Bikemap in a real-world test: Sightseeing in Vienna

Did you know that one of the most popular routing apps of all comes from Vienna? We only recently stumbled across it again and took a proper look at this welcome alternative to Komoot and co. 17 million routes, 11.9 million registered users and 951.5 million shared kilometres in over 100 countries are on the tally by now – put together by a team you could comfortably fit into a Viennese coffee house.

The bikemap project dates back to 2007; the initial product was originally intended as an advertising vehicle for cycling trips and, within a few months, had become a runaway success in its own right. The by-product turned into a company, the company into an app. The dedicated GmbH based in Vienna has existed since the start of 2015,

For our getting-to-know-you tour, Bikemap is both idea generator and navigator at once, with a huge community, countless photos, route suggestions and a few features you wouldn't even credit it with at first glance. And that's exactly what we need, too. Because the squares and places that Viennese men and women roll past on any given day line up, for us occasional visitors, into a half-day pleasure tour that serves up impressions, landscape, culture and people at a density you'll hardly find anywhere else across so few kilometres.

Vienna has one of the best public transport networks in the world, and the links to the surrounding area turn the suburbs all the way to Wiener Neustadt into part of the greater metropolitan region. Outside of rush hour you can travel relaxed even by bike, and with the CJX9 you're in Meidling in 25 minutes. So our mission starts in Wiener Neustadt, and we already had the rough shape of the route in our heads: Prater. Because it doesn't get any more typical than that.

Installation, account, profile - all of it is done in five minutes without any instructions. Bikemap consistently pursues an app-first approach, and you can tell: the iPhone app feels tidier, faster and simply more natural to operate than the website, which with planning tools is rather the exception. The menus are clearly laid out, the map is excellently legible - and on the handlebar that's not a beauty prize but half the battle.

That of all people the man whose buildings we'll cross a few more times today wrote the best sentence about app design is a nice coincidence. Bikemap, in any case, follows Otto Wagner's usability recommendation and offers a very clear interface right from the first setup: clear labels, short paths, no menus within menus – and a map that stays readable even in blazing sun and at 30 km/h.

The onboarding is charmingly handled. On first launch the app automatically creates a guest profile – something along the lines of "bikemapuser" plus four digits – with which you can already try out everything without registering. Those who stick around sign in via email, Apple ID, Google or Facebook. After that the path leads via the "Profile" tab to the gear icon in the top right, and there you enter username, profile picture, units as well as home and work address.

One detail we appreciate is the privacy settings: anyone who doesn't want to share their routes with the community can set them to private – or leaves them public with a hidden start and end point, so that not half the community knows where the bikes are parked overnight. This default can be locked in right during setup, and that's exactly how it should be done. Even connecting to Garmin Connect is self-explanatory: link account, done.

Enough sightseeing, back to the tools. Anyone who knows our Vienna–Trieste planning from back then knows how I approach a tool like this: first a rough line, then the details, then always follow the blue line and never question it again. Bikemap makes the first part surprisingly easy, because with just a few inputs you already have a rideable route.

Things get interesting one level down. There are nine routing profiles to choose from, and unlike the competition these aren't just bike types: "Balanced" and "Fastest" are free, while road bike, mountain bike, e-bike, gravel bike, cycle paths (in three levels from "low" to "high"), "Popular" and "Smooth Ride" sit behind Premium.

"Popular" pulls the route across the community's heatmap data, for example – the fastest takes known roads with as few turns as possible, and cycle path usage can be configured in three levels (low, medium, high). "Smooth Ride" deliberately avoids steps, gravel, sand, cobblestones, heavily trafficked roads and even tram tracks. Anyone who has ever caught a wet groove with 28er tyres knows what that last checkbox is worth.

The loop planner sits in the "Discover" section and works with five fixed lengths: 10, 20, 30, 50 or 75 kilometres. Premium users may additionally set the direction by pointing the phone toward where they want to go – a fun idea that works suspiciously well, and one I'd like to try out in the mountains someday. Multi-day tours run via tour collections, and in all cases the map material comes from OpenStreetMap.

We really like the route overview. Bikemap shows not only the elevation profile but breaks down way types (cycle path, forest road, trail, busy road), surface (asphalt, gravel, cobblestones) and the affiliation with official cycle routes as percentages – and via "Show on map" you can also see exactly where those 12% of gravel lie.

Offline maps are a Premium matter. You drag a frame over the desired map section, download it, and are then dependent on neither mobile reception nor a full battery – the limit is 300 kilometres of route length and 200 MB per download. Anything longer you simply split into several sections.

Away from the weir we roll down along the Donaukanal, which is far more than a cycling highway from west to east: over a few kilometres, one of Europe's largest freely paintable graffiti surfaces stretches along here, transient art that looks different every few weeks. A short detour up into the Alsergrund brings us to the Strudlhofstiege, built in 1910 from Mannersdorf limestone, Art Nouveau at its finest – and ennobled in literature by Heimito von Doderer, who named his 1951 novel after it and regarded the staircase itself as a prelude to his actual main work "Die Dämonen".

