Bikemap: Cycling Tracker & GPS

Review by eFreeware

Finding a bike route you actually want to ride is harder than it sounds. Cycle paths stop and restart, a road that looks fine on a general map turns out to be a busy artery, and the loop you planned in your head ends up being an out-and-back on the same stretch. Riders who care about where they go tend to end up juggling two or three tools: one for planning, one for navigating, one for recording.

Bikemap, from Bikemap GmbH, tries to fold those jobs into a single app. It is a free download in the Maps & Navigation category, with in-app purchases, and it has been on Google Play since March 2013. The install base is substantial: over five million downloads and a 4.3 average from more than 61,000 ratings. That history matters less than what the app does now, and the current version is built around route discovery, navigation and ride tracking in one place.

The pitch is straightforward. You search for routes near you or plan your own, follow them with turn-by-turn guidance, and record what you ride. The developer describes it as suitable for city bikes, e-bikes, road bikes and mountain bikes alike, which is a broad claim, and the route collection is large enough that the claim is at least plausible. What I want to look at is how the pieces fit together and where the paid tier changes the picture.

Planning a route without the guesswork

Route planning is the part the developer leads with, and it works from two directions. You can search for a location and filter the results by route length and bicycle type, which is a sensible way to narrow a large collection down to something rideable. If you would rather build your own, the Loop Planner generates customized loops so you are not drawing a circuit by hand.

The filter by bike type is the detail I find most useful in principle. A route that suits a mountain bike is often miserable on a road bike, and the reverse is just as true, so being able to say what you are riding before you commit is more than a cosmetic setting. The developer also offers bike type-optimized routing as part of Premium, which steers navigation toward cycle paths where it can.

There is a desktop side to this as well. You can plan a tour on bikemap.net and the app syncs it to your phone, which is a more comfortable way to work on a longer route than tapping around a small screen. That combination of planning at a desk and riding from a phone is the workflow the app seems designed around.

Navigation, offline maps and the route collection

Navigation is where a route planner either proves useful or does not. Bikemap offers turn-by-turn guidance, and the developer says you can navigate worldwide without an internet connection by downloading the map before you set off. Offline mode is also described as giving longer battery life, which makes sense: a phone that is not holding a data connection has less to do.

The route collection is the other half of the offer. There are millions of routes, tours and trails worldwide, covering bicycle paths and mountain bike trails, and you can share your own routes with the community. For anyone who moves to a new city or wants to ride somewhere unfamiliar, that is a useful starting point rather than a blank map.

The map itself is configurable. You can choose between several map types, including 3D, Night, OpenCycleMap, OpenStreetMap, Satellite, Atlas, Outdoors and Landscape. Cyclist-specific points of interest are layered on top: toilets, bike parking, restaurants, water points, repair shops and e-bike charging stations. On a long ride, knowing where the next water point or repair shop is can matter more than the route line itself.

The most recent update adds elevation ahead during navigation, color-coded by gradient, so you can see climbs and descents coming. For anyone who rides hills regularly, that is a more useful addition than another map style.

Recording rides and the statistics you see

The app doubles as a cycling tracker. It records your rides and turns a phone or tablet into a bike computer, working as a speedometer and odometer. While you ride you can see speed, distance, duration, altitude and estimated arrival time, which covers the numbers most riders actually check.

There is a Wear OS version, including a tile for starting a recording quickly. That sounds like a small feature, but starting a ride from a watch rather than pulling out a phone is the sort of thing that decides whether you bother recording at all.

Premium adds control over which statistics stay in view, so you can arrange the display around what you care about. Riders differ on this: some want altitude front and center, others only care about distance and time. Being able to choose is a reasonable thing to put behind a purchase.

What it asks of you, and what Premium adds

Bikemap is a free download and the app does not carry ads. It does offer in-app purchases, and the developer groups a set of features under Bikemap Premium. The developer invites you to try the Premium benefits for free on your next ride, and notes that the membership is managed through the Play Store settings.

The Premium feature set is where the app's more advanced navigation lives. Voice turn-by-turn navigation for all routes is one part of it, which the developer pitches as particularly practical for city bikes. Self-guided navigation, which follows your route based on your location, is another, and it is described as suited to off-road sections where turn-by-turn prompts make less sense.

Premium also covers offline maps and routes for download, GPX export of routes, bike type-optimized routing, the special cycling map types, customizable tracker statistics, and exporting routes and MTB trails as GPX or KML files. Some of these overlap with what the free app already does, so the practical question is which of them you would genuinely use. If you ride mostly local routes you already know, the case for paying is thinner than if you travel with the bike and want maps downloaded before you go.

The other requirement is more basic. Offline navigation depends on downloading the map first, so it is worth planning that step before you leave rather than at the trailhead. And the app is built for a phone or tablet, with the Wear OS version as a companion rather than a replacement.

Getting the most out of a ride

The most productive way to use an app like this is to plan on the desktop site and ride from the phone. Longer routes are easier to shape on a larger screen, and the sync means you are not rebuilding the same tour twice. If you are trying somewhere new, start from the route collection and filter by length and bike type rather than planning from scratch.

Before a ride in unfamiliar territory, download the map. That single step is what makes the offline navigation and the longer battery life available to you, and it is the kind of thing that is easy to forget until you are already out. If you ride with a watch, the Wear OS tile is a quicker way to start recording than digging a phone out of a pocket.

During the ride, the points of interest layer is worth keeping in mind for water, repairs and parking, and the elevation display added in the latest update helps you pace yourself on routes with real climbing. After the ride, the tracker statistics give you the record of what you did, and Premium users can export routes as GPX or KML if they want that data elsewhere.

A route planner for riders who go beyond their own neighborhood

Bikemap makes most sense for cyclists who ride in places they do not know well. The combination of a large route collection, filtering by bike type and length, offline maps and points of interest aimed at cyclists covers the practical problems of riding somewhere new. The free version already handles planning, navigation and recording, and the 4.3 average from a large rating base suggests the core experience holds up for most people who try it.

Premium is the part to think about honestly. Voice guidance, self-guided navigation, offline map downloads, GPX and KML export, bike type-optimized routing and customizable statistics are all behind it, and some riders will want several of those while others will want none. Trying the benefits before committing, as the developer suggests, is the sensible route.

If you ride the same few routes from your door and know every turn, the app's strengths are largely unused. If you travel with a bike, explore new areas, or want one place to plan, navigate and record, Bikemap is built for exactly that job.

What's new in version 21.11.0

What's new in this update: * Upcoming elevation during navigation: See the elevation ahead while navigating your route, color-coded by gradient, so you can easily anticipate upcoming climbs and descents. * Improvements: Bug fixes and performance updates. Update now and enjoy the ride!