Review this site: RideWithGPS.com

An online acquaintance (by virtue of a web site we're both a member of) has recently launched a website for planning cycle routes and offering training support and some other basic things.

It's got the usual route planner, except this one is tailored for 2 wheel activities. It's got the elevation view, sharing routes, etc. All the things you might expect and a few extras for working with GPS devices and software.

Anyhow they're looking for feedback along the lines of constructive criticism, and things to help them be sure they're doing the right thing. Of course there's a side benefit in presenting it to you now, but it's more of a "We've started this, now what's missing to make it fit your needs and become your route planning tool?".

The site is here:
http://ridewithgps.com/

An example route is here (one of the ones Fizz and I rode in the summer):
[ame]http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644[/ame
[/ame]

Could you please keep feedback constructive (i.e. your posts high quality and not the usual chatter) so that they can use the info to help improve their site (it will benefit us).

Its very good. I've drawn up a few routes on it already. The elevation is the best I've seen and the interface is easy to use.

The one thing that would make it better for me would be if there was an iphone app like imapmyride, as I'll be unlikly to extract routes from that and import into this.

So for the moment, its great fro route planning, not so great (for me) for route reviewing.

Well i've tried a few route planning sites and this one seems to already be one of the best!
Lovely user interface, uncluttered and clear to use.

I'd echo JC's comment on an iPhone app, it's a huge market they would be losing out on if they didn't have one which would be a real shame, given how nice the site is I would definitely pay for an app that works along with it.

A button to reverse the whole route would be nice and useful for some.

There should be a setting for you to choose your default transport mode on your profile as it currently sets itself to driving whenever you start to draw a map, so it misses some cycle lanes until you switch to cycling manually.

I also didn't receive any sort of 'welcome' email confirmation when I signed up, that would be a good idea.

Letting unregistered people save routes that are then publicly searchable may not be the best idea, as the location search function may then fill up with lots of test routes created by 'anonymous' that might not be so useful.

Great site, cheers for the link.

Very nice, agree that elevation is good.

Would be improved with a right click option when in map to perform functions under 'more controls' as would make fixing mistakes quicker.

Also, save route didn't work as just stayed at save in progress.

apps - sorry to chime again, but a blackberry app would make this way more usable to myself.

That looks like a good site. I'd use it if there was a very easy way of getting stuff off my phone and onto it - either an app which uploaded after the ride, or (better) one that gave that excellant map / elevation as you went along.

WIthout something easy I probably wouldn't think to use it, but I'm not doing massive rides at the minute so may not be it's target audience.

Warning: Don't fill in your post code in your profile.

Unfortunately the site currently shows the post code to those who aren't logged in and I can't see a privacy selector to hide or obscure this info. What this means is that with the post code someone could easily narrow down your address to your building and with ride history could derive a pattern to determine when you're not likely to be home. Combined with other public data you'd be exposing what you own, where it is and when you're not at home... extremely unwise.

So on that one point: Don't complete the post code in your profile.

As far as I can see there is no functionality lost as a result of not supplying that.

BTW: This is me: http://ridewithgps.com/users/4144

looks impressive, if it properly puts routes on garmin etrex/edge without all the faffing my prayers will be answered

Given it's the first week of a new year and they seem receptive to hearing feature suggestions and change requests, I think I'm going to try and log all of my riding using the site. I need to train for the Vatternrundan and this should be able to give me data to help guide my training.

I've got their site background processing an exported route from Google Earth at the moment... I'll see how it gets on.

Looks good so far, just plotted a route and it seems pretty fast and clear.

Wasn't immediately clear how to export a route, but found it soon enough.

My only gripe is that selecting the 'cycling' option actually uses the Google walking option, which sends you up one way streets and the wrong way around roundabouts.

I'm loving how bloody quick it is and I especially like the many different ways you can export/share the routes in the options on the right-pane.

It has caused FF to come to a halt though. Only once, for about a minute...

