Wintertime is a great time for me to build mobile apps, I have three months full of spare time where I get the time to build apps, my other passion besides training for a triathlon.
This winter I have even added additional time as I had an accident late October of last year on my bike, I bruised my lungs in a crash, was told to take a few weeks of training, I still not fully healed from it.
The apps I have built this winter is related to biking, I have created a biking guide for cities that I often spend time cycling around. One thing I always have found difficult when visiting a city by bike is finding a place to get money, a place to stay and a bike shop if I need to get some repairs to my bike.
In the last year, I did several multi-days bike rides in Europe and North America. You can read more about that on this blog, if you are interested in vacationing with your bike, you might want to check out some of my trips.
- Amsterdam to Stockholm
- Amsterdam to Barcelona
- Toronto to New York
In a multi-day bike ride, there is always something that happens, at least for me. Nothing serious mostly issue that would need you to get to a bike store. When cycling from Toronto to New York, I biked along the Erie Canalway Trail.
Erie Canalway Trail is a dirt trail, not a smooth asphalt road, using a road bike, with hybrid wheels, after 120 km I started to feel that my back wheel was wobbly, so I check and discovered that many of my spokes were loose.
I temporarily fixed it, as I always carry a spoke wrench with me, it was at this moment that it came to me to build an app to find find the nearest bike store. To finish my story I eventually got to a bike store in Ithaca, way south of the Erie Canalway Trail, thanks to a local guiding me to a bike store.
I had a similar experience in 2014 on my way back from Stockholm, I was 2 hour from Bremen in Germany, when I had an incidence that broke 8 spokes on my back wheel. Having an app to find a bike store would have been great, it took me a few hours before I found one the old way.
The Apps that I have developed are bike guides for specific cities, they provide on a map a near bike location for the nearest bike store,
I did not stop there with only finding a bikes store, or a place to stay or eat at. I also added into the app places of services e.g. nearest bank/ATM.
I have launched the Apps on the Android platform, they are limited to the cities they serve. I’m going to use them this summer to gather additional requirements to add new features. The new features is a project for next winter, I’m getting back to my training in a week, so coding is over for this winter, except for bug fixings.
You can get the apps today on the Google play store.
Amsterdam Bike Guide – 
Toronto Bike Guide –
Stockholm Bike Guide –
Barcelona Bike Guide –
New York Bike Guide –
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