A lot landed on the website over the past few weeks. Here it is in one place, for anyone who doesn’t follow every update.
Filter by theme
The map and the route list have a new filter, Route theme. Pick Castles, Cafés, Restaurants, Viewpoints, Mountain passes or Hotels and you get the routes with plenty of them along the road.
Search by village, pass, lake or region
Under “Where” in the route list and on the map you can now pick towns and villages, mountain passes and lakes, not just a country or region. Lakes go by their name: type “lac d’annecy” and you get Lake Annecy. Planning a ride from your own starting point and picking a new place on the way? That becomes your new destination, without starting over. And searching for places is a lot faster.
Where now knows many more regions too, and not just in Europe: mountain ranges, historic regions, nature parks and named roads such as the Route des Grandes Alpes. Type Alsace, Eifel, Lake District or Hautes Fagnes and pick the region from the list.
All of this runs on our own place search, on our own server, the Route Maker included. When it answered slowly just once, a public stand-in took over for everyone for a while, and it sometimes came back with streets instead of the region you were after. Now the stand-in answers that one search at most.
Add stops while you draw
In the Route tab of the Route Maker, the places along your route show up on the map by themselves as small dots: fuel stations, places to eat, viewpoints, mountain passes and more. Want to see what else is in the area? Tap “Search this area”. Tap a dot and you see straight away what adding it does, for example “Goes between A and B · about +4 km”, with a dashed preview of the detour. “Add as a stop” puts the place in the part of your route where the detour is smallest. The “POIs” button at the top hides the dots.
The Route Maker
When the Route Maker generates a curvy route for you, the route card is there right away while it searches. You first get a provisional route as a dashed line, and a moment later the final route takes its place, usually with more bends. If it takes longer than usual, a short note says why. Generating is faster on tricky routes, and “Cancel” now really stops the calculation.
The Route Maker works out a long curvy route in stages. Its riding time now shows up straight away, and it stays the same once the stages are joined.
A loop from a town with a car-free centre, such as Ghent, could get stuck on a message asking you to move your start closer to a road. Now the Route Maker looks around your start for the nearest road a route can ride through, and starts the loop there.
The map
Click a route and the map flies straight to it.
On a phone the filters now sit in one row you swipe sideways, with All Filters always first. And on an iPhone the map no longer ends in a white strip under Safari’s toolbar.
A rebuilt profile
The top of your profile runs the full width of the screen. Your XP bar shows in numbers how far you are and how much XP you need for the next level, your country shows as a flag, and your distance ridden and rides sit in the same tiles as on a route page. Those stat tiles now look the same everywhere.
Your route page saves by itself
On the page of a route you made, everything you fill in under “Help riders pick your route” saves by itself: your line for riders, the bikes, your photos and your main photo. You see “Saving…” and then “Saved”.
Small things
- When several routes start at almost the same spot, they fan out on the map when you tap the dot.
- The big photo at the top of the region pages, like the Ardennes, follows your light or dark theme.
- For a place on the map, the “Website” row shows just the domain, and a Wikipedia link gets its own row.
- Drag a zoomed-in route map and the route line stays visible while you drag.
- In the Route Maker you can also search an address with street and house number.
- The theme button in the menu says what it does: “Light mode” or “Dark mode”.
Got an idea or something not working? Let us know through the contact form. And Motarva for iPhone is free on the App Store.
