Simply the best cycling navigation app for cities – Bike Citizens Cycling App GPS Review

Confidence. That’s what using the Bike Citizens app has given me. In my home town, or any of the 450 cities it covers, I know can load it up and it will get to my destination on a nice ‘quiet’ route (my preference vs ‘fast’). The increasing availability of shared bicycle schemes such as Santander in London or Citi Bikes in New York, etc, has made cycling a viable and exciting way to explore cities while travelling. So far I’ve used it in 9 cities and it’s been excellent (I paid for the global map upgrade). Is it perfect? No. Is it significantly better than Google Maps? Yes. Google Maps is 90~95% there for cars but only 50% there for cycling; our routing needs are different. If you want to reduce the risk of a car accident, be on roads where there’s less cars. Simple. Even for cities I ‘know’, Bike Citizens helps me do that. As an additional bonus, I’ve gotten to know my home city that much better! Highlights - the loud audio ‘turn by turn’ navigation prompts mean you can often navigate without the screen (just place the phone in a top pocket) - once you’ve downloaded a city you can keep the phone in airplane mode, saving both data and battery usage, and the audio navigation STILL works. This has been INVALUABLE - this app introduced me to the Finn handle bar navigation aid which is extremely affordable ($10~), portable, and doesn’t require a special phone case (unlike, say, Topeak’s $40+ products) Quirks (none of which are deal breakers) - unlike the UK’s CycleStreets app it doesn’t show any bicycle parking. This data is also available in OSM and would be a very useful addition (a small blue dot on the map would suffice) - while you can select between three routing options, you can’t ‘edit’ the route in app... - ...so when you divert from the app’s chosen course (because you know a better route, say), you have to listen to it saying ‘recalculating route’, over and over and... - the app will say ‘take the first to the left’ when really it means ‘take the second left’. - you can’t search for ‘100 5th Avenue’, only ‘5th Avenue’, which can be annoying for such long streets (solution: find a short street near your destination and use that instead) - The Komoot app will navigate using street names, not just with ‘turn left’, which can be confusing when faced with multiple options It’s not often you find an app that genuinely makes your life easier or better; this is one of those gems. ‘Thank you’ to the team who put this together! (June 2019)
Review by Bevanski on Bike Citizens Cycling App GPS.