6 ms·

Ask HN: review my startup, a planning/analysis app for cyclists

26 points by cullenking 17y ago

wensing 17y ago
I just started biking again for the first time since childhood, and I bought the $4.99 Cyclometer app for the iPhone. So I came to your site as an excited novice and I'm sort of clueless. Hard to know where to go on the home screen. I assume I want to sign up, but I don't know your feature-benefits well enough to make a decision. To that end, why are the "Start drawing" and "Sign up" buttons given equal weight in the UI? Do you expect 50% of your visitors to do each? Seems unlikely--and is that even what you want? The right-left arrows (<|>) to bring up that other blurb is totally unexpected behaviour given a right-arrow click. The content should be coming in from the side, and be progressing me along some kind of 1, 2, 3 step process. Otherwise, why hide the first blurb in order to show me the second?
- cullenking 17y ago
  Good points. I just spend a couple hours implementing some a/b testing for an emphasized version of the signup button. Been meaning to do some a/b testing, but got sidelined. I agree on the left/right slide action comment, will flag it for fixing :)
Dmunro 17y ago
As a developer and cyclist, I really like your idea and implementation. It's modern and intuitive, something a lot of cycling sites lack, unfortunately. One feature you can think about that I've often thought would be useful, would be to track road quality via a device that detects vibrations. Poorly maintained roads = big vibrations. I don't know the technical feasibility of this off hand, but hopefully it gives you a new avenue to explore.
- zackham 17y ago
  This is a great idea for an app for a phone with an accelerometer. Thanks for the input!
davidw 17y ago
Looks pretty cool and well done. I think that it's definitely something where, if you get enough people, it will also start to be really interesting seeing routes other people put in.
buro9 17y ago
Nice. Questions I have: 1) Is your home location or post code displayed to anyone else? If so could you by default "approximate" the location to others unless a user specifies that they want their precise home location shown. Reason: Bike theft. Don't tell someone precisely where your bikes are, especially when combined with data showing when you're likely not going to be there. 2) Upload photos of equipment/accessories. Add a Flickr picker... I immediately balked at having to go to Flickr, download a photo just to re-upload... actually a URL in addition to a browse would sort this out pretty simply. 3) I'm pretty sure I said to hide my email address, yet options implies it's visible. 4) Time-zone... set it according to home location. 5) Health page... weight inc' bicycle and gear? Nope, you should put the weight of equipment on the equipment page... this data varies depending on what bicycle I take out. 6) Health page... age instead of date of birth? 7) Route drawing... remember prior preferences. Avid cyclists will start to begrudge always telling the tool that they aren't "Driving". 8) Full screen mode is nice, as is the elevation cross-section. A few of the route segments seemed to be wrong but I suspect this is Google's doing and not yours (it would send me needlessly down side-streets and correcting it is a pain in the ass). 9) Route planning should allow for the addition of markers. Think of things like: Lunch stop, viewpoint, toilet break, etc. 10) Consider a way of displaying several routes on the same page... think of scenarios like the Dragon Ride and the short and long rides sharing a considerable chunk of the route (show specific routes on the same page). Also consider scenarios like "I'm going to ride Ventoux, allow me to visually compare the routes in that area" (show routes that meet a search criteria on the same page). 11) Haven't yet used the GPS functionality, but you appear to have the basics covered. 12) I liked the embedding widget... but it's ugly. Does it have to be in black? Could you not have a prettier logo? 13) Before I enter in too much data I'd like to see when it's no longer free. Even if everything is free now, you should let people know at what point it ceases to be free. The issue is... "Why should I invest my time and data with you when I don't know how long the functionality offered will be offered to me at the price you're giving it to me (currently free)?". Even if you just say, we're not sure, but in this ballpark when we feel that we have a finished product... you'd increase the amount of trust and faith I have in supplying you with so much data. 14) Route sharing, route widgets... go beyond the simple. Look at this scenario: http://www.londonfgss.com/thread31699.html http://www.londonfgss.com/thread31699.html A single ride, with over 100 participants, that recurs and changes direction... yet it's obvious it should only be stored as one route, but you should allow multiple people to say that they're riding a route in the future (scheduled event rides as well as individual rides in addition to route planning). There's a big space for being the people who can route plan sponsored rides let alone community rides and things like that. 15) I'd consider adding ride photos or something to pull in photos from Google and show those. If someone is remotely route-planning (prior to a foreign vacation) they will want to know whether the place looks good... i.e. This: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 does not communicate the beauty of this: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=nesque%20gorges http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=nesque%20gorges Overall it works really well with even the poorly mapped areas: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 I run a large bike forum and will pimp it there and ask for more feedback for you: http://www.londonfgss.com/thread35392.html http://www.londonfgss.com/thread35392.html
prabodh 17y ago
It is good if the default map loads based on my location..currently i have no idea where is it pointing to it..and there is no easy way to change that
- etherealG 17y ago
  I'd suggest you hook into a browser API to do this. I believe google maps already do this via a "my location" button, which can estimate, at worst case, to the city usually. Also, changing the default and saving it per login would be good, ala google maps too.
- cullenking 17y ago
  A while ago we pulled support for IP geolocation, due to the service being slow. I have beenlooking into reliable alternatives and have failed, but am totally open to suggestions! Latest idea is to try one of the ip address databases, which claim to be relatively accurate. However, since a user can create an account and save a location to auto-center on, I haven't tried to hard. I'll have to update the wording around the site to steer people towards account creation so that location is saved to a profile.
abraham 17y ago
Look into importing My Tracks data: http://mytracks.appspot.com/ http://mytracks.appspot.com/
- whalesalad 17y ago
