These applications can enhance your route, help you plan routes, and send notifications if you’re involved in a crash.
Motorcycle apps have come a long way in the last several years. They now offer a lot more than a way to track your route. Here are some of the best apps for safety-conscious motorcyclists.
Best Biking Roads (BBR)
BBR was one of the first motorcycle-focused websites–and, later, apps–to specialize in routes suitable for motorcycle riding. The BBR app enables riders to search routes in its database by location, rating, and country. The routes feature detailed descriptions, sometimes even including photographs. If you find a route you’d like to take, you can download or export a GPX file of the route directly from the app. You can also use the app to create your own routes, find motorcycle rental points, and locate biker-friendly accommodations.
EatSleepRIDE (ESR)
One of the most popular motorcycle apps, ESR packs numerous features. It can track your location, distance, speed, and trip duration, and can help you organize group rides with fellow ESR users. It also offers CRASHLIGHT, a security feature that will notify three pre-set contacts by text, voicemail, and email if you are involved in a motorcycle accident. In the event of a false alarm, you have three minutes to cancel the notifications before the members of what ESR calls your “safety team” are notified. The app’s social feature allows you to post stories, locations, pictures, reviews, routes, and events to the ESR news stream, and also to post to your Facebook, Twitter, and WhatsApp accounts.
First Aid by American Red Cross
If you’re riding far from civilization on a road less traveled, take the First Aid app with you. It is preloaded with ad-free content (no Wi-Fi signal required) on how to handle a variety of medical emergencies, including heatstroke, back and neck injuries, animal bites, insect stings, frostbite, and more.
InRoute
The InRoute app includes a route planner. Tap on the map to add your starting point, waypoints, and destination. It offers many routing options, like “Most Curvy” and “Least Curvy.” It provides traffic information and can display a graph of your route along with information about its elevation, curviness, and weather conditions.
MotoEye
The MotoEye app enables you to take pictures and videos while riding, offers turn-by-turn and voice navigation to specific destinations, and includes reports of current weather conditions and what the weather will be in two hours and tomorrow. You can also add your bikes to your “garage” (no pictures though), and exploit the app’s offline maps feature.
Rever
The Rever app offers satellite and terrain views as well as ride-sharing capabilities–all without an Internet connection. When you’re going out for a ride, just tap “Offline” and Rever will download the map data for the route you selected from the rides tab. You can also get to know other users of the app and share routes with them.
Scenic
Scenic Motorcycle Touring is the only app that can import GPX files of motorcycle routes and make them navigable. Scenic also integrates with several online route planners–e.g., Furkot and RouteYou–and allows you to insert a URL from a route created with Google Maps. You can add, move, and delete routes. Scenic can navigate along routes and help you take a detour (whether planned or not).
If you’re looking for more tips on motorcycle safety or Colorado-specific motorcycle laws, visit our Colorado motorcycle accident resources for helpful information on driving defensively, choosing an appropriate helmet, and reducing your risk of being involved in an accident.