The summer season has slowly given way to fall, and Indian summer still tempts us to take trips into nature. But for us, the season never ends! So, before you head out into the fresh air again, here’s a brief summary of what we’ve accomplished over the past few months. We’ve significantly improved the web route planner, fixed the integration between Locus and e-bikes with Bosch motors, and added a simplified route planner to the iPhone version. And now, in more detail:

• Locus Map Web
• Locus Map for Android
• Locus Map Lite for iOS

Locus Map Web Just Got a Little Better

The web planner has once again taken giant strides toward matching the capabilities offered by its more advanced Android version.

Plan using shaping and via points along the route

You create a route in the route planner using what are called shaping points and via points. The difference between them is that while shaping points are used only to determine the direction the route planner takes, waypoints are places you really don’t want to miss on your trip. These are usually LoPoints  (natural and architectural landmarks, restaurants, etc.) or your user points (such as geocaches). You can now create a viapoint from a shaping point—and vice versa—on the website. Or you can insert a viapoint anywhere along the route.

You can assign a custom icon or description to a viapoint. The icon will appear in the itinerary and on the elevation profile.

In addition, viapoints are displayed in the route panel and in the detailed list, which you can open in a separate window. This list shows the distance between each viapoint, and you can center each one on the map or copy its coordinates. 

Now you know what kind of surface you'll be riding on

Each route includes a graph showing elevation gain and slope gradient. For the planned routes, we’ve added two bars with color-coded surface types and trail types. When you hover your mouse over a route or the graph, all the data for that specific location will be displayed—distance from the start, elevation, gradient, surface type, and trail type. So now you know exactly which parts of the route will be on a third-class paved road and which on a gravel dirt road, and what it will be like to ride on that muddy trail with a 20% grade. And based on that, you can then adjust your route accordingly.

Watch out for obstacles along the route!

Rough terrain, a barrier, a railroad crossing, heavy traffic on the road… The route planner can now warn you about these and many other hazards right from the comfort of your living room. It displays them directly on the map, in the route panel, and also in a detailed list that you can open in a separate window. The app also displays these warnings during navigation (if you choose).

Style your route line however you like

You now have the same options as in the mobile app:

Choose any color, opacity, pattern, and outline. The selection also includes dynamic coloring styles based on speed, route incline, heart rate, or cadence. Of course, styles can be inherited from route folders. 

As for the incline, the dynamic color scale varies from the app for now, but we'll fine-tune that over time as well.

What's New on Android

Locus Map version 4.36 once again brings a large set of changes and fixes, the most significant of which are as follows:

The connection to Bosch e-bikes is finally working

If you ride an e-bike with Bosch Smart System technology, we have good news for you—it’s been fixed. The Locus Map app already communicated with these bikes, but only through an impractical workaround—you had to pair the bike in the Android Bluetooth settings and launch the Bosch Flow app first, and even then, data on the assistance mode or motor power wasn’t available; only basic data such as speed, cadence, and rider power.

We had to completely overhaul the connection method, and once we succeeded, we were finally able to add what had been missing: the assistance mode and motor power, in addition to the data you already had available. In addition, version 4.36.0 adds the remaining range for the currently selected assistance level, along with a few other minor tweaks. Hopefully, it won’t give you any more trouble!

Augmented reality just got a little smarter

Augmented reality (AR) in Locus Map displays map points in the real-world landscape on your phone's screen via the camera. It was previously available as an add-on; since the last version, it has been built into the main app.

The biggest new feature is the ability to load nearby locations from our LoPoints service, so you can see peaks, landmarks, and other points of interest even in areas where you don’t have your own map data. In AR, you can also view any point directly from its tool menu and display it similarly to a navigation destination.

We've also added a warning about compass distortion: if something in your surroundings is affecting your phone's magnetic readings or if the compass needs to be calibrated, the AR view will now alert you. And if your destination is outside the screen, a small arrow at the edge of the view now shows the direction you should turn.

Count Your Steps

Among the many minor updates, let’s at least mention the built-in pedometer. Count your steps using just your phone (no additional sensor is needed); the step count is now included in exported GPX and TCX files as well as in the FIT format, and can be retrieved when importing GPX files.

Plan your trips on your iPhone, too

The much younger sibling of the Android version received a major new feature over the summer—a route planner. Although it’s much simpler and works only online, it’s a big step toward other features that rely on route generation, such as navigation. 

We're still fine-tuning the planner, and we'll publish a detailed article about it when the time is right.

Indian summer is slowly giving way to fall, and the colors of the season are just around the corner! So don’t miss out by sitting at home on the couch—head out into nature, with Locus Map, of course. Thank you for using our app, and we appreciate all your feedback.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the difference between a shaping point and a viapoint, and how do I change one to the other?