  All the data I've imported thus far has been My Tracks data exported as GMX - http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151 http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151
- cullenking 17y ago
  I'll see what options there are for a quick interface. I am running Android personally, but didnt' think mytracks had anything but a save as gpx/kml option. Additionally, I am working on an android application for our site, which will allow direct interface/logging, negating the need to use mytracks then upload a file to your pc and then to us, etc etc.
whalesalad 17y ago
This is just the kind of site that I am looking for. I've had lots of GPX/KML data from my Android phone (with the My Tracks app) and no where to put it. I'm incredibly excited to start using this daily after every ride, to both share what I've done with my buddies and keep track of how far I go. I really wish I was doing this all day every day whenever I ride... I think I rode 10 miles a day for the past 2 years rain or shine to and from my job and it would have been super rad to see the hundreds of miles ridden all added up! So, sorry I don't have any immediate feedback yet but I am using your app and hope to have some good feedback soon:) Here I am - http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151 http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151
flog 17y ago
Can you explain how you're getting elevation data? Last time I asked around this wasn't possible (at least according to Yahoo! maps team at FOWA)
- wglb 17y ago
  This is part of the gps stream from most gps devices.
- zackham 17y ago
  The USGS will give you their entire data set (mostly 1/3 arcsecond) if you send them a 500 gb external drive. We expose a web service to get at this data set quickly for our planning flash app and some of our background tasks.
  - flog 17y ago
    But nothing on an international level?
    - zackham 17y ago
      We are getting international data through their web service currently, but will be integrating an international data set soon.
andrewbadera 17y ago
It seems like you have a great UI and lots of features already covered, but in case you haven't looked at these guys, they're worth knowing about: http://www.walkjogrun.net/ http://www.walkjogrun.net/
MicahWedemeyer 17y ago
No specific criticisms of the app, but I did notice this on the about us page: We have put together some money and quit our jobs, with the intention of making Ride with GPS the best site of its kind on the internet. Having 3 full-timers working on a bootstrapped project (especially one with no current revenue model, as far as I can tell) will be very tough. Ramen profitability is that much further away, and you burn through your seed money very quickly. Since I don't want to start the whole "quit-your-dayjob vs dont-quit" debate, all I will say is this: Consider not waiting until your seed money is completely exhausted before exploring avenues of funding, and by this I mean getting some kind of job. Any sort of income that still allows you to work on your project can help you stay alive until you start making a decent income from your startup.
- zackham 17y ago
  That text is outdated =)
justliving 17y ago
nice app! Reminds me somewhat of http://www.mapmyrun.com/ http://www.mapmyrun.com/
- waleedka 17y ago
  and http://runthere.com/ http://runthere.com/
  - cullenking 17y ago
    and many of the other alternatives. We just aim to do several things differently: respect our users (not our advertisers, which don't exist), continually innovate and foster community involvement.
    - justliving 17y ago
      hope it will work out for you!
etherealG 17y ago
one thing I'd recommend, try using google maps local search api for your search box. It has much more accurate results, and seems to use a completely different database for search results, especially in the UK. Here's a link to it, try using this instead of the search call in the google maps api. http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/index.html http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/index.html It's a bit more work, but the results are much better, UK postcodes will actually work instead of being random.
- cullenking 17y ago
  Cool, I'll give it a looksy. Thanks for the tip!
patio11 17y ago
You list an awful lot of features on the home page. ("Plan, share, upload, analyze." are all features. Or take a look at all of your bullet points.) Benefits sell software, not features. Think of it this way -- you're a cyclist, right? Supposing you were trying to convert a family member into cycling, would you say "Involves moving a pair of pedals in circles quite a bit! Spins wheels! Forward motion while cycling!" No, you say "Do this and you will be healthier, have more energy, save money on gas, and not kill the planet." (Feel free to strike the last one if you are not an environmentalist. Gaia knows I'm not. But you get the general idea.) Figure out what your software does for your user rather than what your software does, and then sell them on buying that tangible benefit to their lives.
- zackham 17y ago
  Excellent point, thanks for the feedback!
Maciek416 17y ago
Nice idea! You should let people drop in their RunKeeper user URL and scan their activities GPX data from there (it's all there). Quite a few people I know use RunKeeper for cycling now because it's one less device to buy/maintain/ride with (running on the iPhone and all). In addition, the RK guys are likely to help you promote your service -- they're quite active with respect to their community.
- cullenking 17y ago
  We had an import feature that allowed users to pull in their tracks from other services, but a migration to new code combined with a cease and desist letter from the big competitor led us to disable importation for the time being. We are investigating our options and will proceed when we understand the implications of those options. With that being said, this feature was VERY popular, and I loved watching someone bring in 100 routes from their other accounts. People love the concept of data independence and are pretty shocked when they hear one of their favourite sites doesn't allow them to backup their information. So, we are hoping to bring this back in some way that doesn't tick off the other services, or at least does so in a way that doesn't have negative implications on us or our users :P
acj 17y ago
Using Chromium nightly (build 35301) I can't update my profile settings. Clicking on "Save changes" gives no feedback and does not appear to save the changes. Other buttons in the app appear to work. Nice work!
- cullenking 17y ago
  Interesting, does this problem happen for you when using other browsers or just chrome? I'd love to help you out (or fix the issue for others!), however can't promise anything if the issue is only on chrome nightly. Send us an email to ridewithgps@gmail.com or use the 'Feedback' button at the top of the site.
kbob 17y ago
It would be great if you had more info about compatible GPS units. Are there specific brands/models that work? Are there keywords to look for (any XYZ protocol-compatible GPS)? I saw mention of the Garmin 605 and 705 in the FAQ, but are those the only models?

