- I think the best part about riding your bike,
is going to new places.
Conversely, I think one of the worst parts
about riding bikes is getting somewhere new.
Knowing there was amazing riding.
But where?
Many moons ago,
when I first started riding my cousin and I,
knew there were real trails in my neck of the woods.
But where this is when social media was in its infancy,
and if he and I wanted to organize a ride,
we would have to actually ring each other.
Unthinkable, I know, but times were different then.
Nowadays I dropped a select series
of emojis into a WhatsApp group,
and that seems to do the job.
Today, mountain bikers have it a lot easier.
Instabanging this and dropping pins,
like they have butterfingers in a sewing factory.
The internet has changed
not only the way we view and consume mountain biking,
and it's off branches of entertainment,
including things such as the GMBN,
but it's also changed how we plan our rides.
Record our rides,
and navigate the trails.
There are even a whole host of websites
and apps such as Komoot,
that not only help us plan routes,
but help us find new trails.
There are different ways to plan rides and find trails.
But in my opinion,
few sites or apps can offer
the ride planning ability that Komoot can.
We at GMBN are very fortunate to be supported by them.
But with other partner brands such as what by car rider,
what helmet I might like to wear
is immediately obvious from any of our clips,
something that we use a lot behind the scenes might not be.
So today, I just want to give you
a bit of a one on one debrief.
And who knows,
maybe it might play a role in your riding too.
(joyful music)
So let's go through a quick setup,
and installation of Komoot.
Now this can be done via your laptop or computer,
or a mobile phone or tablet.
Personally, I prefer using the computer,
but that's mainly due to my sausage fingers,
and using the bigger interface definitely
helps me to be accurate.
You will need to make an account
or you can use an existing Facebook account to login.
Whatever works.
Once you've got past this,
then that's when the fun really begins,
you land on the Discovery page.
This is a bit like the Explore page,
you might find on Instagram.
Is a curation of what is going on
and what is going to get your motor running,
inspire you and hopefully give you some get up and go,
so you can be get up and gone.
Today I'm using Komoot premium,
which is lovely.
But there is also Komoot Maps, both are great.
If you're the kind of person
that just wants to head up
into the woods for a few hours once a fortnight,
then the basic maps is great.
But if you like disappearing into the wilderness,
for days at a time,
then premium is definitely worth it.
The main difference can be boiled down
into a few prominent features.
With maps you can access
most of the mapping and planning features,
but with premium, you can plan multi-day trips,
or choose from hundreds of hand crafted ones.
You can decide how many days you want to ride over,
and it will work out the daily schedule for you.
If you had a 300 kilometer ride over three days,
it wouldn't simply break into 300 kilometer days,
but rather, using quite complex algorithms take into account
surface and gradient as many other variables.
It would work out your duration based on those factors.
So one day you might ride 80 kilometers,
whereas the other two you might ride 110.
But the output and duration would be very similar.
Riding one kilometer of smooth ash felt,
is a lot less work than a one kilometer
technical and steep single track climbing.
So it's only sensible that we should plan accordingly.
It's not in the too distant past
that this kind of knowledge,
would be the reserve of hardened locals,
but now it's at our very fingertips.
With premium you also get location
and timing orientated weather,
which is provided by Dark Sky,
which firstly is a bloody cool name for a company
and maybe more importantly is the most accurate
and reliable source of hyper local weather information,
with up to the minute forecasting for your current location.
They will also discipline specific maps,
tailored to the rigors of mountain biking.
The final two big features,
are privileged pricing with over 900 brands,
as well as being able to store
and curate your own ride collections.
But enough of me waffling on.
Let's get into planning a ride.
If you click the Explore tab,
you can go to the map and start planning.
You can choose a one way or roundtrip.
Personally, I like to work in one ways
because I feel it's a little simpler,
for what I actually want to do.
You have quite a lot of choices here.
So let's go through them.
Firstly, Komoot isn't just for mountain biking,
but that's one of its charms,
it gives you freedom and flexibility.
It also means the mapping is a bit more thorough.
If you click on this little tab,
you can select Alpine mountain biking,
which is very exciting.
You can also see the grading
of the trail in question using the European
grading system, S zero and S one being the easiest,
and S five the hardest.
This is a really good way for new mountain bikers,
to help choose their battles,
especially on new terrain.
In terms of trail grading equivalency,
S zero and S one a blue,
S two will be red,
and anything above would be considered black.
To make your life even easier,
if you go to the top right to the page,
you can select MTB map,
you can also use a satellite map,
if you want to get a better idea of the lay of the land.
If you know where you want to start a round trip or one way,
click the finish point.
Komoot will use intelligence, to find and suggest a route.
You can also look at highlights on the map
which are little red dots that other people have suggested
to make the best of it.
Add sections manually or just drag and drop.
Now if you go down a little bit,
you can also see metrics such as duration.
This is affected by the fitness level input
as well as others factors such as elevation etc.
Now everyone from couch potato
to fit as a fiddle and of course of vitamin supplements,
aka Pro is accounted for.
This will give a decent outline of difficulty too.
now with a bit of jiggery pokery let's see what we can do.
So I've got a hankering to do some bike backing next summer.
This is one of the best elements of the Komoot package.
I could spend hours
and enroll in an ordinance night course.
Or I could look at the recommended trips.
I think I'll choose the latter.
There is a multi-day route all ready to go in Wales,
just ready to download and go additionally,
whilst looking at the planning view,
it can even help me organize my accommodation.
(speaking in foreign language)
Now, if you may have noticed a few graphics here.
And there's some really useful ones.
Firstly, way type which is a good indication
of what to expect, there was also surface type
which I find really useful.
This can be seen if you want to run over
on the elevation graph.
It will also give you an indication,
not only the gradient but also what
the gradient will be on.
This is really useful as it will help
you make the most of the new place,
and hopefully not climbing up
the descent and descending down the climbs.
You can also click for the forecast options.
And all you have to do to access
this is input the time you you'll be riding
to 48 hours in advance,
and Komoot and Dark Sky work out the rest.
So then how to follow the route for turn by turn navigation.
Well, you can download and use it on your phone,
or a device such as a Garmin computer
or a watch such as this one.
All the maps are available to download and keep offline.
So if you're in the back end of nowhere,
you're still going to have navigation.
So you've planned your ride,
you've ridden it and you've had a bloody nice time
whilst doing so.
What next?
Well, you can upload your ride
along with photos or comments to help other people
discover your favorite trails.
Now, this is an important bit.
If it's private land and maybe even you shouldn't be on it.
Then please don't go inviting
all of your 17,000 Instagram followers follow suit.
You can find all of your rides along with any planned,
but yet to be completed ones on your profile,
it will automatically correlate
and transfer between the two.
Another element of Komoot that is definitely worth
playing with is the collection tab.
It feels like a combination of content and curation,
it's not totally dissimilar from Pinterest.
I like it because I can be a nosey Parker
and see how those guys at GCN,
are constantly out riding
and wonder how they get any work in.
If you do happen to find yourself on Komoot,
don't forget to follow the Global Mountain Bike Network.
You can see all the rides we've been on,
and the adventures we get up to.
And there you have it, a Komoot 101 with old Gubbins here.
Well, I hope I was able to inform you
about some of the benefits of the system.
And if you are on Komoot,
don't forget to follow the Global Mountain Bike Network,
to see all the good stuff we get up to.
Now if you want to stick with the channel
and Komoot in particular,
click down here to see how Neil gets on planning a ride
and see if you can pick up
a few tricks of the trade from the old master himself.
As always, don't forget to like
and subscribe and we'll see you next time.
Cheers guys.