Points exactly like these are where Bikemap comes into its own. Community reports is the name for the markers with which you can place sights, viewpoints, hazards, obstacles or simply interesting spots on the map – from a drinking fountain to a bike pump, from parking spots all the way to an e-bike charging station. Unfortunately the photos, as in our case, can't be added after the fact, because you should be on site to do so. Cleverly solved, though: depending on the category, a report has a limited lifespan and then disappears on its own. That way last year's construction site doesn't clog up the map forever.

Dazu gibt's Sammlungen, Fotos, Follower, Übersichten über geplante und gefahrene Routen, Lesezeichen – und ein Belohnungssystem mit Punkten und Levels. Punkte gibt's fürs Planen, Navigieren und Aufzeichnen, mehr Punkte für längere Strecken, extra Punkte fürs Beitragen zur Karte, und wer mehrere Tage hintereinander aufzeichnet, kassiert einen Streak-Multiplikator. Das muss man nicht mögen, aber es funktioniert – und im Gegensatz zu manch anderer Plattform belohnt es hier nicht die Geschwindigkeit, sondern das Mitmachen.

On the Rathausplatz we find ourselves right in the middle of the film festival that's set up every summer in front of Friedrich von Schmidt's neo-Gothic architecture. All around it the Ring with its grand representative buildings, the Champs-Élysées of Vienna, from the Rossauer-Kaserne via the university, city hall, Burgtheater, parliament, opera, luxury hotels, Musikverein and Stadtpark all the way to the Urania. No sightseeing without the Ring cycle path – though ambitious bikers like to avoid it because of the traffic density and accident risk. With the Pallas-Athene fountain and the parliament in the background we snap a quick photo, then it's onward – next stop Schwarzenbergplatz.

On the road, Bikemap then is what the brochure promises – with one clear dividing line. The self-guided navigation, where you follow the line on the display, and the turn-by-turn navigation with voice prompts are premium content; in the free version you get the map, the recording and the bike computer, but nobody who tells you where to turn.

The bike computer itself is better than you'd expect. Three sizes, from "just speed" to "speed, time, distance, elevation profile, ascent and descent", switched by tapping, and as soon as you set off, the search bar and tabs disappear on their own. Premium users choose from four ready-made layouts – Basic, Climb, Race, Commute – or build their own out of 20 statistics. On the iPhone, the Apple Watch adds heart rate, calories and activity, and the rides land in Apple Health automatically if you like.

There is a way to pair external sensors, provided the heart rate strap, cadence or power meter is available in Apple Health or Health Connect. For the watt and training crowd, given the sheer size of the phone on the bars, devices from Wahoo, Garmin and co. probably remain the better choice regardless. If you fall into that user profile, Bikemap lends itself more as a planning tool than as a display and navigation replacement.

Power consumption is considerable, as with any map app running GPS continuously. The battery saver mode helps here, switching the display dark and continuing to record in the background. There are plenty of map styles, from OpenCycleMap to satellite to 3D, plus a home screen widget for the ongoing ride.

Am Schwarzenbergplatz schießt der Hochstrahlbrunnen in den Himmel, and it's more than just decoration: it was opened on 24 October 1873 together with the I. Wiener Hochquellenwasserleitung and still works without a pump to this day – purely with the pressure the water brings on its way down from the Kaiserbrunn in the Höllental to Vienna. 365 outer jets for the days, twelve tall ones for the months, 24 low ones for the hours. If you still want to see it, don't wait too long: from the end of 2027 it will undergo a general refurbishment costing 12 million euros, and it stays dry until 2029. Incidentally, our next short trip leads us to the other end of this pipeline, up towards Schneeberg, Rax and Kaiserbrunn.

Fittingly for the fountain, so is the premium list, because water and weather are connected here: alongside turn-by-turn, offline maps, the extended routing profiles, the customisable cycling computer and the 3D route preview, the iOS version offers a detailed weather forecast along the route – including a wind graphic and a headwind or tailwind prognosis. Exactly the feature you really need when planning a long stage.

For short-term use there is already a 5-euro subscription on a weekly basis, while for committed users the annual subscription for just under 50 euros offers the best value. The prices and terms on offer vary a little depending on whether you buy in the app or on Bikemap on the web. In most plans Bikemap offers a free trial period and, as a rule, a money-back guarantee.

The way home leads across Karlsplatz, flanked by the Technical University and the freshly renovated Wien Museum, past the Karlskirche, whose tower is currently wrapped in scaffolding. Then the Naschmarkt: no insider tip, but a guarantee for good food. In the shadow of the Otto Wagner showpiece buildings on the Linke Wienzeile – Majolikahaus and Medaillonhaus, 1898/99, with Koloman Moser's golden medallions – we enjoy our Melange and discover many a nice detail.

That leaves one question from the notepad that we couldn't answer at first: how do you get the tour onto the Garmin? And the answer is dead simple. Once Bikemap is connected to Garmin Connect or the Wahoo account, you plan the routes in Bikemap and shortly after saving, the route is automatically on the Edge. The other way around, recorded rides land automatically in the Bikemap profile - no export button, no manual syncing. That worked really well right from the first attempts.

The export or connection to Garmin, Wahoo and Huawei as well as the navigation on the device are completely free with Bikemap – no subscription needed. The GPX and KML download is a premium feature, while the device pairing runs via the account settings.

Other nice features are the heatmap, 3D and various other map views as well as the weather forecast.

Bikemap