A shaping point simply tells the route planner where to go. A viapoint is a place you actually want to visit on your trip—typically a LoPoint or a point you’ve created yourself. Now on the website, you can convert a shapingpoint into a viapoint (and vice versa), and you can place a viapoint anywhere along the route. You can also assign a custom icon and description to each viapoint, which will appear in the itinerary and on the elevation profile.

Where do you get the surface data from, and will I be able to see it for my recorded routes as well?

Like our other map data, we source this from OpenStreetMap. We’ve added colored bands indicating surface and road type to the planned routes only—when you hover your mouse over a route or the graph, you’ll see the distance from the starting point, elevation, gradient, surface type, and road type for that location.

Will route warnings (roadblocks, railroad crossings, difficult terrain) also appear in the mobile app?

Yes. The planner shows them directly on the map, in the route panel, and in the detailed list, and the app can also display them during navigation—if you enable that feature.

What do I need to connect to a Bosch e-bike?

A bike equipped with Bosch Smart System technology and Locus Map version 4.36 or later. We’ve completely redesigned the connection process, so you no longer need to go through the Bosch Flow app. You can now also see the assist mode, motor power, and remaining range for the currently selected assist level.

Do I need an external sensor to count my steps?

No, the pedometer is built-in and only requires the phone itself. The step count is included in exported GPX, TCX, and FIT files, and is loaded back in when a GPX file is imported.

Článek A Fall Roundup of News from the World of Locus Map se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

As we approach the end of the year, we thought it would be a good idea to pause and look back at what we have accomplished this year together with you. And there's no shortage of things, you can judge for yourself. 

Let's start with some statistics

A look at the anonymized data you sync via the Locus cloud reveals a lot of interesting numbers for 2022:

• you’ve recorded over 2 million tracks
• you have walked, hiked, cycled, run, climbed, etc. over 11 million (!!!) kilometers with Locus Map (that's 14 times from the Earth to the Moon and back)
• most of your trips have been on foot - you have enjoyed over 71,000 walks and hikes
• the most kilometers were cycled - almost 1.5 million km
• you added almost 7 000 user photos to LoPoints on the map during the autumn alone
• geocachers went hunting for nearly 700,000 caches

We've done our best, too, and this year we've improved Locus Map with a lot of new features for you. Here are the highlights:

Satellite and aerial maps of the world

Since Locus Map is not built on Google's mapping interface, it cannot legally use Google maps. The lack of a good global satellite and aerial map was our obvious disadvantage. We had to rely on local suppliers, but we were unable to find them in all countries.

As of spring 2022, that's different - we've acquired global satellite data from HERE and Maxar, so we finally have a bird's eye view of almost the entire world in both the app and the web planner.

New winter maps and ski routing

Our offline LoMaps can be switched to a winter theme for years, but this time we've focused on their online version so we can have a winter map on the web too. We cleaned up the map, optimized it for better readability in the sun, and added updated winter LoPoints. It includes cross-country groomed and ungroomed trails (where the OSM community has put them on the map), color-coded pistes, freeride trails, ski-alpine trails, and winter hiking trails. 

We've removed one big skeleton from the closet - we've given LoMaps a brand-new and up-to-date legend.

For white trail lovers, we've added a cross-country ski routing profile for both planner and quick navigation. We're still tweaking the profile to meet the current needs of our users, so sometimes you'll find a spot where the route is not rendered - you can overcome such a section either by drawing it manually or by switching to the walking profile.

LoPoints with information from Wikipedia

LoPoints - points marking interesting and important places on the map, are an integral part of our LoMap. In the spring, we managed to link them with data from the biggest internet encyclopedia - Wikipedia. A lot of architectural, technical, and natural landmarks on the map got interesting descriptions and photos.

Your photos of interesting places on the map

During the summer we started another big project - user photos can be assigned to each LoPoint so others can see what it looks like - is the view on the map really the view in reality? Is there really water in this well? Is this ruin really worth a visit? Is it possible to hide in this shelter in bad weather? These questions can best be answered by actual photography.

A download of caches directly in the app

Until recently, only the Geocaching4Locus add-on was used to download and import caches, but we have no influence on its development - it is programmed by one of our partners. For better sustainability and flexibility, we decided to add the cache download option directly into the app. So, it doesn't yet do all the finesse of G4L, but we'll add it in time. You can now find the direct cache search and import in the geocaching tools.

Locus Map Premium - one-offs and vouchers

We were able to introduce all of these new features thanks to a new sustainable way of funding our work through subscriptions. Plus, in the spring we introduced the option to get Premium services for one-off payments - for three months or a year, with no automatic renewal. This way you can use Locus "in full" only during peak season and have it free for the rest of the year.

The newest option to get Premium without having to purchase through Google Play, are annual vouchers. These can be purchased directly on our site, for yourself, or as a gift. And it really pays off now before Christmas! Each voucher contains a unique code, after entering it in the "Go Premium" section of the menu, the app restarts in Premium mode with all the high-tech features.

