With smart phones a commonplace entity in almost everyone’s life, there are multiple ways to make biking in Boston not only easier on yourself, but more engaging and entertaining. There are several apps I use to make finding new restaurants and shops in Boston easier as well as monitoring my biking habits. Strava Cycling App logs the distance and routes that you have completed while cycling. It is as easy as turning the program on, and letting it run in your pocket or bag while running errands or enjoying a nice bike through the city. It is able to record your average biking speed, routes, total miles, and relative speed versus other users in the area. Boston has developed quite a following for the app, with many users inputting their own favorite routes or sprints. While biking throughout the city, you will be able to see how fast and often other Strava users have completed circuits and sprints around town. The app also gives good information as to good routes to go on for exercise and commutes.
If you are a Hubway rental person, a very useful app is Spotcycle which allows you to see which Hubway stations have cycles available as well as vacant spaces to return your cycle. This one is very useful, especially if you plan on traveling. There are over 3 dozen cities in the US who are programmed into this app and a few outside the US as well. It easily gives you a route to a rental station and allows you to plot out your destination based on where you can leave your entry level bikes.
Photo by John Niedermeyer
Google Maps has a cycling function when requesting directions to a new location. This app is very advantageous as it typically will route you onto roads which have bicycle lanes, and allows for very easy drag and drop modification of cycling routes. The time estimator is usually on point as well, so if you are curios as to how long an average cycle trip should take between point, this app will give you a good base to judge your departure and arrival times off of.
For those who have not learned too much about bike maintenance and repairs yet, the Bike Doctor App is very useful. It helps to diagnose problems while out on the road to see if a quick fix to safely get to a bike shop or home is doable or if you require the long and unwanted walk to the closest store. This makes bike maintenance at home much easier, rather than parsing through dozens of online websites and youtube videos, this little app has a very straightforward methodology to diagnosing and repairing every day problems with bicycles.
My Tracks offers a heart monitoring and health enthusiast format for keeping track of bicycle workouts. It also monitors via GPS the route taken by the cyclist to give total mileage, miles per four, and easily transmits this data via google +, gmail, facebook, and twitter. This makes it easy to share favorite rides and compare with friends who is getting out the farthest or taking the most challenging routes. This app also works for off trail and mountain biking, making it ideal over Strava if you are going to be cross training or riding predominately off road.
Learn more about Apartment by Bike in Boston with Alex Ziemba.
