Originally Posted by
noglider
Strava and ridewithgps are good and popular. I use ridewithgps and am very satisfied. I used the free version for over a year and then switched to the paid version. Many are satisfied with the free version. I suspect data usage is not much at all. I haven't tried to use it with the phone in airplane mode, and I think there's a good chance it will record the ride properly but just won't display the map, so if you don't need to look at where you are, you can run it without using any data.
Thanks for this post. I have the ridewithGPS app on my phone, so I just did an experiment.
I naively assumed it wouldn't work where there is no cell phone coverage, so I never bothered to try it before your post. I just did so tonight. I started from our house, where we have wireless internet coverage but no cell phone, and drove (sorry -- I had to run an errand, so I thought I would try it then) away and it recorded everything on the map in real-time. I did this for about 5 miles where I know cell phone coverage is non-existent. (Don't worry, I deleted the fraudulent "ride" after I got back home and it uploaded.) But the main thing is it really works even better than you say.