This thread is redundant because I know I've seen people mention this combination in previous posts, but I had such a good experience this weekend I felt compelled to post.
I decided on very short notice to ride from South Bend, IN to Kalamazoo, MI this past weekend.
Having played around a little bit with OSMAND, an Android navigation app, I decided to couple it with
Ride with GPS and fully trust the combination to get me there.
1) From the website, I simply specified my start and end points, and without any modifications of the route I exported it as a GPX file.
2) I dropped that GPX file into the correct folder on my phone.
3) I turned on the satellite-based GPS functionality of my phone.
4) I put my phone on airplane mode (i.e. no internet, network or bluetooth communication); notably, it can still receive GPS information in that mode.
5) I launched OSMAND on the phone, had it display the GPX track from Ride with GPS, and followed that the whole way to my destination.
Having tried similar things in the past I found that it never quite worked -- there was always some bug (or ignorance on my part) that kept it from being a viable navigation tool.
But this time... all I can say is WOW! Again, I'm sure many of you already know this, and have for a while, but I was truly blown away by how well this worked. It appears that the technology is finally there, and easy enough that even I could make it work.
The 75-mile ride took me about six hours, and although I didn't keep the screen on the entire time, I did check it frequently, and I had plenty of battery power left at the end. Each time I pulled out my phone to check my position it immediately showed me right where I was, and the next few turns were easy to discern.
Most notably, the route it took me on was great! Getting out of South Bend was the worst part, but after that I was on very low-traffic roads and bike paths almost the entire time. Much of the route included dirt and gravel roads, which may be a turnoff for some, but were perfect for me. (See below for a snapshot taken along the way.)
Near Kalamazoo I found myself on a fairly long series of bike paths that I didn't even know existed, and IMHO that was one of the best aspects of Ride with GPS: new bike paths are popping up all around the country, but they can be easy to miss for out-of-town visitors. At least in this example, Ride with GPS did an awesome job of knowing what was available and making good use of it for my trip.
Again, I don't mean for this post to sound like I think I've discovered anything new... I just wanted to share a good experience.
