firebird854

This project has absorbed all of my free time for the past six months while I've balanced cycling and my regular job. Now, I believe my web application is finally ready to be shared with the public! The service is entirely free and, I dare say, quite impressive.

The site is www.sherpa-map.com and it has a bunch of unique major features, including the use of AI (the buzzword lately).

For instance, if you click the little wind icon in the upper left, enter your start time/day and how long you think it will take to complete the route you're working on, it will plot the weather for each point where it's assumed you'll be along the route! No surprise weather systems, you can try to optimize tailwind, etc.

Weather data along route


You can also press "Show Gravel" to have all the non-road non-unknown surface-type roads get projected directly onto the map so you can easily stay on or avoid gravel while routing:

Show gravel!


I have 28 routing profiles, want a hilly, unpaved, racy route? Sure, a flat paved leisure route? Sure, there are many permutations. You can also update the whole route with the route profiles or just portions, totally up to you.

My favorite and COOLEST feature is defining unknown surface types. While everyone, including my site, lets you see the breakdown of different surface types along your route from Open Street Map data, as far as I can tell, I'm the only one that trained an AI to use zoomed-in satellite images and real-time classify all the unknown portions! Here's a little screenshot on how to try this:

AI surface classification

I've also worked with Garmin to create a "Send Route To Garmin" Button! It's extremely convenient.

Garmin Button


Note: This site is only optimized for desktop at this time, mobile will be coming soon, and some of the features you do have to log in for, but there are no charges of any kind.

I have TONS of upcoming features that I'm working on, like integrating chatGPT to help make routes, having a weather radar, displaying a cellular connectivity map, etc. If you're interested you can follow the Facebook page I set up strictly for updates https://www.facebook.com/people/Sher...00090209792541

If you have any thoughts, feedback, suggestions, or criticism, I'm open to all of it! One final note, this site has been simply a passion project for myself and my roommates, it's currently living on a server we have in our basement, and I'm curious to see how it might work with a few more users.

LesterOfPuppets

If the mobile app's map features a persistent scale, I'll be all over that. Neither RWGPS nor Strava display a scale at all. Google maps gives you a scale for 3 seconds. So annoying.

firebird854

Hmm, that's a great point! I didn't really implement a scale, but when I do (I'll make it a priority) I'll ensure the scale is persistent through different browsers/devices.

tFUnK

Neat.
Are you aware of the Epic Ride Weather app?

firebird854

Yep, I'm working on making the weather details just as comprehensive in my App (it's kind of basic at the moment, but I'm already working on calculating predicted CDAs, headwind percentage, etc.) and my app is free! You can also make a route, check these details, and change the route! If I recall correctly, Epic Ride Weather is more about simply uploading a GPX file and viewing weather detail along it? It's been a while since I've been on that site.

icemilkcoffee 

Great work! The AI gravel road finder is brilliant!

firebird854

Thanks! It was a challenge to implement, but it was quite satisfying!

retswerb

It gives me a dot the first time I click on the map, but I can't figure out how to actually make a route. I tried clicking, double clicking, right clicking... what am I missing? I loaded it in both Edge and Chrome.

jon c. 

I had the same problem. Although I wasn't on an approved browser.

rsbob 

Very nicely done! Congrats to you and the roommates

Eds0123

very good start, keep working on that, I can tell you farcebook and Garmin are your friends maybe a 30 years ago? and where are you getting pulling your weather wind directions windgusts steady wind speed and all that data from because from site to site they vary considerably

but anyways I admire all your hard work, I admire all your enthusiasm and I wish you the best of luck and a lot of success, and make it open source, and let other people contribute,

firebird854

Much appreciated, moreover I'm simply glad to hear it's working for you!

firebird854

Oh, for everyone that is only getting one green dot but unable to make a continuation of the route, the issue is, we're hosting this on Home internet, we're able to get the frontend on a standard port, but the backend, including the calls to our routing service are on the non-standard port 8443, which is commonly blocked by VPNs. We're going to switch to business i Internet at some point, but if you were to use a non-work computer without a VPN it will likely work.

tFUnK

That's great. The Epic Ride Weather app allows uploading of gpx files and also has integration with Strava, Ridewithgps, Mapmyride, etc. so I can import any of my activities and routes already tracked in those apps. I look forward to playing around with your app, though!

firebird854

Mine lets you upload a GPX file, but yeah, I need to reach out and work on integration with more groups, currently, it's only Garmin, and it wasn't the easiest to implement their OAuth1.0a, but they were great to work with. I've also gotten API access with Wahoo but I haven't found a way to send them routes or receive routes from them, but that's definitely an interesting idea. Realistically, I was really interested in just sending routes to groups, not trying to receive them and perform advanced weather calcs and surface type classifications, but nothing's stopping me!

Troul 

would adding under the amenities tap "Local bicycle Shop" with a status of open or closed be something of use?

rsbob 

Or how about coffee shop or bar?

retswerb

Busted! I'll try it from home.

L134 

I can't get it to work at home? I can click for a start point but don't know how to go anywhere.

Troul 

Is the login process automated?

firebird854

Depends on what you mean by automated. If you kept "keep me logged in" checked it stores a cookie for a bit which is matched against a server-side cookie when you reaccess the page after logging in once, this will keep you logged in until you log out or the cookie disappears. The Garmin connection requires that you connect your account once with Garmin and then that functions. Other than that, it does require that you login only to use some of the services like weather and surface classifications (these cost me money so I put a daily cap on them, they don't cost you anything) and obviously store the Garmin connection info so you don't have to link with Garmin every time you want to send a route to them.

TiHabanero

The undo button removed my entire route. I had mapped several stopping points along a route, then decided to change the last leg I input. Clicked the undo button and the entire route I had mapped was removed. Did the button do its job as intended? Is there a way to undo sections of a route without erasing the entire route?

spelger

funny, I saw the word tap and immediately thought Guinness. Was ready to thumbs up and all that.

Troul 

sent in fir an account & never received confirmation email. did the common folder checks, no dice.

Troul 

That's not cool. If it could be set up where you double tap (using phone) or right click (using a mouse) to be given the option to remove that "leg" , that would be a pretty modern feature.