We had a cycling family growing up. Two adults, two kids, a sense of adventure and a sense of humor. I did my first long distance ride in college, leading a tour from NY to Quebec. The next big ride was with my girlfriend, now wife, cycling from Eugene Oregon to San Francisco.
As the kids grew, we went farther. From around the block to around the world. From days to weeks. From flat roads to climbs.
We were planning a multi-week cycling trip and couldn't find an app that had the routing and tracking features we needed, so I built an app for that. The app got us from Prague to Budapest together, and FrontPack was born. At the time, it was like many cycling apps you see today: a free web site to upload and download GPX files, and a free mobile app for offline navigation.
Having succesfully used FrontPack to navigate foreign lands, and with a small but growing online following, I approached Adventure Cycling Association about using it to distribute their iconic maps. It provided a way to support more cyclists with digital navigation, while at the same time using in-app purchases to fuel their mission. And it provided me a way to support the orgnization, while funding bike equipment and travel.
We evolved FrontPack into Bicycle Route Navigator and launched it in 2019. We updated it early and often, responding quickly to feedback. Cell phones and networks evolved as well, so with more memory, better batteries, and faster downloads, the challenges fell away. By 2024, FrontPack was used to plan and navigate over 25,000,000 miles .
As Adventure Cycling was developing their 5-year plan, they knew they needed broader digital distribution to reach a larger, more diverse audience. They chose to partner with RideWithGPS and we worked together to transition the routes from Bicycle Route Navigator to the new platform. It was the right decision for the organization, a great ride for me, and the rest is history.
So, what's next? I'm not sure, but I do know that AI is changing how we work, learn, and play. It's unclear what that means for cycle touring but I'm going to find out.
