Because of its extensive feature set that targets them (I list a few over here), many folks who do large amounts of cycle route planning make use of the rather excellent, at least on a Desktop, RideWithGPS website.
Part of the way it works, is that when a user saves a planned route it shows up for later browsing, searching etc in their My Routes page.
On my Mac, as alluded, this is all fine and dandy and my My Routes page looks like this.
As good as RideWithGPS is on the Desktop, parts of its website on Mobile, as of August 2018, are pretty broken. Including, the aforementioned My Routes page, which, among other information, is missing the all-important route names, which in turn can make using the Mobile website pretty awkward.
On my iPhone this My Routes page looks like this
The official workaround for this brokenness is to instead either use:
- A Tablet or Desktop/Laptop computer.
- The RideWithGPS mobile app for the platform.
This is a bit of a problem if:
a. There is no access to the suggested alternative computing devices¹
AND
b. The GPX Track file is needed for another app on your mobile device to work² (because the RideWithGPS mobile app does not support exporting GPX track files).
Hopefully, RideWithGPS, who are usually pretty good at getting things fixed, will address this soon.
However, in the meantime, in addition to hassling RideWithGPS to fix something that should be simple to fix, here are a few workarounds that I’ve come up with.
Workarounds to find and view a route from the My Routes page
Don’t use My Routes
If you can, access the routes directly via their URL.
Ahead of my last trip, I managed to remember to bookmark most of mine on my desktop machine and then synced them to Firefox mobile.
Getting them emailed to myself and other similar hacks would have also worked.
Give the routes meaningful names and filter
If the routes are saved with names that are meaningful, then they can usually be found by using the By Name filter.
As a few suggestions, I tend to systematically label routes with:
- A CX label if they’re off-road.
- A series tag, if the routes form part of a related series, e.g. I’ve use LEJOG to denote sections of my planned Lands End to John O’Groats off-road trip, so that I can find the groups of related shorter rides.
- The routes start and finish locations.
Landscape mode
If all else fails and there is no alternative to using the My Routes view to browse, then:
- Rotate the device into a landscape orientation. The My Routes page should show slightly more information.
2. Highlight an interesting row by touching that row in one of its visible columns, e.g Location. Then, if necessary, scroll to the bottom of the page where there should now be route details, a small preview, a View and GPX track download links for the highlighted route.
NB: The GPX track can also be downloaded directly from here if happy that this is the desired route.
Hopefully, the View link will correctly link straight to the View page.
3. However, there is another bug, where occasionally the View link seems to take the user to the Cue Sheet page for a route instead. If this happens, scroll to the bottom of that page, where you’ll see a View desktop version link, clicking that link will give the actual View route page (may require manual zooming to route though).
[1] For example, when cycle touring close, if someone already has access to a modern smartphone, even if they owned such devices, then close to the last thing most of them will want to do is to add the extra weight of a Tablet, let alone a Laptop to their luggage.
[2]No doubt amongst others, GPX track files are needed to copy into the Garmin Connect app to enable it to send via Bluetooth to Garmin GPS navigation devices, to copy nto OS Maps so that the route can be followed on Ordnance Survey mapping layers, etc.
