There has never been more choice in bike navigation, and somehow it has never been harder to pick. Open the app store and you will find a route planner for racers, one for gravel adventurers, one that turns every ride into a leaderboard, and a handful that promise to get you across town without dying. They are not interchangeable. The app that finds a glorious 120 km gravel loop is the same app that will happily route your daily commute over a hill you did not need to climb.
I build Urban Rider, the app I cover near the end of this guide, so read me as a biased but honest source. I have spent 2026 riding with these apps on an e-bike around town, and what follows is a fair look at the best e-bike and bike navigation apps this year: what each one is genuinely best at, what it costs, and the catch nobody mentions in the app store screenshots.
What actually matters in a bike navigation app
Before naming names, it helps to agree on what a good cycling navigator should do. These are the things I judged each app against:
- Bike-aware routing. Does it prefer bike lanes, quiet streets and paths, and keep you off fast arterials and roads where cycling is miserable or banned?
- Realistic speed and ETAs. A car ETA is useless on a bike, and a single fixed cycling speed barely helps an e-bike that cruises faster than a pedal bike.
- The right job. City commuting, long touring, gravel and off-road, and training are four different needs. The best app for one is rarely the best for another.
- A glanceable display. A handlebar is not a desk. You want the next turn, the distance and your speed, not a dashboard.
- Cost, account and platform. What does it cost per year, does it force an account or subscription, and does it run on the phone you own?
Google Maps: everywhere, but car-biased
Google Maps is the app almost everyone already has, and its cycling mode works in a huge number of cities. In 2026 it knows where bike lanes, shared paths and quieter roads are, and recent updates added warnings for heavy traffic and steep climbs, plus an elevation graphic if you tap through for more detail. For a one-off trip in an unfamiliar city, it is a perfectly reasonable free fallback.
The catch is that Google Maps still treats cycling as a lightly adapted version of driving. It assumes a single fixed cycling speed of roughly 16 km/h for everyone, and it does not distinguish an e-bike from a regular bike, so an e-bike rider who comfortably cruises faster will see ETAs that are simply wrong. Even an e-bike maker has publicly asked Google to raise that assumed speed. It is convenient and ubiquitous, but it was not designed around how a bike moves.
Komoot: the touring, gravel and elevation king
If your idea of a great ride is a full day exploring backroads, forest tracks or a gravel route through the hills, Komoot is hard to beat. It builds on OpenStreetMap data with genuinely sport-aware routing, so it understands surface types, knows the difference between a road bike and a mountain bike route, and shows detailed elevation profiles before you commit. Its community Highlights are a brilliant way to discover the good roads and trails near you.
Two honest caveats. First, Komoot is built for adventure and touring, not for a two-minute hop to the shops, and it can be more app than a city commuter needs. Second, the pricing changed: new users now generally need a subscription, around 59.99 a year, to plan and sync routes to a bike computer, where older accounts had paid once. For long rides and exploring, it is still the benchmark. For the daily commute, it is overkill.
Strava: sport, segments and training
Strava is not really a navigation app, and that is fine, because it is the best in the world at what it does do: tracking your rides, comparing you against your past self, and turning every stretch of road into a competitive segment with a leaderboard. If you ride for fitness and you want to chase a personal best up your local climb, this is the social and training hub for it.
Strava does offer route planning and turn-by-turn guidance with options for quieter roads, but the good stuff sits behind a subscription, around 79.99 a year (about 65 euros in Europe). The free tier still records rides and shows the top of segment leaderboards. As a day-to-day city navigator it is the wrong tool, but as a training companion alongside whatever you navigate with, it is excellent.
Bikemap and Cyclers: city cycling specialists
Two apps deserve a mention for taking everyday cycling seriously. Bikemap offers a large library of community routes across many countries and lets you optimise routing for your bike type, including an e-bike setting, with points of interest like repair shops, bike parking and charging stations along the way. Its maps and voice navigation work online and offline, with the more advanced routing and offline maps on a paid plan.
Cyclers is one of the most thoughtful city cycling apps around. It shows a Safety Score for how bike-friendly a route is, offers fastest, balanced and quieter alternatives, and even dims to a dark screen between turns to save battery. Most of its features are free, with a Plus tier for the extras. Both are solid urban choices, and worth a look if Google Maps leaves you wanting a more bike-minded route.
Urban Rider: built for everyday urban and e-bike commuting
This is the app I make, so weigh that accordingly. Urban Rider exists because the everyday urban cyclist, and especially the e-bike commuter, has mostly been served by apps built for sport, touring, or driving.
