 What's up my bike packing buddies? My name is Ryan Van Duzer and today we're going to talk about navigation So there's a lot to think about when planning a bike adventure and it can be very overwhelming keeping everything in order You got to think about gear and your food and your fitness level and scary animals out there and the availability of burritos And one of the biggest questions I get is how do I know where I'm going and how do I get there safely? The good news is that there's a lot of technology these days that makes navigation very easy Like so easy that it's almost impossible to get lost and I'll get to all this soon But maybe you like getting lost, which is usually my approach I've been bike touring since 2005 and only until very recently like 2020 that I start using a bike computer with the pre-loaded route up until that point I just had a vague idea of where I wanted to go using Google Maps and Asking locals for directions and I know it might sound kind of scary to do it that way There's obviously way more unknowns But everything always worked out and because I was constantly asking locals for advice I made lots of friends, which to me is the best part of bike adventures. Here we go I think that the biggest advantage to navigation apps is the ability to create routes that are away from busy roads As we all know Distracted driving is a major problem these days. I don't trust drivers at all So I do my best to stay away from them and here's a quick PSA if you're a driver Please don't ever touch your phone while you're driving. I don't care who's calling you It can wait too many of us cyclists are getting killed by reckless drivers. Okay, end of rant So right now my favorite mapping app is called commute It's free and easy to use unless you want to pay for premium which gives you some added features But the free version will do the trick. I've been using it for a couple years now, and it's super cool What's really neat is that you can create routes for many types of activities like running Hiking gravel biking mountain biking road biking and even mountaineering It's like Google Maps and that you just pick a start and end point choose your sport and boom route created You can also put in your fitness level which helps the app calculate how long your route will take What I really love is that it tells you what types of surfaces you'll be riding and exactly how long each segment will be Quick tip if you're like me and you want as much dirt as possible Use the gravel riding or mountain bike options, and if you pay for premium It'll give you an up-to-date weather forecast and nag you like your mama. Don't forget your jacket and sunscreen You can totally customize your route by dragging and dropping the blue line adding waypoints like water sources or even Mexican restaurants and At the bottom of the screen you can drag the slider to see the elevation profile It'll even tell you the incline and surface type There's a ton of functionality on commute, and I'm not going to go into every detail But just spend some time on the site, and you'll quickly learn all the ins and outs It's super fun to play around with I've spent hours creating imaginary routes that I'll probably never ride But it's always fun to dream once you have your route set You can send the tour to your phone or a GPS device So commute is also a phone app, but I like putting together the routes on a desktop It's just easier to see doing anything on a phone is always a little bit harder, right? But you can certainly create routes on the fly Let's say you're out on an adventure and you want to put a segment together You can totally do that You can also use commute to actually guide you with the little blue line the left and right turns But I like using a bike computer, and I will talk more about that pretty soon Another fun feature with commute is that you can create a profile where all your tours can be stored For everyone to see and comment on or you can keep it private You can even make them pretty with photos or videos and all your adoring followers can comment on your rides And here's another super cool feature If you don't want to create your own route and need some inspiration You can go to the discover page and look through an endless amount of adventures from around the world that people have put together This page will definitely kickstart Some ideas and when you find one that you like just hit export to a GPS device and you're on your way Also, if you want to stalk your favorite riders and see what they're up to you can follow their profiles Just like you would on social media Laelle is my favorite follow. She's always up to some cool stuff Okay Now I'm gonna talk quickly about Google Maps because it's actually pretty solid and I use it all the time for getting around Boulder and other cities The key here is to choose the bicycle option and Google will use its magic to put you on roads that are safer for bikes Hopefully roads with bike lanes once you're happy with the route You hit the start button and it'll guide you all the way to your destination Now I'm sure you've all used this a million times in your cars Google Maps has been around for a long time But it's you know the same for biking I personally just quickly memorize the route and put the phone in my pocket And then just go on a ride and every now and then I look to make sure I'm going the right way But you can also mount your phone on your handlebars and just follow the blue line Now Google isn't good for planning off-road adventures But it'll certainly get you through cities, which is nice because biking through cities can get very stressful Again cars now. Let's talk about bike computers I'll go over this very quickly because I don't have a ton of experience here This is the only model. I've ever had it's the Wahoo Rome And I got it in 2020 and it's solid and it's also changed the way I Navigate and it's super easy to use even for a tech dummy like me It's on my handlebars at all times and I glance down from time to time to see where I'm going When I mentioned earlier that it's almost impossible to get lost This is how once you have your route loaded all you have to do is follow the line And if you go off-road by even 10 feet, it'll start beeping and annoy the crap out of you until you get back in line I will forever use a bike computer for navigation because it saves me from wasting my phone battery And you don't want to do that because you need your phone to call your mom at the end of the day To tell her that you're okay, right? You got to keep the mom's happy or the wives or the girlfriends or the boyfriends or whatever This thing lasts like 17 hours Which is great when you're out in the middle of nowhere and don't have access to power. I Will say that it's sometimes handy to use your phone to double-check where you're at and you can zoom way in and Make sure you're on the right route. These are a little bit harder to see But I always turn that off so I'm not wasting the battery on my phone all day and just use this bad boy Okay, that's pretty much it now. There's definitely other mapping apps out there like pocket earth Far out Gaia and many others, but I haven't used them very much do whatever works best for you And just make sure to practice with all the functions before you head out on an adventure So that you don't get stuck out there like I have no idea how to use this You don't want to be in that situation Really detailed techie stuff can intimidate me and the best way for me to feel confident It's just practice over and over All right, this is really important. Just remember you don't need any of this stuff to go on a bike tour I only started using phones and digital mapping apps a few years ago Now can it make things easier? Yes for sure, but it's not necessary Heck I traveled with books check out these ancient relics I traveled with books up until pretty recently and like I said at the very beginning Using local advice can lead to some very cool connections and adventures I'm still in touch with people. I've met on all my rides and for me That's the true magic of traveling by bike All right, so thank you so much for watching this video if you're new to my channel I have tons of bike adventures from all over the world and I will link them down below and It would be really helpful if you would like and subscribe and do all that YouTubey stuff All right now get off your couch and get out there