 

Kaleidopete

Well-Known Member
One more question, I have the Garmin 530 for about 8 months now. When new I downloaded Trailforks onto it. Since then many trails have been added to Trailforks, but I'm sure my unit has only the old maps from 8 months ago. Has anyone ever updated their Garmin, and how often would Trailforks update their download map?
 

Ian F

Well-Known Member
I've tried it with my Bolt, but the GPS resolution isn't good enough to "see" where I am on the trail. I've also had a hell of time trying to get Strava mtn bike routes to load into the Elmnt app. It seems many of these GPS systems aren't really designed for mtn biking. Naturally, when I'm road riding I don't need directions. If I'm at an intersection and I'm not sure which way to go, I just pull up Googlemaps, which is much easier.
 

Bleeder

JORBA:President
If you are recording a ridelog in Trailforks, and assuming the phone or device is mounted where you can see it, then it's easy to spot upcoming intersections. But no audible signals that I know of.

If you follow a route in Trailforks, in addition to the blue location dot, you can slide your finger along the elevation profile to see where the route heads. This is particularly useful when the route crosses itself.

Route to is another useful feature. Click the trail you want to go to, click it's name in the pop up and on the trail page click route to.
 
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