It treats your vehicle as the starting point. Urban Rider covers the whole two-wheel spectrum, with four profiles for scooter, moped, motorcycle and bike, including e-bikes. Choose the bike profile and it routes you onto suitable roads and bike lanes and keeps you off fast arterials, and it times the trip using realistic bike speeds rather than a car ETA or one fixed number. On the move, the navigation view stays glanceable, showing just the next turn, the distance and your speed, which is all you should read at a glance on a mount. It is free, asks for no account, keeps route history on your device, and is native on both iOS and Android, with a free e-bike route planner to map a trip before you set off.
It is especially handy if you live a mixed two-wheel life, riding a bike some days and a scooter or moped on others, because one app routes correctly for each. Now the honest part, because that is the whole point of this guide: Urban Rider is not a sport, touring or off-road app. For long tours, gravel, mountain biking or detailed elevation and training, Komoot or Strava are simply the better tools. Urban Rider is the strong pick for getting around the city on a bike or e-bike, not for a weekend epic in the mountains.
Side-by-side comparison
| App | Best for | Platforms | Price | The catch |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Urban Rider | Everyday urban and e-bike commuting, and mixed bike / scooter / moped riders | iOS, Android, Apple Watch | Free, no account | Not for touring, gravel or training |
| Google Maps | A workable bike route almost anywhere | iOS, Android | Free | One fixed speed, no e-bike awareness, car-biased |
| Komoot | Touring, gravel, off-road and elevation | iOS, Android | Free tier; Premium about 59.99 a year | New users need a subscription to sync routes; overkill in the city |
| Strava | Sport, segments and training | iOS, Android | Free tier; about 79.99 a year | Route planning and navigation are paid; not a city navigator |
| Bikemap | City cycling with bike-type routing and a big route library | iOS, Android | Free tier; paid subscription | Best routing and offline maps need the subscription |
| Cyclers | Smart city cycling with a safety score | iOS, Android | Free; Plus tier for extras | Some features behind Plus |
So which cycling app should you choose?
There is no single winner, because these apps do different jobs. Match the app to the ride:
- You commute or run errands on a bike or e-bike in the city. Use Urban Rider. It keeps you on suitable roads and lanes, times the trip at real bike speed, and is free with no account. Cyclers or Bikemap are good alternatives.
- You ride for long tours, gravel or off-road adventures. Komoot is the benchmark for routing and elevation. Look for it as your komoot alternative only if the new subscription bothers you.
- You ride for fitness and chase segments. Strava is the training and social hub, ideally paired with a dedicated navigator.
- You just want one workable route in a strange city. Google Maps is already on your phone and does the job, with the caveats above.
The wider point is the same one I make about two-wheel travel everywhere in our micromobility guide: cycling deserves tools built for how people actually move through a city, not borrowed from driving or sport. If you mostly ride urban and electric, it is worth using an app that starts from your bike instead of treating it as an afterthought.
Navigation built for your scooter, not a car
Urban Rider routes your moped or scooter onto roads it is actually allowed to ride, avoids highways by default, and gives arrival times at real scooter speed. Free, no account needed.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best navigation app for an e-bike?
It depends on how you ride. For everyday city and commuting e-bike trips, Urban Rider is the strongest pick in 2026 because it routes by vehicle, keeping a bike on suitable roads and lanes and off fast arterials, and times the trip at realistic bike speed. It is free, needs no account and is native on iOS and Android. For long tours, gravel or climbing routes with elevation detail, Komoot is the better tool, and for training and segments you want Strava.
Is Google Maps good for cycling?
Google Maps is good for finding a workable bike route almost anywhere, and recent updates added bike-lane labels, traffic and elevation warnings. Its weaknesses are that it assumes a single fixed cycling speed of roughly 16 km/h, does not distinguish an e-bike from a regular bike, and still leans on car-style routing. It is a fine free fallback, but it is not built around how a bike actually moves through a city.
What is a good free bike navigation app?
Urban Rider is free with no account and no paywalled routing, which makes it a strong free choice for urban and e-bike commuting. Google Maps is free everywhere. Cyclers and Bikemap both have capable free tiers for city cycling, though some routing and offline features sit behind a subscription. Komoot and Strava are usable for free but now gate most route planning and navigation behind a paid plan.
Komoot vs Urban Rider, which should I use?
Use Komoot for long tours, gravel, mountain biking and any ride where elevation profiles and route discovery matter most. Use Urban Rider for everyday urban and e-bike commuting, and especially if you switch between a bike and a scooter or moped, because it routes by vehicle, keeps you on suitable roads and lanes, gives realistic bike-speed ETAs, and is free with no account. They solve different problems, so many riders keep both.
Ready to map your next ride? Try the free e-bike and bike route planner, then download Urban Rider and ride it for real.