[Video Transcript]
Hello! I’m RyanF9 and these are the top 10 motorcycle apps.
Number one is Scenic : the best rider navigation and route-finding app.
See scenic is specially made for bikers, so the interface is minimal, intuitive and with a large font. In other words it’s easy to glance down while riding and get the information you need, just in case you miss a voice command.
Scenic also lets you search for nice riding roads, which are handmade by other motorcyclists. I’ve been using a lot of apps recently, and the routes Scenic finds for me are the most consistently fun to ride.
Of course I should do my part in adding roads to the Scenic collective, and that’s easy. The route creator is so simple. Start point. Waypoints. Undo. Reverse. Endpoint. Then I can choose to avoid all the things that suck for motorcycles, decide if I want the fast or the scenic route, and geotag photos to show everyone how sweet my ride is.
You can also simply ride and have the app create your track in real time. Or if you’ve got old .gpx files or routes from google maps, you can import them by pasting a link.
But , if your file includes a billion waypoints, Scenic will compress it to the best 200. Which isn’t so bad… 200 is a higher level of accuracy than you’ll get on most apps. Plus you can download ‘em to run the map offline when you’re out of cell range.
A couple things I don’t like! For one, the app can’t compute the most “curvy” route. That’s a nice motorcycling benefit, which is available from competitors like InRoute.
Also at $10.99 per year or $50 for life, I think Scenic is overpriced. It’s not that 10 bucks is that expensive, but we’re all cheap bastards when it comes to apps.
Now , Eat Sleep Ride does the same navigation stuff, but I find the interface to be much crappier.
The reason this app made the list is for two other features.
One is community building. I can see all the motorcyclists nearby, and easily get in contact to create a group ride.
Super easy to make new friends. And since ESR is the most-used moto app, you’ll find a lot of them on here.
ESR also lets me find nearby routes, but I can’t see what they look like at a glance and I find the ride quality is hit and miss.
Back to the community thing, there’s an explore feed. It’s basically like Facebook for motorcyclists … anyone can post, share, blog, whatever. I kinda hate that stuff but it seems like there are a lot of people on here that enjoy it.
So okay, Eat Sleep Ride is great for community building. The other thing it does well is Crashlight.
This uses the accelerometer in my phone to detect a crash. When it does, it’ll notify pre-set contacts when and where I’ve gone down… unless I cancel it within three minutes.
It’s actually really hard to get a false alert. Just dropping your phone won’t do it since the GPS knows I’m not riding. I couldn’t manage to set it off with a really hard stop either. Seems like the geeks at U of T did a solid job designing it.
Only downside is that Crashlight costs 20 bucks a year. The rest of the ESR app is free though.
Now ESR can keep track of your speed and lean angle, but Pirelli makes a cooler app for that.
They call it Pirelli Diablo Super Biker and it’s pure performance. No navigation, no route planning – it’ll just track your ride and the information from it.
Speed, lean angle, distance, g-force, altitude, temperature and if you’re on a track – lap time. I can relive my entire race stat by stat, in badass black and red.
The only other thing I can do is input my bike and tires. Although to this app, anything that isn’t a Pirelli is known as “generic.”
Fourth favourite app is AUTOsist .
First I fill the garage – like with my WR250R named Juliette. There’s all her info. Then I can input any service she receives – like that tire change I did at the start of the season, or the fork springs I had installed at Laval Moto – complete with details and receipt.
You can also keep track of fuel fill-ups, but no one’s that anal.
After that I’ve got reminders – need to do the valve clearance at 42K, an alert for the next oil change in 320 days or 42,560 clicks… that kind of thing.
The glovebox is one of my favourite parts. You can keep records of your vehicle registration, insurance papers, licenses… and then there’s the notes section, where I have a link to my owner’s manual, contact info for my parts supplier, my oil type, my tire pressure… little things I might forget otherwise.
AUTOsist is the best motorcycle maintenance app, bar none. It can even create vehicle history reports and transfer all its data when you go to sell the bike.
Only problem is the app couldn’t pull maintenance intervals and recall notices for my VIN number. I got it to work for this random car, but no luck on motorcycles.
Now , for weather I use a little app called Motorcycle Weather .
It’s not updated that often, but the thing is so simple that it doesn’t matter.
Go in, set your favourite riding conditions – maybe above 5 degrees and below 30, less than 50% precipitation, and less than 35kph winds. Once I’ve done that, I can see every good riding day at a glance, denoted with a little motorcycle.
What’s great is that this can send me an alert when the weather matches my ideal riding conditions. And what’s not that great is the accuracy – it tends to give a general impression of the day rather than spot-on, minute-by-minute reports.
For that I use WeatherBug – a different app that’s perfect for immediate answers.
I can see the current behaviour of weather systems, based on a huge network of international weather meters, webcams and radar stations. Plus the layers will give me storms, pollen, precipitation, lightning and more.
When I’m in the middle of a ride and wondering how to outrun the rain, WeatherBug is what I reach for.
App number seven – Gas Buddy!
Real simple – this lets me find the cheapest gas prices in my area. Bonus points for letting me filter out the stations with decent food. And double bonus points for showing me the ones with premium fuel on tap.
Every motorcyclist knows how annoying it is to pull into a gas station, only to find that they just serve regular.
Next app is Waze , which is a hyper-popular alternative to Google Maps and by no means motorcycle-specific.
And that’s a good thing! Because Waze relies on every motorist to report on their surroundings. Traffic, construction and most importantly…
Cops . If you’ve got a twitchy wrist and don’t want to get penalized for it, check out Waze before you ride. This is actually so accurate that police departments are protesting the apps existence.
Our penultimate choice is the only one that I seriously urge you to download.
It’s a First Aid app – I chose the Canadian Red Cross because of my Canuck bias. Basically it walks you through a bunch of emergencies, the symptoms, what you should do, how to pace your CPR, it’ll even dial 911 if need be.
The app also contains most of the information and quizzes you’ll find in a proper first aid course. Which is great but obviously, no replacement for actually taking a course.
Last year I was present at three motorcycle crashes. Unfortunately they’re not an unlikely event for someone who does a lot of group rides… make sure you’re prepared.
And finally , app number 10 is one you’re guaranteed to enjoy.
This is the FortNine app, where you can scroll through over 20,000 motivational images. Wow. This is really inspiring stuff here. Such variety and range… it really captures the essence of all motorcycling.
And that’s it for my top 10 motorcycle apps. Thanks for watching.