Intended to use for touring and exploring, mostly on road but also occasionally on tracks and stuff. What do people use?

Viewranger is my favourite.

This was me a week ago.
Before you do anything go outdoors and lay your phone on your stem .
Can you see anything?
Probably not.
Luckily I’ve only wasted £10 on a mount.
Don’t do it kids.
Of course if you only occasionally need to look at it ViewRanger seems good.
Is there a way of magically reversing a route?

Viewranger has worked for me – but tends to be offroad and ‘stop and get it out the pocket’ type navigational checks.

Agree with vmgscot. Its definitely more of an occasional check thing than keep staring at it while riding. Slightly easier if you have a smart watch as it’ll echo to that.

Another good one is alpine quest. That’ll put you on strava global heat map. Great for finding hidden or popular trails but the gpx handling isn’t as good as viewranger

I’ve been looking into this as I’m doing road rides with a local club and it would be useful if I get lost.
Has anyone tried the paid version of RidewithGPS?

I’ve been using backcountry navigator for about 7 years, there’s a free 30 day trial app. Ideal if you want OS maps on the cheap. If you’re happy with just OSM based maps then I thought view ranger had a slicker UI when I tried it.

Backcountry Navigator if you want OS maps or their overseas equivalents.

Osmand+ is great if you don’t mind osm maps and it also acts as a car satnav as well.

Amusingly I saw that the OS maps app won some digital outdoor award as I’ve always found it to be pretty hopeless compared to free alternatives, nevermind paid for ones. Only worth it for me as I print off A4 map sections for d. Of e. Etc for school.

Thanks guys! I’ll give viewranger a look..

So I’m guessing with viewranger you need to purchase the maps as you need them? How much do they cost?

There are free maps such as opencyclemap which is pretty good but if you want OS maps then you have to buy them. Prices vary a lot. You can buy large areas eg SW England, National parks or individual tiles. 25k is pretty expensive, 50k much cheaper

I bought all of the South East OS map 1.50 scale map for £7.99 on ViewRanger.
If you zoom right in they seem keen for you to buy the 1.25 version.

shermer75 – Member
So I’m guessing with viewranger you need to purchase the maps as you need them? How much do they cost?

Essentially the reason I’m with back country navigator, you get OS maps down to 1:25k for the whole UK for the price of the app

I like back country navigator when it works. It just seems that half the time I use it it’ll fail to download the maps for some some reason. Viewranger is more expensive, and I’m the first to go for a free/cheap option if there is one, but it just works and the few times I’ve had issues their support is excellent.

Cool, I’ve downloaded viewranger, I’ll give it a go today! 🙂

Verdict: seems fine, used the freebie map with no problems. It chews thru the battery tho! Gonna have to get a cycle2charge aw summut…

Make sure get a buffer battery to keep the charge constant as it’ll waft in and out of charging as your speed rises and falls.

I was thinking about that. My lights are on all the time and almost never flicker, does that mean the charge to my phone will be equally constant? Or do they draw more ampage?

Your lights probably have a capacitor/battery for a standlight?

A recent smartphone will probably draw 1-2 amps.

I’ve not been impressed with my cycle2charge nor the warranty replacement. Even when not in use, if wired in my light was dimmed (exp revo).

Has anyone tried the paid version of RidewithGPS?

yes but only to get the better editing facilities (trim, combine, split) not used the turn by turn, I do run ridewithgps to log rides and will pull phone out of pocket to do adhoc checks on where to go next and that is all fine and dandy – on android can run around 8hrs with ok battery left – but as i say not in turn by turn permanently on mode – pretty sure battery life would be an issue