During my recent bikepacking trip through the Dutch countryside, I had one of those sudden insights about how we actually use technology in our daily lives.
I’d planned my routes using the brilliant Fietsknoop – a sophisticated web app that navigates the Dutch cycling node network by calculating the shortest path between numbered waypoints along cyclist-friendly “green roads”.
The app creates a simple list of nodes forming the shortest path: start at 47, head to 23, then 89, then 12, and so on until you reach your destination.
The obvious next step seemed to be to mount my phone in the bike holder for turn-by-turn navigation. But after just one morning of cycling, this turned out to be a less than ideal setup.… Read more...