And what awaits us next year?

That, in a nutshell, was our year 2022 together. And what can you look forward to next time? Well, there are plenty of things to look forward to, including:

• a completely new search - we are far from using all the possibilities of the location data available in our service, so we want to "teach" Locus better how to search in this amount
• we will most likely expand the availability of Locus... fanfare and drumroll... even for apple industry fans! Yes, we will probably start testing the first (lightweight) versions on the iOS platform as early as spring.

So you have something to look forward to again, and so do we! We wish you all good health and lots of outdoor fun with Locus Map!

Článek Looking back at 2022 se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

It's been a while since we've written about the release of a new version of your favorite app. Not because nothing has happened, on the contrary - we release new versions more or less regularly every month, as you've probably noticed. There's a lot going on, it's just that it's not so visible "on the surface" - we're just working on a lot of stuff that's going on in the background, but also on already finished stuff that we're tweaking to even greater perfection - we call it internal cultivation.

Version 4.13 is no exception, but it does bring some major new features that we would like to show off. We can summarize them in three thematic groups:

• geocaching
• winter
• cultivation

Download caches without add-on

Locus Map offers a lot of features and gadgets for geocaching players. Until recently, except for one - the ability to search and download caches from Geocaching.com. Until now, we've left that to the Geocaching4Locus add-on, which comes from another developer. However, the add-on hasn't been updated for several years, so in order to maintain availability and get greater flexibility, we decided to add the feature directly to the app.

You can find it in the Geocaching Tools section in the list of all app features. It doesn't yet do everything G4L does - it lacks a live map with streaming caches displayed on the map and search by GC code. But we plan to add all of that to Locus soon. Until that happens, feel free to continue using the G4L add-on.

Predefined lists

Another new feature taken from the add-on is the ability to display lists of caches that you previously defined on geocaching.com. Click on My Lists to see your lists in the app. There is then a button at the end of the line to batch-download all the caches in the list directly into the app for offline use. Your Pocket Queries are also displayed in the same section.

Plan cross-country ski trips

About a month ago, we put a brand new winter LoMap in the app and on the web. We've cleaned up its look, improved readability, added winter LoPoints, and it's ready for the upcoming season. It shows the slopes by difficulty, and also cross-country ski trails divided into several levels. Of course, lifts, cable cars, ski huts, aprés bars, etc., are all there. 

We are now adding a cross-country skiing profile to the map in the planner. You can find it both in the online LoRouter in the app and on the web, and in its offline version - here you only need to update the routing data (if it hasn't already been updated automatically). The profile plans trips on both groomed and ungroomed trails, as long as they are entered into the map. Sections of the route that do not have ski tracks plotted on them need to be plotted with another profile, such as a walking profile. These are usually roads, car parks, or other similar places that interrupt the ski route.

Something for more convenient control

And now a few tidbits from our favorite cultivation section. Starting in the map manager, we've consolidated the menu for adding new maps. Now when you click the + button in the online or offline tab, you'll see the same menu and can add any map you want, even a WMS source from our library. 

We've moved the option to recalculate a complete route for a different activity from the menu in the top bar more "in your face" - directly into the profile selection dialog. For example, you have a route for hiking and want to change it to mountain biking. You open it in the planner, select the MTB profile and click "recalculate all" - only the shaping and via points stay in place.

Quite often we've had to explain where the backup is now hidden, where you can find the option to unload the app data to move it to a new phone, etc. We got tired of this, so we've simplified it dramatically - all settings related to working with app data can now be found in a separate category of Backup and File System settings.

This includes the File System Manager, where you can set up the main and auxiliary directories, manage cloud sync, and the aforementioned backups, and we've also moved the deletion of temporary data here.

As part of the cultivation, you'll of course find plenty of other tweaks across the app, but we won't write about those. If any catch your eye, let us know in the comments.

Článek What new features does the latest Locus Map 4.13 bring? se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

A month has passed and we are releasing another version of Locus Map - 3.27. Last time we introduced a brand new Route planner and now we've made this tool even better. And also you can enhance style of your tracks and routes in a new improved style editor.

Calamities in the forest? Tell Route planner to avoid it!

Recently we had great winds here in Europe that caused a lot of calamities in forests. Neither maps nor navigation services reflect this situation. But you can help yourself - pinpoint affected areas on map. Route planner will automatically avoid the places when drawing the route.

• No-go area button is in Route menu:
  
• No-go areas are placed on the position of map cursor
• after tapping the inserted no-go area you can change its radius, type and time of validity:
  
• route without no-go areas
  
• route with no-go areas
  

Unexpected obstacle ahead? Mark it and create a detour!

