INTRODUCTION
10 Genuinely useful or interesting apps that aren’t Komoot, Strava or Trailforks
GEAR RIDES FAST & FIT INSPIRATION GET STARTED
TOPO GPS
Topo turns your phone into a GPS unit, letting you view official topographic maps from 20 countries both online and offline. In the UK that means you get access to OS mapping and the famous Explorer series of maps with the most detailed 1:25,000 scale, giving you rights of way, key features and contour lines.
Why not just get the OS mapping app then, we hear you cry? For starters you can buy as much or as little as you like with Topo GPS – a single 2x2km square costs just 20p – or you can subscribe to an entire map of the UK including updates for £24.99 a year.
Route planning is much easier too; you can import, record, plan, generate and share them right on the OS map, rather than having to resort to clunkier third party maps. Topo GPS will also let you overlay layers, specifically the mountain bike routes layer that brings up a decent selection of trails.
One of the best features though, is its speed of use and anonymity – you don’t have to set up a profile, riders simply need to buy the tile they want via Apple or Google and get riding.
MAP MY RIDE
Map My Ride is a fitness and training app for riders, owned by clothing brand Under Armour. It uses your watch or phone to map rides you do, letting you log your workouts.
It’s more proactive than that though, because you can use the app to draw up a training plan – something you usually have to pay for through other providers, be it a subscription service or a pricey piece of equipment.
It’s also a very easy app to use, and sleek looking too. You get access to unlimited mapped routes and there are free lifetime statistics stored to your profile, giving you data streams to chart your progress.
MTB SHOCK TUNE
Set aside a good few hours before opening up the MTB Shock Tune app, because it’s very complex and addictive. And probably useful, although it takes a fair bit of head scratching to make it work well.
The concept is pretty simple: ride at an obstacle in the trail and the app will use your phone’s accelerometers to measure some of the forces acting on your bike. It puts the information into neat little graphs and lets you overlay multiple data sets to see what happens when you tweak the settings, like rebound or compression damping.
The app gives you plenty of pointers on what to look for and how to interpret the information, although the amount of data you gather is insane and the quality of it is sometimes questionable.
Most importantly, you’ll need to attach your phone to the bike, and ideally above the shock or fork, dependin
