It can be a huge benefit to knowing what some of the different apps are that can help you in mountain biking. If you have the right ones, it can help you perform better, be prepared for any situation that may come along, and help you to know that you and your mountain bike are ready to take on an off-road adventure.
The top five mountain biking apps are: the Interactive Dirt School Coaching App, the Bike Doctor App, the Relive App, the First Aid: American Red Cross App, and Komoot- Cycling, Hiking and Mountain Biking Maps App. These apps can do all kinds of things for you, from showing you how to make on-trail repairs to your bike to helping you learn new mountain biking skills that you always wanted to learn how to do.
In order to know if any of these apps might be right for you, let’s take a look at each of them in more detail so that you can see just how they might benefit you. No two ones of these perform the same tasks, so you might just find that you want to get all five of them to have a well-balanced arsenal at your disposal that is suitable for any and every mountain biking occasion.
1. Interactive Dirt School Coaching App
Cost: Free/ in-app purchases OS: iOS (plans for Android later)
The Interactive Dirt School Coaching App is also known as the Dirt School Mountain Bike Coaching and theDirt School Mountain Bike Skills. However, all those names agree about dirt, mountain bikes, and learning about new skills. The great thing about this app is that you can use it to teach yourself how to do the things you want to do, get better at the skills you have, or to learn the skills you wish you had.
Some people can learn by just reading, but most learn better by watching and then doing what they see. This app is perfect for that, but it also has quick reads if you prefer that. Not only will this app show you with videos, but you can also go in slow mode to see it at a level that lets you catch every little thing about it. Then you can even download your own rides to the app and compare them so that you can better see what you might need to work on.
If after giving it your best shot you still can’t seem to perfect the skill enough on your own, you can go to the website, set up a profile, and buy a coaching package. Once you have done that, a coach will review your videos and give you input on how to accomplish what you are trying to do in a private lesson.
This app comes from the Scottish coaching company that is called Dirt School and the coaches here have taught athletes who have went on to the Olympics, World Cup, and World Championships. However, these coaches are just as excited about training people that are getting on their first mountain bike as they are to work with more experienced bikers. Since they have so much experience they are much better equipped to see things that you can’t to help you accomplish your goals.
Not everyone has the money and the time to schedule in an in-person training session with a coach, so this app is the solution to that problem, giving you the training you need at your own convenience. The coaches in this app will work with you at your own pace on the areas you want to work on.
The in-App purchases are just $2.18 for each bundle and the bundles are: Cornering, Jumping, and Technical or you can get the full access for just $5.99 with an all in one download. Family Sharing even allows up to six family members to use the same app which can be really cost effective.
2. Bike Doctor
Cost/OS: $4.99 iOS/ $1.99 Android
The Bike Doctor App was created with beginners in mind who feel like they could use some explanations about the different bike parts and how to fix them. It works hard to make the instructions as simple and easy to understand as possible and to provide all the information that you might need for whatever task you happen to have on hand.
The bike doctor even includes some pictures so that you can know you are looking at the right part or if you even looking in the right area. Also, there are some videos to give you more in-depth information and that show you how to do some things. This way, if you have a problem on your bike that you know nothing about, you can use this app to fix it with confidence, knowing that you are doing it right.
This app also shows you how to find the problem when you hear or feel something that just isn’t right. It does this by letting you select the area of the problem and then helping you locate the exact part that is affect your ride. It then gives you all of details you need to take care of the issue.
The Bike Doctor will even teach you how to avoid the most common maintenance errors, and how to prevent punctures and other things. It also teaches you how to do normal upkeep on your mountain bike so that it stays in its best condition. Keeping your bike at peak performance is one of the keys of mountain biking.
Sometimes a book, or even a website, might say things that just don’t make sense since you can’t see what it is talking about, but with this app you can be confident that you are right where you are supposed to be. The Bike Doctor can work easily on a variety of platforms such as iPhone, iPad, iPod Touch and even Android devices. It can work no matter where you happen to be, allowing you to access it anytime you have a problem.
This can be while you are at home and have everything you need to fix your bike, or it could be while you are stuck on the side of a mountain with a bike problem. All you have to do after you have the app loaded is to find the issue you are having in the app and then follow the instructions for how to fix it.
3. Relive
Costs: Free/ in-App purchases OS: iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Android
The Relive app comes in 3 different languages: English, Spanish and Swedish. Relive is an entirely different GPS tracker than most of the other kinds. Relive was designed to let you re-live your experience over again with others and it is great to have whether you are a cyclist, runner, skier, hiker, snowboarder, or any other adventurer.
A man by the name of Yousef El-Dardiry was on a holiday cycling trip to Tenerife when he thought of how nice it would be to share his trip with his friends and loved ones that weren’t there. That is how this app started out: as a desire to relive his memories.
The great thing about this app is that it can pull in data from Runtastic, Polar, MapMyRun, MapMyRide, Endomodo, Suunto, Apple Health watch, and even Garmin. This lets you record not only the normal stuff but lots of extras. Once you have the data inside the Relive app, all you need to do is to click the Create Your Video button.
