← Rider's Guide

Riding Together

A ride is a single outing — it starts, everyone who joins shares their position with the group for the duration, and it ends. Here's the whole lifecycle.

Three ways to start a ride

Solo or group? You choose every time

With a group selected on the Group tab, tapping Just Ride or starting a routed ride opens a small dialog: Start a group ride with <group name>, or Ride solo. The group choice notifies your crew and shares your location for the duration; solo is just you and your recorded track, no group notification, no location sharing. With no group selected, there's no dialog — you go straight to solo.

Any group member can start a group ride, not just the admin — whoever starts it leads it. Starting or leading any group ride needs a Pro subscription; "Just Ride" solo is always free.

Turn-by-turn navigation (Pro)

Routed rides get spoken and visual turn-by-turn navigation — a two-manoeuvre HUD showing the next turn and the one after, plus ETA and remaining distance. Because each navigation session costs real money against our maps provider, this is a Pro feature (Pricing). Just Ride recording and joining group rides don't need Pro — followers of a routed group ride still see the route line and follow the pack.

Rider lock — keep the map on you

Free feature. On the Map tab while a ride is active, tap the lock icon in the map controls to keep the camera centred on your position at a comfortable top-down zoom. Pan, pinch or rotate any time to look around — the camera snaps back to you a few seconds after you stop touching the map. Tap the lock again to switch it off. Ride tab is always locked to you; this is for the Map tab, which is otherwise free.

Joining a ride

When someone in your group starts a ride, open the group and you'll see Ride in progress with a Join Ride button. Joining is always your explicit choice — nobody is ever added to a ride (or has their location shared) automatically. Tap it and you're on the map with the pack.

On the road

The Ride tab is your riding view: a 3D map locked to your position, next-two-turns navigation when you're on a route, and — on a Just Ride as a follower — an arrow pointing at the leader with the distance to them. The Map tab is the overview: every rider's position in their own colour, the route line, and the pack at a glance. On a Just Ride as a follower it also lays down the leader's trail behind them, so you can see exactly where they went and follow the same line — this trail needs a data connection, but everyone's live position keeps updating over the mesh even without coverage. Riding a route with mates also shows the pack spread — who's out front, who's hanging back, and by how far.

Status signals — talk without stopping or typing

Four big glove-friendly buttons sit on the Ride tab. Tap once to raise a flag, tap again to clear it. Everyone in the ride sees a count on each signal, so "three riders want to stop" is visible at a glance — no intercom, no guesswork:

• Fuel — I need petrol (the button also shows your distance to the next fuel stop when navigating)
• Food / Drink — I'm hungry or thirsty
• Stop — I need to pull over
• Go On — don't wait for me, carry on

In the group's rider list you can see each rider's active signals, their distance from you, and how fresh their position is.

No coverage? Keep riding

Group rides don't depend on cell towers. When riders are within Bluetooth range of each other, positions and signals hop directly between bikes — the group keeps working on remote roads, and everything syncs to the server when coverage returns.

Scheduled rides

Planning Saturday in advance? From the group's gear menu, choose Schedule Ride: pick one of your planned routes (built on the web editor), set the date and time, and add notes. The ride appears in the group with a countdown, everyone gets a reminder an hour before, and Ride to start navigates each rider to the start point. When the first rider starts the ride proper, anyone still on the way gets a "ride has started" prompt to join.

Ending, leaving, keeping

• The leader ends the ride for everyone — location sharing stops for all riders at that moment. The end-ride button lives on the Map tab.
• Any rider can leave early — your own sharing stops immediately and the ride carries on without you. You choose whether your track stays in the ride's history or is removed.
• Keep or discard — when you stop the ride you'll see your track, distance, and time, and choose to keep it in your ride history, bin it, or continue riding.

Kept rides appear in your ride history in the app and on the web — ready to become replays.

Next: Planning Routes →