Sherpa Map’s latest updates include Route Calculator and Activity Racer, and they’re both interesting ways of using AI and public data to help you plan your rides, bike setup, and even fueling strategy.
Route Calculator sounds simple, like just another way to plan a route on a map. It’ll do that, or take an existing GPX route, then run a mixed surface simulation that combines your bike, skill level, and power output to give you a recommended tire size/pressure for optimum performance. It’ll also recommend a nutrition plan and give you headwind, tailwind, and weather for the entire course.
Got a race coming up that provides the route files? Plop those in and try it yourself, it’s all free to use. You can even update the surface types on your route if you have better intel than the OpenStreet map data they use.
Activity Racer lets you upload a friend’s (or competitor’s) ride file and compare their performance to your own on that same course. Or upload your older files with some recent ones to see how and where you’re improving.
Start the virtual rides and it’ll show different color dots moving along the course so you can see where each rider is faster, who’s crushing popular segments, and what their heart rate and power output was for those segments (assuming they recorded that data and it’s in their file, of course).
All features are free as they build out the service, and it’s free to create an account. Check our original story to see more of what they’re up to.
