RideLondon-Essex 100 (2022) Anyone?

[PaulSB]

Anyone used the RideLondon app before?
Mixed reviews on the apple App Store.
Does it use up a lot of battery life?

A friend who set off before me in 2017 used it to check where I was when he finished. I don't know if he used the GPS tracking or just the timing location info. We have 14 people from my club riding and I thought it would be useful if we all turned it on as our start times vary by 2:20. I had a look and decided against it for two reasons:

• Battery power - the advice to carry a battery pack. Nope no reason to do that. You want me to stop and charge my phone?
• Battery optimisation - RL wants me to change settings on my phone. No thank you.

As I was by now suspicious I began thinking why does the app need this? I've got other apps using location without any device changes. Google Maps is reasonably accurate considering I'm sat inside a stone cottage with three foot thick walls but should do better. RWGPS is absolutely bang on. If I move from back room to front room my location changes; if I walk from through the house, it's a terrace, from front door to back gate it tracks me all the way. Accuracy at the back gate is +/- 3/4 feet!

So sorry Ride London if you think I'm changing Device Settings for your app you can whistle!

I'll use it Sunday to see where people are via the chip timings. There are four of us who should finish within 10-15 minutes of each other. I'll WhatsApp them when I'm finished with my location. Due to start and expected ride times the others will be hours later so I wont be hanging around.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

So what you are saying Paul is use it but don't change the setting on the phone or use gps?

 

[T4tomo]

if you want to find someone afterwards, whatsApp and what3 words should be enough...

 

[PaulSB]

So what you are saying Paul is use it but don't change the setting on the phone or use gps?

Sorry. I wasn't very clear. I would say it's worth using to check if people have passed the official timing spots - I think these are at 25,50,75 miles. As I understand it the app is set up to do this. If you want people to know exactly where you are on the route you must enable the GPS tracking which is battery hungry. I won't be doing this because of the battery issue and the request to change Device Settings. Equally if you want to know exactly where someone esle is they will have to enable GPS etc.

At the finish the first person in our group will message saying "I'm ten yards to the right of the third oak tree on the left as you look behind you!"

 

[Dogtrousers]

if you want to find someone afterwards, whatsApp and what3 words should be enough...

Even simpler, Google maps, share current location, then choose how you want to share (WhatsApp, SMS, email etc). I expect Apple maps has the same thing.

 

[Dogtrousers]

Sorry. I wasn't very clear. I would say it's worth using to check if people have passed the official timing spots - I think these are at 25,50,75 miles. As I understand it the app is set up to do this.

Surely you don't need the app for that. The transponder tells RL when a rider passes these points. And a third party who wants to see the rider's progress can see that on the RL website. That's how I've tracked friends' progress in the past. No app needed.

 

[mjr]

[*]Battery optimisation - RL wants me to change settings on my phone. No thank you.

That is almost certainly because some recent android variants and versions are pretty aggressive at killing location-tracking apps (edit to add: except for the Google and/or makers trackers, of course. They want to be the only snoopers to profit). MIUI as seen on Huawei phones especially.

But it could also be a sign of a badly behaved app that sucks battery, so I'd be suspicious too.

 

[The Central Scrutinizer]

From all the comments I won’t be using it.

 

[mustang1]

Anyone used the RideLondon app before?
Mixed reviews on the apple App Store.
Does it use up a lot of battery life?

Short answer: ive not used it.

Longer answer:. It does not provide anything any of my other apps do not already provide so i guess its just another way of pushing advertising at you.

 

[Dogtrousers]

I can see how, if you wanted your progress to be made publicly available so your friends can track you, and you don't currently use anything that does that, and it's a one-off for RL and you have really good battery capacity then the RL app could be a handy way to do it.

For me, the only person who is interested in tracking me is my wife and I use Garmin tracking for that. Actually even she isn't actually interested - I said "Ooh look, here's a wonderful technical Garmin tracking facility isn't it neat" and she said "meh".

 

[BRADW]

Why is it closed?

Oh ... Bloody cyclsts.

The A414 from the Four Wants to north weald is closed Sunday from 5am to 5pm

 

[lazybloke]

• Battery power - the advice to carry a battery pack. Nope no reason to do that. You want me to stop and charge my phone?

It's not complicated electrical engineering; pretty easy to connect a phone to a small powerbank in a pocket, barbag or framebag.
The organisers would be remiss to provide a GPS phone app and not warn about the drain on phone battery.

• Battery optimisation - RL wants me to change settings on my phone. No thank you.

No different to any GPS app on a phone. Strava and RidewithGPS say the same thing, as it helps ensure continuity & accuracy of location data.

 

[lazybloke]

Short answer: ive not used it.

Longer answer:. It does not provide anything any of my other apps do not already provide so i guess its just another way of pushing advertising at you.

As you say, lots of other options if you just want basic location tracking.

Although other apps might not shows multiple riders (searchable by name); their progress along their choice of route; or the detailed timing info/splits for various checkpoints.

If you were a charity offering a halfway drink/snack stop for your fundraisers, it might be really useful to have detailed tracking.
Ditto for spectators watching several participants.



And a quick look at the app reveals no advertising, just info about RideLondon events, News, Tracking and FAQs.

 

[PaulSB]

It's not complicated electrical engineering; pretty easy to connect a phone to a small powerbank in a pocket, barbag or framebag.
The organisers would be remiss to provide a GPS phone app and not warn about the drain on phone battery.



No different to any GPS app on a phone. Strava and RidewithGPS say the same thing, as it helps ensure continuity & accuracy of location data.

Yes, I do know how a powerbank works but I don't own a frame bag and although I will be using a small bar bag I wouldn't want my phone plugged in to a powerbank in a bag or pocket and potentially damaging the sockets as it bounces around at +/-20mph for 100 miles. I'm not criticising the warning I'm questioning the point that to charge the phone one has to stop and I won't want to do so for any period long enough to make charging worthwhile.

I've no recollection of Strava or RWGPS requesting a change of settings but I do only use these in an emergency for recording - that would be failure of either my Wahoo and/or watch. Overall I'm very suspicious of an app which requires change of settings and especially for a one-off use.

 

[PaulSB]

Surely you don't need the app for that. The transponder tells RL when a rider passes these points. And a third party who wants to see the rider's progress can see that on the RL website. That's how I've tracked friends' progress in the past. No app needed.

True if you have access to the website but it may be easier to open the app to do this. If I was hanging around London wanting to meet someone I think I'd prefer to open the app then mess about on the RL website. I tried to track my son on the 312 via that website and it was far from simple, yes different company and country but regardless an app would be easier.