Combined Shape Bike IQ

Map Display and Color Coding

The map is central to the Bike IQ experience, both during rides and in post-ride analysis. This guide covers route color coding, available map layers, and the controls for navigating the map.

Road Safety Colors

Bike IQ colors roads on the map based on their cycling safety classification. This helps you identify bike-friendly routes at a glance, whether you are planning a ride or navigating in real time.

Road Type Color What It Means
Bike path / Cycleway Teal Dedicated cycling infrastructure — bike lanes, shared-use paths, pedestrian paths, and tracks separated from motor traffic
Residential / Low-traffic Gray Secondary, tertiary, residential, and service roads with lower traffic volumes
Busy road Yellow Primary roads with higher traffic — rideable but require more caution
Motorway / Trunk Red Highways, motorways, and expressways — typically not legal or safe for cycling
Gravel / Unpaved Olive Unpaved surfaces including gravel, dirt, sand, and grass

Road classification is derived from OpenStreetMap data. Surface type is checked first — any road tagged as unpaved, gravel, dirt, or grass is classified as gravel regardless of its road class. Then the road's highway classification determines whether it is a bike path, residential, busy, or motorway.

These colors appear during live rides and in the route builder elevation profile, giving you consistent safety context across the app.

Live Map During a Ride

While recording a ride, the map shows your current position with real-time tracking. If you are following a route with turn-by-turn navigation, the planned route polyline is displayed ahead of you. Your completed track trails behind as you ride, giving you a continuous view of where you have been.

The map automatically adjusts as you move, keeping your position centered. You can pan and zoom freely to explore the surroundings, then tap the recenter button to snap back to your current location.

Route Color Coding (Post-Ride)

In the ride report, the route polyline can be colored by different metrics. This turns the map into a spatial analysis tool — instead of reading numbers on a chart, you see how your effort varied across the geography of the ride. The available metrics and their color scales are:

Speed

Blue at the low end, red at the high end, across a range of 0 to 15 m/s. Flat, fast sections glow red while slow climbs and stops shade blue. Useful for identifying where terrain or conditions limited your pace.

Power

Colored by FTP-based power zones. Zone 1 (active recovery) appears in blue, progressing through green, yellow, and orange up to Zone 5 (maximal effort) in red. Requires power data from a Bluetooth power meter or the virtual power meter.

Heart Rate

Colored by heart rate zones, following the same blue-to-red progression. Zone 1 (recovery) is blue, Zone 5 (VO2max) is red. Requires heart rate data from an Apple Watch or a paired heart rate monitor.

Cadence

Red at low RPM (grinding), transitioning to blue at high RPM (spinning), across a range of 0 to 120 RPM. The inverted color scale highlights low-cadence grinding in a warm, attention-drawing color. Requires a cadence sensor.

Elevation

Green at low altitude, transitioning to red at high altitude. Shows the altitude landscape of your ride at a glance. Useful on hilly routes where relative altitude varies significantly.

Grade

Blue for descents (down to -10%), neutral for flat terrain, and red for steep climbs (up to +15%). Highlights where the road tilted and how steeply. Grade is measured from the iPhone's barometer.

Gear Ratio

Blue for easy gearing (around 1.0x ratio) to red for hard gearing (up to 4.0x ratio). Shows your gearing choices spatially, so you can see where you shifted to easier or harder combinations. Requires a SRAM AXS groupset.

Wind Impact

Green where tailwind reduced your effort (down to -50W of benefit) and red where headwind added resistance (up to +100W of penalty). This makes it visually obvious which sections of the route were helped or hindered by wind conditions.

Map Layers

Several map layers can be toggled on or off in Map Settings to customize the information density of the map:

  • Buildings: 3D building outlines that give the map depth in urban areas
  • Road labels: street names displayed along roads
  • Points of interest: businesses, parks, landmarks, and other named locations
  • Contour lines: terrain elevation contours, useful for reading the landscape on hilly routes
  • 3D objects: extruded map features that add visual detail to the terrain

Reducing visible layers can help on routes where you want a cleaner, less cluttered view. Adding layers like contour lines is valuable when route planning on hilly terrain.

Map Controls During a Ride

While riding, the map responds to standard touch gestures. Pinch to zoom in and out. Pan with one finger to explore the area around you. When you are ready to return focus to your position, tap the camera mode button to snap back.

Camera Modes

The camera mode button in the top-right corner of the map cycles through available views. The modes change depending on your current ride state:

  • Following: The default mode. The map tracks your position with your direction of travel pointing up. Zoom level adjusts to your speed — slower riding zooms in for detail, faster riding zooms out for context.
  • Climb: Available when Bike IQ detects a climb ahead or when you are on a climb. The map zooms out to show the full remaining climb, oriented with your bearing pointing up. The elevation profile overlay appears at the bottom showing gradient, remaining distance, and your progress. This mode activates automatically when a qualifying climb is detected (configurable in Map Settings).
  • Overview: Available when following a route. Zooms out to show your entire remaining route at once, giving you a birds-eye view of what lies ahead.
  • Segment: Available during a live segment attempt. Zooms to show the full segment with your position and progress.

Tap the camera button to cycle through the available modes. If you manually pan or zoom the map, the camera enters an idle state. Tap the camera button once to return to the active mode.

Elevation Profile Overlay

When in climb camera mode or during navigation, an elevation profile overlay appears at the bottom of the map. It shows the remaining terrain ahead — climbs, descents, and your current position within the profile. The overlay includes remaining elevation gain, distance, and average grade, giving you the information you need to pace a climb or plan for what is coming next.

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