Help
FAQ
Short answers to the things we get asked most often. If you have just arrived, start with the first-run guide; if you want to see the app screen by screen, there is how it works.
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Getting started
Before you download it
Does RideRadar cost anything?
No: the app is free to download and free to use. In future some advanced features may be reserved for a subscription, and if that happens we will say so clearly inside the app. Today there is nothing to pay.
Do I really need an account?
Yes. You can sign up with email and password or sign in with Google. The account matters because your bike, your routes and your group rooms are tied to your profile: change phone, and you find everything again.
Which phones does it work on?
Today on Android, from Google Play; the iPhone version is being built and will arrive on the App Store. You need GPS and a data connection: the map, the routes and your companions' positions arrive while you ride.
And where there is no signal?
You need the network to work out a route and to see the group. If the signal disappears for a stretch — a tunnel, a narrow valley — navigation that has already started does not shut down: the app keeps estimating where you are until reception returns. Maps to download and use fully offline, on the other hand, do not exist yet.
How is it different from an ordinary sat nav?
A sat nav takes you to your destination the shortest way. RideRadar starts from the idea that, on a bike, the road is the good part: it offers you scenic routes instead of the straightest line, it shows you where your companions are, it keeps your bike's servicing in order and it lets you tell the story of the ride when you get back.
Routes
Planning and following a ride
What are the riding modes?
There are four, and they live in the route preview under “Riding mode”: Fast, Flowing, Curves & Views and Extreme Lean. They do not just change the estimated time: they change the road.
“Curves & Views” picks the twistiest road instead of the straight one — it almost always takes longer, but that is why you left the house. “Extreme Lean” takes you over a mountain pass.
Can I add stops or avoid tolls?
Yes. In the preview you tap “Add stop” to put a point along the way, and three switches leave out motorways, tolls and ferries.
What are “Mountain passes”?
A filter that puts the passes and climbs around you on the map. You tap a point and decide what to do with it: the destination of the ride, or a stop on the route you are already planning.
Can I see the route before I set off?
Yes. The preview shows you time and distance, the alternatives to choose from and the track in three dimensions, so you understand what kind of road is waiting for you before you even put your helmet on.
What happens if I take a wrong turn?
The app notices and recalculates by itself. If the network is weak at that moment and the recalculation fails, the navigation you are in is not thrown away: it stays active and tries again as soon as it can.
Do the rides I have done stay somewhere?
Yes. At the end you can save the ride privately or publish it to the Feed. Either way you find it again among your trips, where you can rate it and write yourself a note (“great tarmac”, “closed after a landslide”) — and from there do it again whenever you like.
Alerts on the road
Speed cameras, restricted zones, tunnels
How do speed camera alerts work?
When there is one ahead of you, a tag appears on the map with the distance and the limit for that stretch. The alert comes early and is repeated when you are close, so you are ready instead of noticing at the last moment. It is not encouragement to go fast: it is exactly the opposite.
Are the alerts available in every country?
No, for two reasons. In some countries the law forbids reporting the position of speed checks: today in Germany, Switzerland and France the app switches the feature off, and that is a forced choice, not an oversight. Outside Italy the alerts are not there today: the service only covers Italy. And even here the map is never complete: the absence of an alert does not mean the absence of checks, and the limit is always to be respected, alert or no alert.
One is missing: can I report it?
Not in this version. The alerts come from the catalogue of a specialist supplier, updated every week, and not from riders' reports: that way nobody can fill the map with invented alerts. And remember all the same: the map is never complete, and a stretch without alerts is not a stretch without checks.
And restricted traffic zones?
If the route enters a restricted zone it tells you in the preview and, when there is a clean alternative road, it offers to recalculate around it. If you decide to go through, it warns you as you approach. The times, where we know them, are shown: checking the sign is still up to you.
Does the app freeze in a tunnel?
No. Under a mountain the GPS does not reach you, so RideRadar keeps estimating your position from the way you went in: the exit instruction does not disappear at the very moment you need it.
Group rides
Rooms and voice
How do I create a room?
From the map you open the rider room: the app makes a QR code and a six-character PIN. Whoever rides with you scans the code or types the PIN, and from that moment you all see each other on the same map. If someone is still at home, you send them the invitation with a message.
How many of us can there be?
There is a maximum number of riders per room: the app tells you when you create it, so you know straight away whether you need to split into two groups.
Can we talk to each other too?
Yes, the room has group voice. It works with earphones or with the helmet's Bluetooth intercom, and the AI Wind Filter takes out a good part of the wind and engine noise from what you say. In the “Sound and voice” page you turn on the intercom and the wind filter, and you adjust the pitch and speed of the guidance voice. Here too there is a usage limit, shown inside the app.
Who is in charge in the room?
Whoever opened it. They can mute a person or remove them from the group: if someone is disruptive, the ride is not ruined for everyone. And every rider can mute for themselves anyone they do not want to hear, without telling anybody.
Can the others always see where I am?
No: only while you are inside the room. When you leave, the sharing of your position stops there.
Can I share the route with the group?
Yes. In the preview there is “Share route with the Room”: the people with you receive the same navigation and do not have to set it up again. Useful when only one of you knows where you are going.
Safety
If something goes wrong
What happens if I come off?
Your phone has the same sensors that feel how you move. If the app recognises an impact a countdown starts: if you are fine you stop it with one tap, otherwise it warns the group you are riding with by itself and says where you are.
What is the medical card for?
You write your blood group, allergies and the medicines you take. They stay encrypted inside your phone — not on our servers — and they are there for whoever helps you, who otherwise cannot know those things.
Can I let them know at home when I arrive?
Yes: you can share the trip with the estimated arrival time, so whoever is waiting for you knows when to expect you and does not have to call you while you are riding.
Does the app push you to go fast?
No, and this is not a polite phrase: there are no races, no challenges and no speed leaderboards, and no score rewards whoever goes faster. What the app keeps count of is the road you have covered and who you covered it with.
Can I use it with the phone in my pocket?
Better not: without seeing the map you lose half the app. The phone goes on a solid mount, and while you are moving the instructions are listened to — not looked at and not touched.
Account and RR Coin
Your profile and your data
What is RR Coin?
It is the currency inside the app. It cannot be bought, in any way: you earn it by using RideRadar — the daily check-in and the rides you really do on the bike.
How does the daily check-in work?
It is a twenty-eight day calendar. Every day you open the app you collect some RR Coin, and the further you get the more you take, with the biggest reward at the end. If you stay away too long, you start again from day one.
How do you unlock the rider looks?
By levelling up, and you level up by riding. They are not for sale: that is the whole point.
What data do you collect?
The data it takes to make the app work: your profile, your bike, the rides you save and your position while you are navigating or in a room. The detail, written in plain English, is in the privacy policy.
How do I delete my account?
From the app, or by following the procedure in delete account. Deleting also takes away the linked data: no ghost profile is left behind. What gets deleted, in full, is written in the privacy policy.
I have found a problem, who do I tell?
Write to assistenza@rideradar.it telling us what you were doing and with which phone: it is the fastest way to get it fixed. You will find all the details in contact.
Did not find your question?
Write to us: a person answers, not an automatic form.