26 points by cullenking 17y ago

I just started biking again for the first time since childhood, and I bought the $4.99 Cyclometer app for the iPhone. So I came to your site as an excited novice and I'm sort of clueless. Hard to know where to go on the home screen. I assume I want to sign up, but I don't know your feature-benefits well enough to make a decision. To that end, why are the "Start drawing" and "Sign up" buttons given equal weight in the UI? Do you expect 50% of your visitors to do each? Seems unlikely--and is that even what you want? The right-left arrows (<|>) to bring up that other blurb is totally unexpected behaviour given a right-arrow click. The content should be coming in from the side, and be progressing me along some kind of 1, 2, 3 step process. Otherwise, why hide the first blurb in order to show me the second?

cullenking 17y ago
Good points. I just spend a couple hours implementing some a/b testing for an emphasized version of the signup button. Been meaning to do some a/b testing, but got sidelined. I agree on the left/right slide action comment, will flag it for fixing :)

Dmunro 17y ago

As a developer and cyclist, I really like your idea and implementation. It's modern and intuitive, something a lot of cycling sites lack, unfortunately. One feature you can think about that I've often thought would be useful, would be to track road quality via a device that detects vibrations. Poorly maintained roads = big vibrations. I don't know the technical feasibility of this off hand, but hopefully it gives you a new avenue to explore.

zackham 17y ago
This is a great idea for an app for a phone with an accelerometer. Thanks for the input!

davidw 17y ago

Looks pretty cool and well done. I think that it's definitely something where, if you get enough people, it will also start to be really interesting seeing routes other people put in.