Imagine the situation - you're riding your bike along a forest trail when you get to a place barricaded with fallen trees. You just can't get through even with the bike on your back. An ordinary navigation would keep heading you forward - not Locus! Tell it there's a no-go area ahead and let router recalculate your way:

• start navigation
  
• move map cursor at the affected area
• tap Add no-go in the navigation menu
  
• a detour is created
  
• Great! You're out of it!

Style your track lines like a fashion designer!

Track/route line color, thickness, outline, pattern, mode of coloring... all these can be set in a new compact editor now, centered for the whole application on all levels - default track style, folder track style, track recorder style, route planner style... all lines can be edited in this single place now in myriads of combinations. Now it's up to your taste and preferences - you can differentiate your hiking routes, bike tracks or running workouts as you like. Check a few examples:

• line color + red arrow pattern + white outline for a distinct route in the woods:
  
  
• slope line coloring + black arrow pattern to display direction and steepness of the route - great for MTB
  
• no line + slope pattern coloring as an alternative of the design above
  
• the line can be patterned in many ways:
  
• width can be defined both in pixels or in meters
  
• wide selection of coloring modes is available
  
• slope and altitude coloring mode limits can be set individually
  

We hope you'll enjoy all these improvements on your trips now or later in winter. Mountains are getting snow capped and slowly it's about time to check your winter gear!

Článek Avoid areas when navigating and set new track styles with Locus Map 3.27 se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

The most colorful outdoor season of the year is here. To make it more enjoyable for you, we prepared this new version with two  major novelties: handy Route Planner and Track Editor. There are of course some other nice improvements on top.

Route planning easier as never before

Although the vast majority of modern android phones have large screens, planning routes on a mobile is still not a comfortable matter. We have decided to change it. First of all, we completely re-designed the route planner screen.

Less buttons, better functionality

There is everything you need for quick and intuitive route planning:

1. drawing mode  - here you can choose between manual drawing and automatic route rendering with routing profiles (bike, walk, car ...)
2. add/remove  routepoints
3. back/forward - you can move in the steps of your drawing
4. zooming buttons and the button positioning you in the center of the screen (centering button)

Bottom bar displays basic route statistics -  distance, positive and negative elevation. The bar can be slid up to show the current elevation chart in the Pro version:

Fast planning with shaping points

By tapping  (add point button) you create so called shaping points  . You can add them also by tapping directly on the map. If manual mode is selected (default setting), a simple straight line is drawn between the points - this method is more suitable for easy distance measurement or for areas where routing data is not available:

The planner can create the route along the roads and paths automatically. You just need to select a drawing mode according to your activity.  Then, the route si drawn between the shaping points. If you choose walking, the route runs along footpaths, if you chose a bike the planner uses roads.

You can manage the route by freely moving of shaping points  and auxiliary points . Besides you control the elevation gain of the route in the bottom bar where the chart changes accordingly.

To navigate through certain places even during recalculation while driving, change the shaping point to the via-point - tap it and select "Change to via point". The via-points, marked , can be named - the name will then be heard in the voice navigation.

You can also add LoMap points of interest (POIs) to your route. Tap the point and select an option where the point should be located - at the start, in the middle or at the end of the route. Such a point is automatically marked as via point.

If you have your own points in Locus - your places of interest, geocaches etc. - or points that have to be especially defined (e.g. addresses), you can add them to the route as well. Open the route menu (top bar right corner) and select Add point:

Then, select My points if you want to pick from your own database or other ways of point definition:

Check detailed statistics for better results

Detailed statistics and elevation chart of the route plus estimated Travel time can be found in the route menu as well.

You can navigate along the new route simply by taping the Navigate button.

When your planned route is finished, it's necessary to save it. In Route menu, tap Save route, name it and select the folder and activity.

If you want to abort all your editing, tap "Delete route" in the route menu.

Track editing with cool tools

Another good news is that we bring more options to edit your track or route:

1) to re-plan your route, just open it in the Route planner and go on as with a new route:

2) if you want to:

• erase part of the track
• split it in two
• or insert a gap etc.

...use newly re-designed track editor. Just tap the track on map and select "Modify track":

Cursor is placed on the spot of the track you tapped which pops up a label, showing trackpoint stats - distance from the start and from the end of the track, elevation gain etc.

•   editing tools
•   move the cursor along the track from one trackpoint to another for their precise selection.
• +  -   Zooming buttons

The editing tools allow you to:

• cut various parts of the track - inner part, from the start to the selected point or from the point to the end - useful for example when you forget to stop track recording of your the trip when you get the bike on your car roof rack and travel home.
• If you have multiple day track record, you can split it in individual days.
• You can also insert a gap for the case you traveled through a tunnel and want to hide the line connecting GPS-fixed trackpoints.

