In case you missed the news we now have a RideWithGPS club account as a member benefit. This all came about because Project Inform unexpectedly shut its doors leaving this year’s Saddle Challenge without a beneficiary. Saddle Challenge participants voted instead to donate their proceeds back to the club to use in opening up a RideWithGPS account for all members.
What is RideWithGPS? RideWithGPS (RWGPS) is an all-purpose Internet tool for creating, maintaining, logging, and storing GPS routes and tracks. You can easily create a GPS route, load that route into a portable GPS device such as a Garmin, Wahoo, Lezyne, and many others so that you can view and follow your route. This is better than most car GPS systems, which you are probably used to, in that you can lay down the exact route you want to follow rather than just inputting a destination and having your car GPS select the route for you. RWGPS automatically generates a cue sheet for a route, so if you don’t have a GPS device, you can still follow the route. Since most cycling and fitness GPS devices can record a track of the route you actually take, you can load that track up to RWGPS to view it or the various metrics such as elevation gain, gradient, average speed, etc. The RWGPS site is full of tracks and routes that members have created from around the world. You can view them and if you like them, you can download them to give their route a spin.
What makes RWGPS such a nice tool is that it is supremely easy to use. The interface for creating or viewing routes and tracks is intuitive and not ‘techy’ at all, making it a great tool for everyday users.
Why Would I Use RWGPS? Unlike the “old days” when ride leaders would show up with a fistful of xeroxed AAA maps with a route highlighted in yellow marker and some wonky cue sheets that were likely very time-consuming to create (plus the trip to Kinko’s to make copies), the club is more and more relying on Internet mapping tools like RWGPS to do the heavy lifting. This allows members to view a club route in advance, print their own copy of the map and cue sheet, or load them into a device to use on the day of the ride.
If you have an Android or iPhone, you don’t even need a dedicated GPS device to take advantage of guidance along unfamiliar routes: RWGPS makes phone apps that will do it for you! After you’ve downloaded and installed the app on your phone, you can download routes from RWGPS and the app will provide turn-by-turn voice guidance! You don’t even need the screen on your phone so that saves battery life. And you don’t even need a cell phone connection because RWGPS allows you to download the entire map of your route so that you can use it offline and get navigation just from your phone’s GPS chip.These are features that usually require a paid account to access but are available to members through our club account.
RWGPS, like Strava and Garmin Connect, also allows you to upload your tracks to your own ride library so that you can amuse yourself later or just keep track of where you’ve been.
And if you decide to lead a ride, guess what? It’s going to be super easy to create the ride you want, find a ride, and make a cue sheet, map, and GPS file available to participants. No more going to Kinko’s or burning through another toner cartridge in your printer.
Club Ride Library. We have a route library in the club RWGPS account. At the moment it’s mostly rides from a few board members. But it will grow through time. Currently we have about 400 routes, almost all of them in the greater Bay Area with some in Central California and the Pacific Northwest. You can view and sort rides to find exactly what you’re looking for by distance, elevation, location, name, etc. Looking for inspiration? This is where you can go to find your ‘Goldilocks’ ride!
To view a concise list of benefits with our club account.
If you have questions about the club RWGPS account and how to access it, contact our Vice President or go to our website’s ‘How to’ area after you’ve logged in.
The Chain Letter 