We’ve all been there, trying to organize a group ride with people joining in along the route or needing to make sure everyone knows where to go if the pack breaks into groups of differing abilities. JOIN is a new app that makes it incredibly easy to create group rides, share the route or find one in a new area while traveling.
JOIN is a free app that brings a focus on the social nature of riding. Within the app, you can invite others to join your ride, share the route and even create a route by simply clicking on way points and saving it. You can also search an area for group rides and riders, scroll through the results and click to join. Even if there’s no current group ride going on, you can see the routes and follow along, seeing other riders’ ratings for those rides. Even better? The whole thing integrates with Garmin’s GPS cycling computers to put the data on your dashboard…
Sync your phone with Garmin and their Connect IQ widget allows the device to use its GPS to follow and track the ride, saving your phone’s battery. Or, just use your phone on its own to track your ride and follow the route. After the ride, you can upload ride data from Garmin devices and/or Strava and have them sync to your JOIN profile, too, making those routes accessible in the future.
We downloaded the app and created a ride in about five minutes. The interface to create a route, set a time and date and invite folks is super easy, but the mileage was way off of reality, saying a ~30 mile ride was almost 80 miles. Other than that and not being able to change the starting location without complete resetting the ride, the app seems pretty useful at first glance. It’s new, so as more people join and create routes its value should increase.
The app is supported globally with English, French, Spanish and Dutch languages. We’re thinking this could be a universally easy way to organize charity and fun rides and other large groups, as well as just find fun routes and folks when we travel.
