What About Ride With GPS?
 

Anyone have experience with these guys? They seem to get some fairly good reviews. Just wondering if anyone here has actually given it a shot.

Excellent for route planning.

I have about 90 saved rides that I scan through for desired distance, climbing, wind direction, etc. etc..

The standard for communicating group ride routes.

A lot of people with Garmins use RWGPS to make routes because it works better.

I've heard the calorie estimates are crazy high, but I only use it for route planning.

I use it and it work well for route planning and uploading to my Garmin.

tried to construct routes a few times using rwgps and routes came out/interface was okay. find it easier and relatively accurate to use strava route builder
(not sure if this is part of the "free" strava but i'd doubt it) on a desktop computer. i may be a rarity amongst riders constructing/saving routes.
generally, i use saved routes as a reminder of where to ride and virtual recon vs actually referring to the preplanned route if i'm actually riding it. i've just
learned to memorize the route in advance if there's a tech breakdown (which i've been privvy to). all that said, it's usually pretty easy to follow someone's posted route that is
frequenly done via rwgps, whether it be a solo/small ride or a charity/century ride.

I use it every ride.

I prefer it over Strava for route planning and just logging the ride and seeing the data. If you are in an unfamiliar area, the turn by turn navigation is really good. YOu have to plan the route in advance though. And you have to subscribe for like 6 USD per month to get the turn by turn navigation. That is really the only downside.

You can also pair your bluetooth devices like power meters, HRM's, etc to the app. So you can really use it in lieu of a cycling computer like a Garmin or Wahoo. You can completely customize the fields that you see as well: HR, time, distance, speed, avg speed, avg moving speed, etc. etc.

I often create routes in the default free mode and get turn by tun navigation on my Garmin 520. It beeps 100 or so meters before each turn. I pay when I want to import rides from Strava and make adjustments.

One of the attractive features for route planning is the RWGPS maps are based on google so you can use street view which is very helpful in scouting new areas. Strava stopped using google maps a few years ago.

I'll echo what some of the others have said - I use the free account to plan routes so that I can have turn-by-turn on my device (Wahoo Bolt), but I don't use it beyond that.

Can someone maybe guess why RWGPS (which is great for creating/exporting routes for Garmin unit use thru a PC) it isn't possible or available to plan or create a route thru the phone app?
It's not like the phone's processor really does any of the work, nor rely on maps already resident on your phone. It's all done in the cloud, right?

Definitely the way to go for route planning and sharing. One feature I like is the ability to pin routes from others to your account. As long as the owner keeps the route public, any change made will be reflected in the pinned route. Great for sharing routes among a group and allowing everyone in the group to get updates without each member having to resave an updated route.

One thing I don't like is that you only get turn by turn for routes created with the route planner. If you convert a ride track as a route for future use, you don’t get turn by turn and the features that would allow you to add turn by turn after the fact are not available in the free membership.

I generally find the distance data for ride tracking to be accurate, but other data..elevation, calories burned, etc, are often way off.

I've used the free version for route planning for quite some time. I prefer it to Strava and Map My Ride for planning and especially sharing routes.

Last summer, I coughed up the $6 per month for turn-by-turn directions. Being in a new area, it's been great for solo road rides (I use a tiny bike computer, and haven't upgraded to one with mapping capabilities yet.) I've even used it for driving, since Google Maps always wants me to get on the freeway to go like two miles and I don't find that necessary.

Downsides: Elevation data for pre-planned routes is often off (as much as 500-1,000 ft over 50 miles), directions can be difficult to hear in the wind if you have any hearing problems.

There were a few things I recall not being able to do for free, so I started using plotaroute. Free was more than adequate, but ad driven. I liked the features enough I now pay for plotaroute. Plotaroute yearly I believe is less expensive the RWGPS monthly. I don't really care about social aspects. The site admin is active in the their forums and often bug reports are rectified in hours.

I've been using the route planner for about 10 years. It's the best one I've found.

I download routes to my Garmin Edge 830, or sometimes I use the RWGPS iPhone app's voice directions. I put the phone in my jersey pocket and turn up the volume. The directions are easy to follow. One tip if you're going to use the iPhone app: turn off Wi-fi and Bluetooth, it will save battery power.

I guess it would be too cumbersome to plan a route by putting waypoints on a phone screen with your finger.

In any case, interesting to hear that so many people use it to plan routes and upload the maps to their Garmin or Wahoo. To me, I just use a phone mount on my stem, works just as well. Never really understood why I would buy a Garmin or Wahoo unit if they cannot do the planning for me.

I believe you could also stick to the free version if you are reasonably familiar with the area and dont need turn by turn navigation to follow the route. You could just look down at the screen occasionally.

I use both RWGPS and Strava. Both the FREE versions.

The last time I checked, Route planning was free on Strava, but only gave a GPS map (which was free to use).
One can also dump GPX from RWGPS to Strava, although, they used to have a traffic error, I think, so the conversion worked easier late at night than mid-day.