The editor allows also precise tuning of individual trackpoints - basic particles of the track. You can move them, add new or delete unwanted. Select a trackpoint, then Insert/edit trackpoint or Delete trackpoint from the Tools menu. The editable trackpoints surrounding your selection are highlighted  and auxiliary points . By shifting them you can change shape of the track:

All changes must be confirmed in the topbar.

Better user experience

We hope you'll enjoy these renewed features as much as we do. And not just them - great majority of recent changes in Locus have been made in order to improve user experience. Among others let's mention at least re-designing the point adding dialog. We rewrote all texts and added point import into it. Hopefully, this dialog is now much more comprehensible for both old and new Locus users:

And now, put your phone in your pocket and get outdoors! And don't forget to take autumn-nature-colorful-leaves pictures and share them with us!

Článek New handy Route Planner and simple Track Editor in Locus Map 3.26 se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

by Josef Žajdlík

This year's bike pilgrimage organized by Orel Uherský Brod lead to Fátima in Portugal, starting in Vega de Valcarce with a break in Santiago de Compostela. 120 pilgrims in total, aged from 12 to 80 traveled 750 km and gained over 10 000 m of elevation. In this article, I'm summing up my experience with creating pilgrimage routes for a diversified group of cyclists and traveling in foreign environment with Locus application.

Route preparation

After last year's experience with planning the route to Krakow I resolved to use the routing service Brouter again. Of course it's possible to prepare routes in Locus too but the large PC screen makes the planning much more comfortable. What's more, BRouter web enables direct editing of the routing profile and the calculating algorithm can be fine tuned almost to perfection. Finally, anyone who has already planned a route for a group of a hundred people including kids and seniors riding all possible kinds of bikes can imagine how difficult it is to find routes avoiding traffic as much as possible along with compacted surface at the same time.

The result of BRouter planning usually needs some more adjusting. Not only because you need turns to some interesting places but also in order to make the route straighter when the router tries to avoid traffic too eagerly.  The best tool I used to tackle this was MyGpsFiles. It can edit ready made GPX files easily and, furthermore, display it in Google Earth 3D, which is very convenient for route planning in a completely unknown areas. Last web tool I used for planning is Ride With Gps. It can render the route on a map in the most printer-friendly way. The print has decent contrast and mileage is added to  the route which is very practical.

Locus Map settings

Finalized GPX files were imported to an individual route folder in Locus. Next step was to pinpoint landmarks along the route as points of interest. I'm not going to describe overall Locus setting but I can recommend one thing - set autozoom levels in a smaller range, e.g. 15-17. When you need an overview map on the road, just tap the zoom lock button and enjoy any zoom you like.

I don't use navigation along the route, I just display the route on map and from time to time check we are still on it. Navigation consumes too much energy and as we made deviations from the original route all the time, there was no need of it. Traveling abroad I always use Locus vector maps - LoMaps. They are clear to read and contain a great POI database which I searched very often for nearest restaurants of swimming pools. There's a very comfy feature "Nearest points" for this occasion. It's much better to have such an offline database than rely on online information along the route - it saves battery and the internet connection is not always available.

It may seem strange for somebody but I had better experience with landscape screen orientation. I switched the map to the highest contrast in an external theme called paws_cyclist that can be downloaded here >>. This can be quite an individual approach and everybody can choose display and theme settings best suitable for their style of riding. I have automatic function panel hiding on because the buttons just decrease the map space during the ride and they can be easily turned on by double tapping the screen. I also use a simple dashboard with basic parameters like distance, time of ride, clock, battery status, elevation, steepness % and track recording pause button. It's very handy e.g. for quick coffee breaks. If you don't pause the recording Locus and GPS keeps looking for the signal and wastes the precious energy (and also records nonsens trackpoints if you haven't "movement only" turned on). During the ride a very useful tool is to tap the route on screen and read the remaining distance to the finish in the popup box.

After my experience from the previous events I decided to use Locus on a different device than I use for calling/texting etc. It's quite impractical to remove the phone from the holder every time I make a call and also the device quite suffers from being at mercy of the weather. That's why this time I launched an older spare phone, uninstalled everything from it, left only Locus + BRouter. Turning it to the "aircraft" mode with wifi off the phone was holding charge for an incredible time - it was no problem to ride over 100 km without need to plug it in a powerbank. Despite this I recommend to take it with you for the case the battery runs out just in time you need to find accommodation at night.

My experiences from previous cycling events also inspired me to build a special mobile holder on a handlebar bag. A phone packed in a common closed holder often suffers overheating on sunny days, restarts itself or stops working at all. It's also handy to place the paper map next to the mobile so you don't have to switch the screen on so often. The handlebar bag has more advantages - you can place all valuables in it - camera, money, passport etc. When you have a break, just unhook the bag and go for the coffee - nothing precious stays on your bike.

