The world’s best tool for planning and sharing bike routes online celebrates their 15th birthday this week. And yes, I am biased because the company that makes this tool — Ride With GPS — is based right here in Portland.
After I first met the co-founders of the company, wide-eyed Oregon State students Zach Ham and Cullen King, at the Oregon Bike Summit in 2010, I had a strong feeling they’d go on to do something great. Since posting the very first route on November 14th, 2007, Ride With GPS has evolved and improved their offerings and is now a dominant player in the crowded field of online route planning.
One reason Ride With GPS is still alive and well is because they consistently add new, useful features. Check out the images below for a before and after. Note how they’ve added detail and capability in the current version, yet the interface is still clean and accessible.
As a user myself, I can vouch that it’s so full of cool features and is so simple to use, it actually inspires me to explore. There have been so many times when I plopped down into a new city and used the route search feature to find good bike routes near my hotel or house rental. I used Ride With GPS to map out all my Cycle Exploregon adventures and have saved many of my favorite routes on the BikePortland ambassador page. One of my favorite features are the turn-by-turn directions I can get on my phone. Hearing that voice while out on a big adventure ride in unknown territory is often such a huge comfort.
To celebrate their birthday, Ride With GPS is giving away one-year subscriptions to their Premium service offering. All you’ve got to do is follow them on Instagram and answer a trivia question. If you’re a fellow route-planning nerd, don’t miss this recent post on their website to learn more about how this product has evolved over the years.
Happy Birthday and a huge “thank you!” to the entire RWGPS team. Your product has given us so much joy over the years and we are proud to have you in Portland!