rdrumm729

Hey fellas. I will be going on a long cross country bike ride this summer and was wondering if there exists a way for friends/family to track my progress using my gps. Something like an app or something simple that will show my location on a map. How would I go about doing this?

nishin91

Will you be carrying a smart phone? You can usually find someone's location with that. Will you be uploading your daily progress to a site like MapMyRide? They could see your actual route on your site.

unterhausen

strava?

John_V 

I do a cross state ride every year and send info to my wife so she will know where I am during the ride. My computer, a Wahoo Bolt, has real time Live Tracking but requires it to be connected to a phone, as does a Garmin. The issue I have found with this is that, no matter how well you have your phone optimized for longer battery life, this method will go through a phone battery in no time at all on rides over two or three hours. Since it's constantly sending your location to it's host site, it also chews up a lot of data. So, unless you have an unlimited data plan, you may end up with a larger than normal cell phone bill. My solution was to revert back to my old cycling app, Cyclemeter, in order for my wife to track me.

If your phone is optimized for longer battery life, you can get a whole days worth of tracking without recharging your phone when using Cyclemeter. I have an older iPhone SE and on last years ride, it lasted the entire day before needing to recharged. Other cycling apps may have this same feature, but the one thing I like about Cyclemeter is that you can have it send the data every so many miles or so many minutes/hours. I have my set to send every 20 miles. So every 20 miles, it updates my location on the host site and sends my wife an email with the link to let her know the site was updated. It's not the same as real time Live Tracking but I don't have to carry battery chargers with me to ensure that my phone doesn't die on me during long rides.

rubenextra300

One of the best choices is Garmin. I usually do 6 to 9 hours bike rides and have no problem with batteries (both Garmin and cell phone). Besides, others can see your heart rate, speed, etc (very useful for me)

John_V 

Have you used Live Tracking on any of those 6 to 9 hour rides? This is what the OP is wanting to do, track his ride. On my cross state rides, there are a lot of people that have Garmin computers that use Live Tracking turned on and not one of them has done a full days ride without having to recharge their phone along the way; usually by lunch time. My cross state ride is 2½ days consisting of a 65 mile ride and two 80 mile rides. Including lunch and break stops, the 80 mile days are about 8-9 hours long. Not sure what the OP's cross country ride consists of but I'm sure his days will be similar.

When I attempted a test ride using Live Tracking with my Bolt, I started with a fully charged phone, optimized for longer battery life, connected to the companion app needed for Live Tracking. It dropped to 10% battery life in about 2½ - 3 hours. Using the same phone for tracking and just running my cycling app, I get a full days use out of the app and still get location information back to my wife and family members.

rubenextra300

Yep, I used it several times and I hadn't those problems (using a OnePlus 5 and Garmin Edge 1000). In fact, I lost my Garmin Edge 1000 three weeks ago and now I have a 1030 unit... with double battery lasting. Now I can use live tracking for over 20 hours.

Cheers

Fatikngage

good

JohnJ80

If you have an iPhone, the Find My Friends app does that and it has virtually no hit on the battery. It's free on the app store.. Your position isn't sent until they ask for it. We've used it for years and it works great. You just have to grant permission to specific people to see your location. That's it.

J.

jadocs

This ^^^^^^

They can also set alerts to when you leave or arrive at a location. FindMyFriends is an Apple app, it may already be on your phone and you just don't know it.

fietsbob

You are being tracked by your cell phone, but not so much for your use..

MattTheHat 

I have not used tracking on my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. If their app it eating battery life in that short a period of time, something is wrong. Perhaps their sampling rate is higher than it needs to be. I run the Strava app on my iPhone to send tracking to my wife. My longest ride has been just over 8 hours, and there was plenty of battery life left on my iPhone.

-Matt

John_V 

Not sure what the issue was as to the extremely short battery life, but as far as tracking goes, I went back to using Cyclemeter for that. I was using Cyclemeter (with a Wahoo RFLKT) before I bought the Bolt and it worked for all day rides, like my cross state rides, without needing to recharge the battery. Since I don't use Live Tracking all that much, I'll just stick with using Cyclemeter and use the Bolt for everything else.

JohnJ80

Tracking is going to be best handled on a cell phone as opposed to a bike computer.

tunavic

Find my friends is available for Android too

Seattle Forrest

The Live Track feature uses the GPS in your watch and sends that data to your phone for tracking purposes. GPS is expensive in terms of power, moreso than the Bluetooth involved.

John_V 

Seattle Forrest

Thanks for clarifying that.

drewguy

I use live tracking on a Bolt and haven't noticed battery eating (set to go on automatically). a 2-3 hour ride at best knocks 33% off a fully charged battery. If there's a battery hog I think it's the phone from transmitting data. The BT connection from the bolt to the phone is communicating a very small amount of data over a low energy connection.

For an 8-9 hour ride, I'd add on an external battery to your phone.

That all said, Find your Friends may be a better alternative for these purposes.

pdlamb

How do any of these cell-phone trackers do when there's no cell service? I was surprised at how good cell coverage was across Kansas, but there ain't much in the middle of Wyoming, and none in many of the hollers of Kentucky, Virginia, and Missouri.

avole

SHBR

Get a satellite tracker such as a spot, if emergencies in remote areas are a major concern.

I'm quite content with offline maps and tracking apps, everyone and their mother has a phone.

I bring my significant other with me to remote places, no tracking needed.

Travolta709

I am using Cyclemeter app

londonist

Garmin seems to be one of the most popular choices (I am doing research on the subject).

________
Conducting research on bicycle navigation systems for my MSc., take the survey here: https://lse.eu.qualtrics.com/jfe/for...diKglMv9QWhBbL