buro9 17y ago

Nice. Questions I have: 1) Is your home location or post code displayed to anyone else? If so could you by default "approximate" the location to others unless a user specifies that they want their precise home location shown. Reason: Bike theft. Don't tell someone precisely where your bikes are, especially when combined with data showing when you're likely not going to be there. 2) Upload photos of equipment/accessories. Add a Flickr picker... I immediately balked at having to go to Flickr, download a photo just to re-upload... actually a URL in addition to a browse would sort this out pretty simply. 3) I'm pretty sure I said to hide my email address, yet options implies it's visible. 4) Time-zone... set it according to home location. 5) Health page... weight inc' bicycle and gear? Nope, you should put the weight of equipment on the equipment page... this data varies depending on what bicycle I take out. 6) Health page... age instead of date of birth? 7) Route drawing... remember prior preferences. Avid cyclists will start to begrudge always telling the tool that they aren't "Driving". 8) Full screen mode is nice, as is the elevation cross-section. A few of the route segments seemed to be wrong but I suspect this is Google's doing and not yours (it would send me needlessly down side-streets and correcting it is a pain in the ass). 9) Route planning should allow for the addition of markers. Think of things like: Lunch stop, viewpoint, toilet break, etc. 10) Consider a way of displaying several routes on the same page... think of scenarios like the Dragon Ride and the short and long rides sharing a considerable chunk of the route (show specific routes on the same page). Also consider scenarios like "I'm going to ride Ventoux, allow me to visually compare the routes in that area" (show routes that meet a search criteria on the same page). 11) Haven't yet used the GPS functionality, but you appear to have the basics covered. 12) I liked the embedding widget... but it's ugly. Does it have to be in black? Could you not have a prettier logo? 13) Before I enter in too much data I'd like to see when it's no longer free. Even if everything is free now, you should let people know at what point it ceases to be free. The issue is... "Why should I invest my time and data with you when I don't know how long the functionality offered will be offered to me at the price you're giving it to me (currently free)?". Even if you just say, we're not sure, but in this ballpark when we feel that we have a finished product... you'd increase the amount of trust and faith I have in supplying you with so much data. 14) Route sharing, route widgets... go beyond the simple. Look at this scenario: http://www.londonfgss.com/thread31699.html http://www.londonfgss.com/thread31699.html A single ride, with over 100 participants, that recurs and changes direction... yet it's obvious it should only be stored as one route, but you should allow multiple people to say that they're riding a route in the future (scheduled event rides as well as individual rides in addition to route planning). There's a big space for being the people who can route plan sponsored rides let alone community rides and things like that. 15) I'd consider adding ride photos or something to pull in photos from Google and show those. If someone is remotely route-planning (prior to a foreign vacation) they will want to know whether the place looks good... i.e. This: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 does not communicate the beauty of this: http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=nesque%20gorges http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=nesque%20gorges Overall it works really well with even the poorly mapped areas: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 http://ridewithgps.com/routes/23644 I run a large bike forum and will pimp it there and ask for more feedback for you: http://www.londonfgss.com/thread35392.html http://www.londonfgss.com/thread35392.html

prabodh 17y ago

It is good if the default map loads based on my location..currently i have no idea where is it pointing to it..and there is no easy way to change that

etherealG 17y ago
I'd suggest you hook into a browser API to do this. I believe google maps already do this via a "my location" button, which can estimate, at worst case, to the city usually. Also, changing the default and saving it per login would be good, ala google maps too.
cullenking 17y ago
A while ago we pulled support for IP geolocation, due to the service being slow. I have beenlooking into reliable alternatives and have failed, but am totally open to suggestions! Latest idea is to try one of the ip address databases, which claim to be relatively accurate. However, since a user can create an account and save a location to auto-center on, I haven't tried to hard. I'll have to update the wording around the site to steer people towards account creation so that location is saved to a profile.

abraham 17y ago

Look into importing My Tracks data: http://mytracks.appspot.com/ http://mytracks.appspot.com/

whalesalad 17y ago
All the data I've imported thus far has been My Tracks data exported as GMX - http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151 http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151
cullenking 17y ago
I'll see what options there are for a quick interface. I am running Android personally, but didnt' think mytracks had anything but a save as gpx/kml option. Additionally, I am working on an android application for our site, which will allow direct interface/logging, negating the need to use mytracks then upload a file to your pc and then to us, etc etc.

whalesalad 17y ago

This is just the kind of site that I am looking for. I've had lots of GPX/KML data from my Android phone (with the My Tracks app) and no where to put it. I'm incredibly excited to start using this daily after every ride, to both share what I've done with my buddies and keep track of how far I go. I really wish I was doing this all day every day whenever I ride... I think I rode 10 miles a day for the past 2 years rain or shine to and from my job and it would have been super rad to see the hundreds of miles ridden all added up! So, sorry I don't have any immediate feedback yet but I am using your app and hope to have some good feedback soon:) Here I am - http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151 http://ridewithgps.com/users/4151

flog 17y ago

Can you explain how you're getting elevation data? Last time I asked around this wasn't possible (at least according to Yahoo! maps team at FOWA)

wglb 17y ago
This is part of the gps stream from most gps devices.
zackham 17y ago
The USGS will give you their entire data set (mostly 1/3 arcsecond) if you send them a 500 gb external drive. We expose a web service to get at this data set quickly for our planning flash app and some of our background tasks.
- flog 17y ago
  But nothing on an international level?
  - zackham 17y ago
    We are getting international data through their web service currently, but will be integrating an international data set soon.

