The latest version of the Bike Hub cycling satnav app for iPhones and Androids locates the nearest British Cycling clubs as well as finding the quickest or quietest cycle routes in UK and Ireland. The new function that has been added to version 3.3 of the app is to support the Bicycle Association/Bike Hub sponsorship of Go-Ride, British Cycling's youth cycling programme.
The Bike Hub app was released in 2010 and has always been able to geo-locate your nearest bike shops and navigate you there.
We’ve recently reported on a cyclist routed on to the M3 motorway by a satnav app. This was probably because the cyclist was using a car-centric app. Bike Hub is cycle-specific. The cycle routing is done via Cyclestreets of Cambridge. This A-to-B bicycle journey planning website uses mathematical graph theory algorithms to work out bike routes quickly. It uses OpenCycleMap, a cycle-specific map based on the community-generated OpenStreetMap.
The Bike Hub satnav uses roads and cycle paths, including Sustrans’ off-road bike routes. The app – provided free of charge by the bike industry – features turn-by-turn navigation, with voice instructions and vibrating alerts. Bike Hub recommends a user operates the app with a handlebar smartphone cradle. These are now widely available in bike shops and in gadget stores.
To download the app go to the Bike Hub website or iTunes.
6 thoughts on “Cycle satnav app now finds cycling clubs as well as bike shops”
Unfortunately, Opencyclemap
Unfortunately, Opencyclemap is still only as accurate as the user input data. It still requires some edits to correct junctions and join up junctions that are not quite connected. I’ve had to make several edits myself to get it to use some cyclepaths I know about in Gloucester as they weren’t quite connected up so the router wasn’t using them.
It’s getting lots better,
It’s getting lots better, though. I’ve been working on OSM connectivity for a cycling router I’ve been developing and have made decent progress. Significantly, routing is probably coming to the OSM front-page in a few weeks (including bike routing), which should help more people spot these missing connections and fix them.
I do really like the leisure
I do really like the leisure routes function of the Bike Hub app, where you can specify how far you want to go or how long you want to ride for and it’ll work out a route.
Looks suspiciously like a
Looks suspiciously like a Cyclestreets reskin.
The routing is via
The routing is via Cyclestreets.
Bike Hub app does different things to the Cyclestreets app, such as having a 3D satnav-style display with turn by turn directions, and vibrate alerts, and a bunch of other things.
of all the houses they had to
of all the houses they had to pick on mine! WTF