Tech reviews

Epic Ride Weather review: One of the handiest cycling apps just got better


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The Epic Ride Weather app does just one thing, and it does it very well: it gives you detailed weather information for every point on your ride, including wind direction and wind speed. I use most every weekend.

The longer the ride (or the race), the more useful the app is. David Green built this app on DarkSky data in 2016 as a way to have fun on his long commute, but it has since become a tactical tool for the likes of Jumbo-Visma, who contacted Green in 2018, and has been using the app ever since.

Any weather app can give you narrow pieces of this information, showing temperature and wind direction for one given spot, which is almost always a town. But the magic of this app is compilation of all the relevant data points — namely, every place you will be on your ride — with easy-to-digest  infographics.

Getting routes into the app is also super easy: just pair it once with Strava, Ride With GPS, Komoot, Trailforks (which is new), etc., and then all that information auto-populates the app. From there, you can select a route from rides you have done, saved routes, and even Strava segments. To get a hyper-personalized forecast, you select time of departure and estimated speed. Then, voila — youor personalized ride forecast.

I find the wind graphics especially useful, as directional arrows are set along the route, with bigger arrows indicating stronger winds.

Green recently updated the app with a few new features. You can now reverse a route with a click, increase the text size, use dark mode on Android (as well as the previously available iOS), auto-store recent routes up top for ease of access.

New data fields include humidity, daylight, and UV index.

You can now pick the best time to ride your route, sort Strava segments by forecasted tailwind, and update the forecast for the route mid-ride.

It’s easy to see how Jumbo-Visma appreciates the wind direction and speed data for racing, especially on narrow roads like what we’ll see during the world championships in Belgium. But it’s also super handy for cooking up big weekend rides, and knowing what you’re likely to get yourself into.

Epic Ride Weather is $15, and I have been happily using it for a few years now.



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