Bike pigrimage

This year's pilgrimage of our team was aimed at Fátima in Portugal, honoring the 100th anniversary of the Virgin Mary's revelation to a few kid shepherds in this now well known place. The starting point was in a Spanish village Vega de Valcarce, placed on another pilgrim route leading to Santiago de Compostela.

An ordinary day on such a biking pilgrimage looks approximately like this: getting up at 6-7 a.m., morning routine, Holy Mass served in a nearby church or right in the place of the overnight stay (usually a gym or a similar big hall). A breakfast after the mass, prepared early in the morning by our magician cook and her assistant. Eating usually standing up in front of the hall, then getting on bikes and leaving in groups of 3-10 cyclists. The route is not planned rigidly, it's just recommended so that the groups adjust the route as they need - visiting places of interest, landmarks, cafés and restaurants along the route is individual. Food is also individual - some have supplies from home, some eat in bistros or fastfood along the way. The only condition is to get safe and sound to the place of another overnight stay where there is the dinner ready, again prepared by our great cook (imagine you prepare meal for 120 people on a single cooker). After the dinner we share our daily experiences and shortly after that we go to sleep to gain strength for another day on a bike.

This year we slept in Vega de Valcarce, Portomarino, Santiago de Compostela, Pontevedra, Ponte de Lima, Porto, Aveira, Coimbra and Fátima. We had loads of new experiences: bike crashes, wild fires in Portugal and also incredibly beautiful views of the landscape, lots of very nice and hospitable people, and of course the spiritual atmosphere in Santiago and Fátima. See attached photos.

Greetings to all of you from a bike pilgrim

Josef Žajdlík

Článek Fátima pilgrimage with Locus se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

by Christian Bischof

Bikepacking means to me to travel with little baggage on almost all kinds of roads/trails and to spontaneously choose my route and the location to stay overnight. It is a wonderful way to travel and explore the nature and culture of a country, to meet interesting people, and to get to the borders of your comfort zone (i.e. getting to know yourself again and again…).

Bike and Baggage

Well, I used a Bombtrack Hook 1 bike which gave me a very robust CroMo steel frame, nice Clément cyclocross tires that run excellent on both tar and gravel roads, robust SRAM front (50/34) and rear (11-32) gearing, and a very comfortable but still race-like frame geometry. My goal was to find as many gravel roads as possible, but also use many tar roads for convenience and for making some more distance in shorter time.

In order to have an independent power supply I carried a solar panel. With it I charged a battery pack, which in turn I used to charge my Fairphone. I could adaptively attach it to the handle bar pack or to the saddle pack, depending on my orientation with respect to the sun. On the Fairphone I ran Locus Map, which was my only means of navigation.

The five Apidura bags and the one Rixen&Kaul stem bag held all my baggage so I didn't carry a backpack.  All my stuff is depicted here:

Weight of this set (excluding food and water) was about 11 kg, which was about the same as weight of the bike. As the bags were tied very close to the frame and carried relatively little weight, it resulted in very comfortable riding experience with great maneuverability and versatility (which is the main ingredient of bikepacking, really).

As it was my first bike trip at all. I bought the bike and all the bags only shortly before the trip, having been unsure about its interplay and comfort. At the end of the trip, I must say, all the decisions I had made worked out well. The bike ran so nicely, the geometry was very nice and the bags served me well and kept the stuff dry (the waterproof bags at least).

The Route taken

I've lived in Hannover (Germany) for the past five years and Marseille sounded like a great place to ride to with both the sea and warm temperatures waiting. The route therefore was relatively moderate regarding mountains and steep ascends as there are many big rivers along the route such as the Rhein, the Mosel or the Rhone. It gave me enough confidence to find a good route on the fly and plan the targets for the day on a day-to-day basis by consulting the offline “LoMaps” within the Locus Map app.

Choosing roads and trails

All the way long I used LoMaps which proved as excellent solution for my purpose:

• they contain very large amount of marked official bike tracks even with different categories (local, regional, national - see the map legend)
• very nice map look with clear and well-sized text and map signs
• map are displayed relatively fast when zooming despite their vector origin
• they contain enormous amount of details of the OpenStreetMaps project and are very useful (all sorts of trails/tracks/roads, type of forest/trees, power lines, all sorts of water types, building contours, and all the different POI’s)
• elevation contour lines make the map perfect for spontaneous route planning by estimating the steepness and thus the physical effort related to the route

Locus Map gave me the option to easily customize the panel on the map screen for fast access of the most used tools. I used ones shown in the screenshot of Locus Map above. I often shared my actual location with friends and family. I tagged all my overnight places along the route with some additional comments. As I wanted to save power when riding and thus not recording my tracks by GPS positions, I drawn the daily tracks manually on the train back to Hannover. A possibility to avoid power supply problems would be to install a hub dynamo USB charger.