RWGPS also allows route planning, but only allows printable instructions, and not the GPS interface.
Yes, there are some things that the App lacks (both Strava and RWGPS), which includes route planning and cropping rides.

On occasion, I have gone to the Strava website using Chrome on my phone. It complains about not using the app, but it does work on chrome. And, I have successfully made Strava routes on my phone. And, it does accept the touch interface just fine.

======================

Ok, so differences between Strava (FREE) and RWGPS (FREE)

• Strava Route Planner, Free. Primarily for GPS use on device.
  RWGPS Route Planner, allows printing, and cue sheets, but no GPS on phone.
• RWGPS has "Handlebar mode". Good and bad with this, but one can blank the screen and reactivate without a finger swipe.
• RWGPS requires press and hold on pause button. Hopefully this reduces accidental bumps.
  Touch the stop button, and Strava stops.
• RWGPS has several metrics displayed real-time, and these are selectible (with 2 screens possible). Note climbing is way off real-time.
  Strava has a very limited display of information real-time.
• Strava has race segments, and seems to be better for social groups.
• Strava can convert GPX to routes, but as mentioned above, I've had troubles with this mid-day, and it works better late at night.
• Strava, hit the wrong button when using a route offline, and poof the route is gone (think back to main menu kills it).
  No data if that is an issue with RWGPS as I don't have that feature.

One thing that both systems seem to have issues with is stored map data. Perhaps I need to hunt Google settings more, but I run the systems offline, and often get blank maps (with only either the route line, or where I've been).

I'd at least expect that if I downloaded a route, Strava would also download the associated maps.

Just venturing a wild guess: being able to plan a route in the field is a non-concern for many and there are a lot of other benefits to having a dedicated device that they find to be more important?

I was thinking the use-case where you're somewhere, and you just want to go to somewhere else (eg. home) -- requiring to pick a start location (where you are) and one other waypoint (eg. home).. with the most popular cycling route chosen for you from point A to B.

Garmin Connect has this apparently, with upload to device option as well, so I guess I'll use that in these instances since I'd prefer to use the head unit anyway.

Correct, the Garmin Connect Mobile app allows you to create a route on a smartphone and BT port to a Garmin device. This assumes you have cell data service to be able to visualize the maps on GCM, so don’t think it’s a function useful for remote areas.

The 830 supports the Garmin iQ apps, you can get the RWGPS app for the device, it will show *some* of the saved routes you’ve created on the RWGPS website then download and allow a course to be followed. I state “some” as there’s a limit to what the app on the device can see, most recently created or pinned routes typically. It’s a really useful function, as good as the Wahoo/RWGPS system, IMO and is by far the easiest method to get a RWGPS Route onto a Garmin.

I think the free version can create a route (as RWGPS calls it) that a Garmin device can use to give turn-by-turn instructions. I recall that the actual TBT directions are created in the actual Garmin device from the course/route it’s told to follow. Possibly NJKayaker will chime in, he’s more knowledgeable as to how this functions.

Garmins that have maps built into the device (Fenix watches, Edge 800 and 1000 lines) can do this without a phone. You just touch the map screen where you want to navigate to, or use the back to start feature.

My guess is they don't have the expertise on staff to do it in Android and iOS, or the revenue to hire for this.

Garmin's mobile app can do route planning, automatic or manual. Which shows that the phone had sufficient hardware to do it. The experience isn't bad at all in practice, and it's nice not to have to bring the laptop on bike trips in unfamiliar places.

Has anybody tried route planning on RWGPS on a mobile browser? I use CalTopo in Android Chrome for hiking and it works fine.

Hi all. Full disclosure, I work at Ride with GPS. Just wanted to chime in to say that we released our mobile route planner on Android a few weeks ago, and we’re nearing the finish line on iOS, should be available around Thanksgiving next month. We should have done it a long time ago, but are excited for it to be here now, and it’s great! AND, for folks with devices, after you plan or edit a route on your phone, you can sync it wirelessly to your Garmin with our Connect IQ app, or sync it up with your Wahoo device.
I can’t post a URL into this thread, but if you visit our website, down in the footer you will see a Mobile Route Planner link where you can check it out. And folks on Android can use it right now.
Cheers!

Like I've said, I've done the route planning on my phone. A tablet or larger phone might be better.

I frequently stop a couple of days in Portland without good internet access. But, have side trips or even Craigslist purchases that require planning on the fly.

I see notes above about new mobile route planning for Ride With GPS. It sounds good, but I haven't been using routes on Ride With GPS because they were crippled for the FREE users.

As mentioned, the full version of Strava will work with Chrome, and one can use the route planner on mobile devices if one uses care, and ignores prompts to use the mobile version.

Ive done route planning from a tablet by accessing RWGPS online directly from a web browser, not the mobile app. It’s easier to create routes in a tablet due to screen size. Obviously you need cell data or WiFi for this to work.