andrewbadera 17y ago

It seems like you have a great UI and lots of features already covered, but in case you haven't looked at these guys, they're worth knowing about: http://www.walkjogrun.net/ http://www.walkjogrun.net/

MicahWedemeyer 17y ago

No specific criticisms of the app, but I did notice this on the about us page: We have put together some money and quit our jobs, with the intention of making Ride with GPS the best site of its kind on the internet. Having 3 full-timers working on a bootstrapped project (especially one with no current revenue model, as far as I can tell) will be very tough. Ramen profitability is that much further away, and you burn through your seed money very quickly. Since I don't want to start the whole "quit-your-dayjob vs dont-quit" debate, all I will say is this: Consider not waiting until your seed money is completely exhausted before exploring avenues of funding, and by this I mean getting some kind of job. Any sort of income that still allows you to work on your project can help you stay alive until you start making a decent income from your startup.

zackham 17y ago
That text is outdated =)

justliving 17y ago

nice app! Reminds me somewhat of http://www.mapmyrun.com/ http://www.mapmyrun.com/

waleedka 17y ago
and http://runthere.com/ http://runthere.com/
- cullenking 17y ago
  and many of the other alternatives. We just aim to do several things differently: respect our users (not our advertisers, which don't exist), continually innovate and foster community involvement.
  - justliving 17y ago
    hope it will work out for you!

etherealG 17y ago

one thing I'd recommend, try using google maps local search api for your search box. It has much more accurate results, and seems to use a completely different database for search results, especially in the UK. Here's a link to it, try using this instead of the search call in the google maps api. http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/index.html http://www.google.com/uds/solutions/mapsearch/index.html It's a bit more work, but the results are much better, UK postcodes will actually work instead of being random.

cullenking 17y ago
Cool, I'll give it a looksy. Thanks for the tip!

patio11 17y ago

You list an awful lot of features on the home page. ("Plan, share, upload, analyze." are all features. Or take a look at all of your bullet points.) Benefits sell software, not features. Think of it this way -- you're a cyclist, right? Supposing you were trying to convert a family member into cycling, would you say "Involves moving a pair of pedals in circles quite a bit! Spins wheels! Forward motion while cycling!" No, you say "Do this and you will be healthier, have more energy, save money on gas, and not kill the planet." (Feel free to strike the last one if you are not an environmentalist. Gaia knows I'm not. But you get the general idea.) Figure out what your software does for your user rather than what your software does, and then sell them on buying that tangible benefit to their lives.

zackham 17y ago
Excellent point, thanks for the feedback!

Maciek416 17y ago

Nice idea! You should let people drop in their RunKeeper user URL and scan their activities GPX data from there (it's all there). Quite a few people I know use RunKeeper for cycling now because it's one less device to buy/maintain/ride with (running on the iPhone and all). In addition, the RK guys are likely to help you promote your service -- they're quite active with respect to their community.

cullenking 17y ago
We had an import feature that allowed users to pull in their tracks from other services, but a migration to new code combined with a cease and desist letter from the big competitor led us to disable importation for the time being. We are investigating our options and will proceed when we understand the implications of those options. With that being said, this feature was VERY popular, and I loved watching someone bring in 100 routes from their other accounts. People love the concept of data independence and are pretty shocked when they hear one of their favourite sites doesn't allow them to backup their information. So, we are hoping to bring this back in some way that doesn't tick off the other services, or at least does so in a way that doesn't have negative implications on us or our users :P

acj 17y ago

Using Chromium nightly (build 35301) I can't update my profile settings. Clicking on "Save changes" gives no feedback and does not appear to save the changes. Other buttons in the app appear to work. Nice work!

cullenking 17y ago
Interesting, does this problem happen for you when using other browsers or just chrome? I'd love to help you out (or fix the issue for others!), however can't promise anything if the issue is only on chrome nightly. Send us an email to ridewithgps@gmail.com or use the 'Feedback' button at the top of the site.

kbob 17y ago

It would be great if you had more info about compatible GPS units. Are there specific brands/models that work? Are there keywords to look for (any XYZ protocol-compatible GPS)? I saw mention of the Garmin 605 and 705 in the FAQ, but are those the only models?