Choosing overnight places

My goal was to sleep mainly in my hammock as it is flexible, maximally cheap and is the most legal way for free camping (see info in German >>). Some cities even have camp grounds close to the city where it is possible to stay overnight spontaneously and legally for little money. Mostly I was looking for some optimal forests in the area on Locus Map. This worked out very well.

Exploring nature and culture

On a bicycle one can reach places relatively fast but it still gives the possibility to feel the nature by smelling, stopping fast (grab some nice bread from a “boulangerie”), making flexible detours into the woods/grasslands or explore the small alleys within a city.

Meeting interesting people

Cyclists usually like to help other cyclists (especially in France). I got three free nights from randomly met cyclists that took me to their home and showed me their city and family. We also had very nice conversations about my or their cycling experiences, including the cyclist social platform warmshowers.

Borders of personal comfort zone

I once found a perfect forest for my hammock, but after looking around a little, I found some turned around boxed on the forest floor. I lifted the boxes and discovered little dead boars, which in turn let me rethink the perfectness of this forest and I decided I had better choose another one.

I started my trip with full joy, full motivation, and also full strength. These were the ingredients of fast riding, which I joyfully did for about four days, before I had to discover a slight and steadily growing pain in my knee. This was the point where I learned to pedal with a pace that suited better to my fitness and to listen to my body.

I discovered quite painfully on the 4th day of my trip that my Clément tires were no marvel either, as they slipped on wet ground with too much speed. Thereafter, I struggled  with myself to get optimal healing conditions to all my wounds and  also optimal riding condition.

Conclusion

This type of travel gave me really a lot of freedom. Of course, I had to obey the rules of my body, my bike, and the nature (and mostly of the law). But it gives you so much possibility to discover nice places, meet interesting people, and to just be with yourself and enjoy riding the bike. And Locus Map perfectly assisted me in all of my little adventures.

Článek Bikepacking with Locus on the road from Hannover to Marseille se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Versatility of our app that is primarily designed for leisure time use outdoors seems not to know borders. We have once written here about using Locus for monitoring endangered species in the New Caledonia, Locus helps monitoring forest wildfires, in Brazil it is used for collecting data about locations of rare trees in the jungle etc. A few weeks ago we found out that American scientists Galen B. Rathbun​ and John P. Dumbacher use Locus for recording tracks of an animal that has been discovered only recently in desert plains of Namibia.

Macroscelides micus

Called also Etendeka round-eared sengi resembles a mouse with a miniature elephant trunk. It belongs to Macroscelididae family and it is a close relative to Round-eared elephant shrew (Macroscelides proboscideus).  However, it's smaller and with reddish fur. It was discovered not long ago in 2014 because it lives only in a small area of deserted mountains of Etendeka in north western Namibia.

[caption id="attachment_9781" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Etendeka sengi's homeland[/caption]

And as a matter of fact, it really is a relative to an elephant - much closer than to a mouse! The small sengi is omnivorous - it feeds on small insects and roots or berries. The scientists needed to catch a few sengis so that they could mount the tracking device on them. They succeeded with peanut butter, oats and Marmite :).

Sengis are night animals - they hide during the hot day in shelters under rocks and set out to look for food only after dusk when the temperatures are more bearable.  Therefore, the monitoring went in night shifts. The tracking device contained a GPS tracker and an antenna sending coordinates to a receiver connected to two mobile phones with Android OS and Locus Map. Locus recorded the location, stored, plotted and exported coordinates and associated data. Thanks to the monitoring it showed up that the tiny animal needs quite a large area of natural habitat (more than 14 ha) and in case of emergency it can run at speed of 20 km/h.

[caption id="attachment_9782" align="aligncenter" width="800"] Map with record of occurrence of five monitored Etendeka sengis[/caption]

• Read more about the terrain monitoring of Etendeka sengis in Namibia >>
• More about the small sengi in Wikipedia >>

Although our app is primarily designed for fun and leisure activities we are happy that this way we take part also in discovering and preserving natural treasures not only around us but also in distant corners of our beautiful planet.

Článek Locus again involved in scientific research – mapping endemic rodents in Africa se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

Not just a game for kids

When I with my family began geocaching some six years ago we knew roughly that it's about some game played outdoors looking for treasures with help of GPS. Perfect activity for kids, perfect for increasing attraction of our family trips. After the first humble expeditions  in search for hidden boxes in our neighborhood, when we looked at the thing in that really "adventure-for-kids" manner we started to realize another core aspect of this game - the caches are usually stored at places of obvious landscape and natural aesthetic value. In a nutshell, thanks to geocaching we got to beautiful places we hadn't had a clue they existed. Of course many such attractions are tourist evergreens - chateaux, castles etc. But quite often we visited places that aren't on maps at all - interesting view sites, rocks hidden in the woods, forgotten springs of fish ponds... Almost each cache is equipped by a listing where you can get further information about the spot - that makes geocaching a very useful activity for tourism and landscape education.