Dredge

Just started using this. Really like the way it draws the elevation profile and cue sheet as you plot the route. Also like the way you can zoom into sections of the elevation profile to get a more detailed view. Would recommend.

Hello there. I know this is months later and all of that but just to let you and anybody else with a blackberry know I've developed an app for blackberry which links up with ridewithgps so with just a single click after a ride you can auto update to the site.

you can have a look at the app over at mobihand

http://www.mobihand.com/product.asp?id=69752

so its also on crackberry and all the other sites that link into the mobihand cataloge.

use the coupon ridewithgps and you'll get 75% off the price. theres also a compitition on it at the monent where you could win a jersey so hopefully its worth the pound or so

No Android version, no talk.

my contract is up with vodafone this month so im due an upgrade was thinking of going iphone and making an app for that. dont think id buy an android but i must look into converting the blackberry app to android, their both java based phones so shouldnt be too difficult.

:-)

'cos Java is always the same, right?

Is anybody else having script errors running RWGPS?

I was getting errors when processing GPX files yesterday.

Does anyone know if there's a way of exporting routes from RWGPS to then import onto the navigation program on a HTC? I can't seem to find anything that will allow me to with the navigation to do anything but A-B.

I have been using this site since August and love it for mapping routes, and I also upload random rides i record using Sports Tracker on my nokia e71 and I find it really easy to use.

One area that I think would be greatly beneficial would be the ability to edit rides once the gpx file has been uploaded to ridewithgps but there currently does not seem to be any way to do this. If there was a way of highlighting sections of an already ridden gpx file/uploaded route and deleting them and resaving that would be great. I am thinking that editing rides after you've done them is useful as you've actually ridden it and can reflect that maybe a section should be removed before sending onto a friend or even simply for not including the 9 trips from the bar to the garden that will be uploaded even if sportstracker is on pause (busted!)

For example I did a ride today and there was 2 sections I did not want to record so I paused Sports Tracker and pressed continue when I wanted to resume (each pause was for a few miles). However when I imported it into ridewithgps it had mapped the bits when sports tracker was paused, by having straight lines from when it was paused to where it was resumed and there seems no way to remove these that I can see. I'm not interested in any data from these sections so it would be much tidier if i can remove them but would obiovusly like to maintain the speed,elevation and distance data from the sections when sportstracker was running.

Alternatively of course if it was possible to have lots of shorts routes that could be inputted onto the same map that would also work, so I could just press stop and restart each time instead of pause, but still have them all show on the same map as they are close to each other and included in the same ride. This would be fantastic for mountain bike trail centre routes in the same area to be all shown together on the same map so you can see where they are relative to each other.

I am franky hopeless with computers and new fangled tech but did manage to download GPX Editor where I tried to remove these sections and appeared to have done so and resaved the GPX with a new name (which to me is the equivalent of 1960's man putting another man on another planet/moon) . But when I import this edited gpx it into ridewithgps it still shows all the sections where it was paused. (possibly user errot not sure)

Anyway I dont know if the ridewithgps folk are still after feedback but if that was possible that would be a great addition, or if anyone on here's know a workaround I'd love to hear it,

cheers.

Looks good so far, just plotted a route and it seems pretty fast and clear.

Wasn't immediately clear how to export a route, but found it soon enough.

My only gripe is that selecting the 'cycling' option actually uses the Google walking option, which sends you up one way streets and the wrong way around roundabouts.

live a little

Is anyone else having problems with this site?

I've been using it for a number of months and love it, but for the last month or so I keep getting an error message every time I upload a gpx from the sportstracker app on my nokia e71. Been using it no probs up to now but now get the following message every time:

Failed to process /var/www/ridewithgps.com/releases/20111205002205/Cold.gpx: undefined method `-' for "":String. Task queued about 1 hour ago

I've been through the FAQ's, submitted a bug report but got no reply, and sent them an email on 29th Nov but again got no reply :( I sent them another one today pleading for help.

Anyone else having this problem with the site? Any ideas?