I just had to share this somewhere because, well, it was gravel cycling that inspired us to create our sites, and it was your continual feedback that has helped me fine-tune the three sites we’ve been spending all our free time developing, 100% for free, as something to give back to the cycling community (seriously, the best community).
The article is [https://bikerumor.com/sherpa-map-predicts-your-best-bike-setup-for-any-route/](https://bikerumor.com/sherpa-map-predicts-your-best-bike-setup-for-any-route/)
I was so surprised when I logged on today and saw 9 new accounts and 10+ people on the sites at 7:30am, our biggest motivator is just seeing anyone use it, and we’re motivated now!
If you’re not sure what I’m referring to, over the past 10 months, my two roommates and I, driven by our passion for gravel cycling, developed our own website to showcase gravel roads and assist us in planning our routes on them. We launched it from a server in our apartment basement and have made various posts about it over these past months, garnering valuable insights and feedback throughout the process. That site is [https://sherpa-map.com](https://sherpa-map.com).
Following this, we found it impossible to figure out the right bike to use on mixed-surface routes such as the Core4 gravel race in Iowa. 100 miles, 20 of which are gnarly single track, the rest being an even split between smooth gravel and pavement. Given my skill, Gravel bike? XC hard tail? Hardtail with Drop Bars? Gravel bike with XC mtb tires? What will the weather be like throughout the course? How many gels/carb drink should I consider? I built [https://sherpa-map.com/cycling-route-calculator.html](https://sherpa-map.com/cycling-route-calculator.html) to answer all of these questions and more.
Lastly, our latest offering, as we are 3 roommates who race against each other many times throughout the year and previous years on the same courses. We’re always complaining about who was fastest where when. While Strava flybys and segments are mildly useful, there really was no tool that easily lets you pit your current self vs your previous self vs your friends at any point along a shared course. So we made one! [https://sherpa-map.com/activity-racer.html](https://sherpa-map.com/activity-racer.html) … I may have the highest FTP out of the three of us, but wow, I’m the worst mountain biker/technical rider by a fair margin… it definitely showed me I should spend more time on the trials and less on Zwift.
So, there you have it, after nearly a year and tons of feedback, we have 3 web apps, with more features on the way (I’m currently working on the capability to share a link to a route and allow for live editing between multiple parties with video and audio through peer to peer mesh networking) and a major publication, with none other than the founder of Bikerumor, Tyler Benedict, has been gracious enough to write wonderful articles about our sites.
by firebird8541154
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Also, still open to more feedback on any of the sites, or ideas, or suggestions, and yes I’ll be adding Imperial to the new two sites soon, they both have heavy math behind the scenes, and it was easier to program everything in metric without trying to create a unit switch mechanism at the same time.