5 reasons why MapMyRide sucks

If you’re new to the world of fitness apps, you may well come across MapMyRun or MapMyRide as one of the most popular apps around. Don’t be fooled into thinking that just because more people have downloaded it, it must be better than the alternatives. As someone who has used this service, the following summarises my reasons for moving away from it, apart from the obvious – there are much better alternatives out there!

1. Ads

The website hassles you with ads when you want to create routes, forcing you to wait, or click past them. No big deal perhaps, but others like ridewithgps.com and strava don’t hassle their users in this way. It’s just a deliberate strategy to annoy people into paying for the premium product.

2. Whose data is it anyway?

This is my biggest gripe. When you upload your gpx files to mapmyride, you can view a map and the stats just like on any other similar site. BUT – if you ever want to export the data again, it will not include any time data, only the route itself. This means you’ll get no stats, no recognition of any segments in Strava, nothing. The decision to restrict data export in this way is a silly attempt to keep their users, but ironically will be one of the main reasons that people will leave.

3. Your phone

In terms of recording your rides, it’s a smartphone app, so the chances are that the battery life will be awful when compared to a dedicated GPS unit like a Garmin. Check out 10 reasons to ditch phone apps and get a proper GPS for your bike . The app doesn’t run well on lower spec android phones, and crashed on me a few times. If you have to use a phone to record your GPS tracks, use something lighter like MyTracks instead.

4. The unsocial network

Their attempt at socialising the experience fails miserably. Yes, you can look at other people’s routes, but in a world of shiny Strava segments, mapmyride can only seem to offer lame leaderboards which don’t display anything other than your username and how long the route took you. Let’s be honest, Strava has it nailed.

5. Can you believe it?

They just brought out MapMyDogWalk.
No shit.
Well, probably lots – better take some baggies.