The Best Apps for Mountain Biking

The smartphone is the single most ubiquitous piece of innovation today. These days, everybody from your 80-year-old grandma on down to your 12-year-old nephew is walking with their head down, tapping away on their iPhone. While some have decried the smartphone as a diversion from real life and the natural world around us, these ever-present electronic devices can in fact help improve our mountain biking experience and consequently, our love of nature.

To assist you get the most out of your smartphone mountain cycling experience, the Singletracks team has actually compiled a list of the best MTB apps that we’re using before, during, and after our flights. Whether you’re using an iPhone or an Android device, and even a Windows phone, there are apps on this list for you.

So what are the best apps for mountain biking you should try in 2016? We initially released this list over two years ago in early 2014, and even because that time the world of mobile technology has changed. So, we understood this list was due for an update. Of the 10 apps you see here, only 4 remain from our initial choices, and even those have altered drastically. The rest are all new– inspect them out!

Avenza PDF Maps

OS: iOS, Android, Windows
Cost: Free

Avenza PDF Maps for mountain biking

Avenza PDF Maps allows you to download geospatial PDF files, called GeoPDFs, and then navigate using those GeoPDFs out on the path. A few of the offered maps cost cash, while others are complimentary. Some local mountain bike clubs are aiming to PDF Maps as a simple method to disperse their path maps and permit users to browse their path systems with their smartphones, without those clubs needing to create their own standalone app.

Bike Gear Calculator

OS: iOS, Android
Cost: Free, $1.99.

At first glimpse, this might not seem applicable to anyone however a mechanic … however think again. I discovered this app to be very helpful when picking chainrings for my XX1 drivetrain. For any rider with a 1x setup and the ability to switch chainrings for different flights, it is an enjoyable utility to compute time and range based upon various gear ratios and cadence. This app computes the distance you will travel and the number of pedal rotations using your equipment ratios, and you can also calculate the range and the time it takes at a particular cadence with various ratios. Aside from being something enjoyable to tinker with, you might discover how much faster you cover your preferred trails with various equipments … both up and down.

Dirt School Mountain Bike Coaching

OS: iOS.
Cost: $7.

Dirt School Mountain Bike Coaching

Had to brush up on some of your MTB abilities however do not want to drop hundreds of dollars on participating in a skills course? This $7 app out of the UK takes skills training virtual, permitting you to teach yourself, out on the path, the correct way to tackle certain obstacles. With videos and tutorials, this is a practical method to enhance your bike handling.

GoPro

OS: iOS, Android, Windows.
Cost: Free.

GoPro’s mobile app makes lining up your shot a cinch! In the past, getting an excellent cam angle was sheer trial-and-error guesswork, however with the GoPro app, you can wirelessly link your smartphone to your camera to get the perfect shot each time.

The app likewise consists of other stellar features such as the ability to adjust the camera’s settings (no more browsing through endless menus!), downloading data wirelessly off the electronic camera, the capability to make simple edits, share videos and images to the internet, and much more.

GPX-Viewer

OS: iOS (Note: There’s another app with the same name and similar performance, however apparently by a different developer, readily available for Android.).
Cost: $0.99.

GPX-Viewer runs on a relatively-simple idea, but to our knowledge this is the only iPhone app that allows you to download and view raw.GPX files. Now, there are numerous apps on Android that provide this capability, however due to how closed the iOS file system is, no other app has tried to make this take place.

With GPX-Viewer, you can email yourself a.GPX file, or browse to one of the thousands of.GPX files in the Singletracks Trail Database using our mobile website, and download it into the app. Once the file is in the app, you can view the track data by itself, or overlay it on satellite images. You can also navigate the map– even without a cell signal. While the principle might appear easy, having this performance readily available right on your phone is extraordinary!

PeakFinder Earth

OS: iOS, Android.
Cost: $3.99.

Have you ever reached the top of your climb, watched out at the surrounding mountains, and thought, “I wonder what that come to a head over there is named?” Well, now you can learn quickly, even without a topo map! Just download PeakFinder Earth, point it at the mountains you’re looking at, and presto! It’ll tell you their names.

If you’re searching for the PeakFinder app in the app store, you will see that there are several various apps by that name– some of which have areas attached to them. Those are older variations– you wish to buy the “Earth” variation, which includes all the data from the older local versions. Now you just need to buy the one app.