Not always positive effects

The more a man goes geocaching the better he learns to "read" the landscape, to recognize tracks leading to a treasure even without GPS. The first thing we  start to notice are the (geo)paths seemingly leading to "nowhere", hides masked by material that would otherwise be somewhere else - for instance a heap of rocks among tree roots where leaves, pine needles, branches or tree bark would normally be... Polished spots in rocky areas, broken corridors in densely overgrown bushes... Unfortunately, cachers often in their seeking fever forget one of the basic terms of the proper geocaching - to maintain the country in its original state as much as possible. Therefore, we often come across places around the caches that look like they were dug by a herd of wild pigs. Or, in case of treasures hidden in historic buildings or ruins, gradual dismantling of walls. Worst of that, there are individuals among us who aren't ashamed to drop litter when hunting. We shouldn't forget that we are just guests in the country and in case of geocaching, when we want to preserve the fun for others as well, it's a double rule.

Geocachers - landscape preservers

We can't just take from the country, we have to give something in return - a group of geocaching enthusiasts from Ceska Lipa (CZ) realized. For three years they've been frequently hitting the road to go cleaning their favourite area around Svojkovsky waterfall. „Geocaching people around the whole country organize various activities from which some are called CITO events. They're always about some idea how to help and where. Geocaching.com website list such events and then it's up to the geocachers whether to participate," explains Mr Frantisek Hanykyr from Bukovany in Ceskolipsky denik.

[caption id="attachment_9444" align="aligncenter" width="630"] Geocachers cleaning Svojkovsky waterfall, photo by František Hanykýř[/caption]

CITO events (abbreviation of Cache In Trash Out) are held frequently all around the World and define geocaching also as an activity helping to keep the country clean. And not just within the events but as a general approach to geocaching - daily proper cacher's activity.

Back to Locus

We're happy that we can contribute with Locus to the geocaching development. Cachers find in Locus a versatile partner that not only displays caches above their favourite maps but can also navigate to treasures, notify acoustically  of an approaching cache, it enables offline logging via field notes and much more. Who hasn't tried geocaching phenomena yet, you can do so with us! With Locus Map Free and basic Geocaching.com membership it costs nothing, you'll start perceiving the landscape much more intensively and perhaps you'll help with a good thing.

-ms-

sources: Českolipský deník, Geocaching.com

Článek Geocaching – landscape exploiting or preserving activity? se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.

In September we announced competition for the best story with Locus Map. The prize was a 1000 CZK voucher to the LaLoca Music Bar in Prague and publishing the story here at our blog. From all sent contributions we selected right this one. Its author is Martin Vlach from Brno [CZ]. We edited the story a little bit and called it:

A Locus Story

I've experienced a real lot with Locus Map. I've been using it for several years for geocaching, car navigation, saving nice places suitable for staying overnight in my hammock and, above all, for planning and recording my bike trips.

I often get lost on my bike. It's a piece of my character that I take calmly as an integral part of my advetures. Locus Map saved me many times and helped me in many ostensibly helpless situations. Loads of stories from my expeditions come to my mind - crawling in fog, roving in the night, in the woods... In the beginning I thought I could write some of them but finally I realized that what I consider the most intense experience with Locus is actually quite a trivial story.

Once I rode my bike along the edge of a forest when, all of a sudden, I stumbled upon two lonely little girls, perhaps eight years old. At the first sight they looked quite anxious and terrified. All the same, I felt their devotion to be brave - they didn't cry and walked hand in hand. Almost unbelievable. They came to me and started explaining they had got lost in some orienteering competition. They had been struggling to find their lost way for a long time and were totally at their wits end what to do or where to go.

They showed me a map that I couldn't understand a bit. I didn't have a clue how to help them but I knew I was supposed to do something. For a while I was a bit perplexed and then I remembered I had a tablet with Locus Map in my rucksack. I pulled it out and we started to make our way out of it. The girls told me they had started at some football pitch and that's where we focused our search. And for sure I found some pitch in the map and as it was probably the only one in wide neighborhood, we set out there.

I won't pull the story further - it ended happily. The pitch really was that one the girls had been looking for, they met their friends and shone with happiness. They thanked me again and again, munched cookies as they had been starving for a long time and I had a very pleasant feeling. Like when a man accomplishes a very good deed. The story left the special feeling in me for a long time, even until now. Like I should have lived it, like it had waited for me. Despite I hadn't met the girls before nor met them again afterwards, I still know that I won't forget their inner strength.

Enjoy your lives and thanks for Locus Map. I don't leave my house without it :).

And we thank Martin for his kind words and wish him a lot of fun when wandering with Locus Map!

Článek Martin Vlach: A Locus Story se nejdříve objevil na Locus Map - mobile outdoor navigation app.