Riding abroad without roaming: get every route ready before you go

You land, build the bike in the airport car park, and turn on your phone. No roaming, or roaming that costs more than the flight. The hotel Wi-Fi was last night. From here until you get home, your phone has GPS and Bluetooth and not much else.

That’s enough, if you got your routes ready while you still had internet. Ridekit is made for this: the map, the stops and the places to stay are saved on the phone. Sending a course to a Garmin Edge never needs a connection, and for other bike computers Ridekit makes the FIT or GPX file right on the phone.

At home: get every route ready

1. Import your routes: GPX, FIT, TCX, KML or KMZ files, or a zip of them, from Files, the share sheet or a link. See routes from Komoot, Ride with GPS and Strava.
2. Open a route and tap Get ready for offline. Ridekit downloads the map along the route, finds the stops along the way and saves places to stay near the route. With weather, it also fetches the forecast if your ride is within reach of it.
3. Wait for ✓ Ready at the top of the route page. The Map and Stops marks next to it show what’s done.

Got a lot of routes? On the home page, tap Select, pick them, and tap Get ready. In a collection, Get ready next to Send all… does every stage. The library filter Ready offline shows which routes are done, and Not ready shows what’s left.

If you lose signal halfway, nothing is lost: the queue waits (“Waiting for internet…”) and carries on when you’re back online, at the next café Wi-Fi for example.

What the offline map covers

The offline map covers about 1.5 km either side of the route, down to street level. With no signal, the map uses it automatically. Get ready downloads the map style you last used. To add another style, open Offline map under Tools on the route page and tap the download button next to it.

Routes that overlap share what’s downloaded, so a loop and its shortcut don’t take twice the space. Offline maps on this phone (on the same page) shows what’s stored and lets you delete old ones.

The free plan and offline maps

• Free: offline maps (Streets and Dark) for every route up to 170 km, and up to 500 km of new maps in any 7 days. Plenty for riding from home.
• Pro or Plus: offline maps for every route, of any length, in every style, including Topo (with contour lines) and Terrain (shaded relief).

Re-downloading a map you already have doesn’t count towards the 500 km, and neither do the sample routes. Maps you have never go. The Offline map page shows how much of the week you’ve used, and the plans page says when more is free again.

Preparing a whole week’s tour at once, or a route longer than 170 km, is where Pro or Plus comes in.

What works with no internet

• Sending to a Garmin Edge. It’s phone to Edge over Bluetooth. Abroad, mid-ride, or in airplane mode with Bluetooth on. See send a route to your Garmin Edge with no internet.
• The map along every route you got ready, with where you are.
• Stops along the way: water, food and the rest, with their distances.
• Find a bed, from the places to stay Get ready saved (up to 5 km off the route). See find a bed on tour.
• Towns along the route with their size: they’re built into the app.
• Focus mode: tap Start riding and Ridekit shows where you are, what’s done and left, the stops, beds and towns ahead, and the climbs still to come.
• Exporting for your bike computer: the FIT course or GPX with stops is made on the phone, ready to open in your bike computer’s app.
• Weather you already fetched: the forecast is kept for the ride.

What still needs internet

• The 3D view.
• Fresh weather forecasts.
• Searching for stops or maps on a route that wasn’t made ready.
• Look Around and Street View on a stop’s page.
• Booking.com and Airbnb, when you want to book the bed you found.

Make a habit of tapping Update on the weather, and Get ready on any new route, whenever you find Wi-Fi.

Changing plans on the road

A route you didn’t plan for is still fine if a friend has it: Share with a rider sends it by AirDrop, phone to phone, with its stops and offline map. No signal needed. See share a route with your riding group.

And if you need a different course on your Garmin Edge mid-ride, send it from the café table. See change your route mid-ride.

Good to know

• Your library is backed up to your own iCloud (if Keep in iCloud is on). With no signal, changes wait and go when you’re online. Offline maps aren’t kept in iCloud: Get ready downloads them again on a new phone.
• Keep the whole trip on your phone and put each day’s route on your bike computer in the morning. (A Garmin Edge keeps at most 100 courses.)
• On a Garmin Edge: if a Garmin app holds it at the hotel (it happens more when the phone is online), on the Edge open Connected Features → Phone and turn Enable off, then on again.

More on the support page.