In the next screen Relive will automatically select some of the pictures on your phone, but you can change them out and choose the ones you want if you don’t like the ones it picked. Once you are through choosing, it may take 1-2 hours for it to turn your adventure highlights into a cool video. However, it doesn’t stop there because you can also share these videos on social networks so that all your friends and family can see what adventures you have had.
If you really enjoy this app and want even more, there are extra features if you pay for a Club membership price of $59.99. You can test this out before you pay for it with a 30-day free trial to see if it is worth it to you. With the Club membership you can also import your older activities and turn them into video stories, HD video quality, you can edit your videos as much as you want, control video speed, watch at your own pace, add music to your videos, get your videos faster, can relive activities over 12 hours, explore every detail in 3D, and you can add up to 50 more videos.
4. First Aid: American Red Cross
Cost: Free OS: iOS and Android
The First Aid app is always handy, and is available in both English and Spanish. Just as you want your bike to be in the best condition, so you also want to be as prepared as possible for any situation that might happen while you are on the trail.
This app can be a huge help, as a matter of fact, instead of just downloading it you can go through it as you have time and get yourself as familiar as possible with the situations that could happen. Then when the time comes and you need this information, you will be even more prepared. As we all know, things can happen however careful you try to be on the trail, so being ready for it when they do is always a good idea.
When you are out on a cross country biking trail and far away from any help, it can be very nice to have help at hand. No matter where you are at, and in what type of emergency you are in, you will be able to have loads of information on hand and the 9-1-1 call button at your fingertips.
The apps instructions are easy to follow and it comes in a step by step format. There are also videos and animations that make learning first aid easy and even fun – assuming that you are learning these first aid basics ahead of time and not reading them while you are in the middle of an emergency.
If you just got bit by a snake while taking a water break on the side of a trail it is going to be vital for you to know if it is poisonous or not, to be able to dial 9-1-1 and get fast help if it is, and what to do for it until you can get to the emergency room.
Or if you are riding with your friend who falls when making a jump, hits the ground hard, and is badly hurt by the fall, knowing that you have this app can help keep you from panicking. It will run you through all the possible things that he could be suffering from: a head trauma, shock, bleeding, or broken bones just to name a few. You will then be shown through what to do for any injuries that your friend shows the signs of having.
Since it is an app that is preloaded you won’t have to be concerned that you will be out in an area where you can’t pick up a signal. It is fully integrated with 9-1-1 so you can call Emergency Medical Service at any time, straight from the app, no matter where, when, or how you are in need. There is also a British Red Cross First Aid for those traveling in that area that has the 9-1-1 directly to their system.
5. Komoot- Cycling, Hiking & Mountain Biking Maps
Cost: Free/in-app purchases OS: iOS, Android
The Komoot app was made with one thing in mind: getting you out there in the great outdoors creating your own new adventures. While this app is bigger in Europe, it is growing fast in North America. They are basically a route planning app with a website that helps you plan a trip to new exciting areas that other mapping systems don’t even have.
This app was started by six friends living in Berlin who thought how nice it would be to have an app that people could use to explore the great outdoors easily and to find biking and hiking routes wherever they happened to be at. There are around 8 million users of it globally with around 4 million being mountain bikers.
Komoot uses data collected from a wide variety of websites and forums, seeing not only the most traveled and best sites along the way but the lesser-known and the often overlooked one. Then it allows you to choose from these options or to setup up your own route. You can search in a specific area for a trail or in different regions. If you find one that you really like you can save it, change it, and make it your own.
Komoot downloaded on your Smartphone even gives you turn-by-turn voice navigation. This way your phone doesn’t have to be mounted on your handlebar, making it more convenient for you. You can also sync it with Garmin, Wahoo, Sigma Rox, and Lezyne to have on-screen cues. Komoot is also in the works of setting up with Suunto, Polar, and other computer brands.
As far as mountain biking is concerned, Komoot has the added benefit of doing grade and surface analysis on the OpenStreetMaps data, so that it can send you along rideable trails instead of crazy-steep hike-a-bike ones. It displays these grades on the map, helping you judge how technical it is likely to be.
You get one region for free, after that the other regions cost $3.99 each, or you can buy the whole world for a one-time payment of $29.99. The reason why you might want to pay for regions is so that you can have offline navigation. This lets you keep your phone on airplane mode to save your battery while still getting you your turn by turn directions and mapping. They have even recently added French and Italian languages to this app.
Conclusion And Honorable Mentions
Hopefully you found out about at least one app in this article that you didn’t know about before. Maybe you have even thought to yourself in the past that you could really use something like one of these. While I only went over the top 5 apps that you should consider getting if you are a mountain biker, there are other apps out there.
A few other apps that did not quite make the list but are still worth mentioning are: the Bike Gear Calculator app which is an app that calculates the distance of travel and number of pedal rotations using your gear ratios in order to help you find out how you can cover your favorite trails with different gears.
The Weather Underground app has an easy to read 10-day and hourly forecasts combined with excellent radar maps so you don’t end up riding in tornado weather. The PeakFinder Earth app allows you to point to the mountain you are looking at it will tell you the name, even without a topo map. Lastly, the GoPro app lets you wirelessly connect your Smartphone to your camera to get the perfect picture every time so you can create an amazing album of your adventures.