The Joy of Exploration

One of the best things I like about cycling is the opportunity to explore new areas, see locations from a new perspective or experience the same location during different parts of the year. A location can be really boring, dull, or even sad during the fall, but might look completely different in the middle of spring, and you might not even be aware of how beautiful that particular area is during the summer.

With a bike, you can cross vast distances in just a few hours. And more often than not we mostly go on the same rides and same routes as we always do.However, I believe in doing so we also restrict ourselves to just a small amount of the potential cycling experience at that given time and location. We might not have any reason to climb that hilltop, so we choose not to do so.

We might not have any reason to visit that old lighthouse so we tell ourselves it not worth the extra effort.This is one of the dilemmas we choose to tackle with OKTO. We want to give you that extra incentive to visit new locations or revisit old locations you haven’t been to in a while. And in doing so we hope to give you a more rewarding ride and enhance your cycling experience.

With the OKTO Exploration map, you can discover a lot of interesting cycling destinations in your area, we call these locations Exploration Points, and each point different categorizations like Small Climb, Big Climb, Windy, Coffee, Camera, etc. When you visit a location for the first time the exploration point will be unlocked in your map and you will receive at least 50 Oktopoints.

Each exploration point is curated by OKTO and our OKTO members. However; It’s not just about visiting a location for the first time, but also visiting these places again and again to collect more OKTO Points. If you take me as an example I rarely, if ever choose to go up the local “Grisebakken Climb”, sure, with its 200m it might be one of the shortest climbs out there, but with its 17% gradient, I will describe it as a sucker.

However, being one of the few places close to me with potential Oktopoints to unlock each ride, I have noticed myself visiting this climb more and more often.

With the introduction of Achievements (Coming soon) OKTO will also reward you for visiting several location types in one single ride, like 1 Hill, 1 Wind, and 1 Camera category in one ride. Ultimately the goal of our map is to make it easier and more rewarding for you to go out riding. You can use the map prior, during, or after a ride to see where you should go next, change your route to a new location or discover what locations you passed during your last ride.

If you have any suggestions or input for our Exploration feature please do not hesitate to contact me on filip@okto.gg or leave a comment below!