best OFFLINE navigation/route planning/etc?

You really need to check on Locus Map. It has a complex settings interface (something to get used to), but it can do anything you ever dreamt of and more. When I read what you need, you should check the integrated route planner - a few clicks on the map and it will make a route even through offroad.

One feature that we are trying to persuade the Locus dev to do are auto detours by predefined distance (modifications of already computed route/  track are not exactly straight forward)

Also, there should be much more complex settings for route calculation soon (which types of surface to prioritize/avoid ...)

I'm using primarily Osmand+ and Calimoto. Both with offline maps.

If I want to make a "quick and dirty" route like fore a day (e.g. roundtrip), Calimoto does a great job. Also if you want to create or modify a route with pre-defined targets on the route. You could modify the route, add new targets or delete parts of the route. All of thhis with offline maps. And one more good thing is: if you make your planning at home on you PC (or Mac) with Calimoto, you save the routes in your personal Calimoto cloud space and you will have direct access from CI Pad if you have a WiFi or mobile network. Calimoto is also developed specific for motorcycle usage and has a very nice user interface also designed for motorcycle usage. But it is designed for on-road usage, it is useless if you want to ride off-road.

I also made pre-planning for some longer lasting tours (and off-road) using Kurviger.de or BaseCamp, export the TRACK to a Cloud server (OneDrive) where I have mobile access. The reason for this is, when I want to ride specific roads and have a clear idea where to go. For this, a track is perfect because you are not dependent on the routing algorithm of a navigation software. I import the tracks into Osmand+ and this software has a nice feature: you could just follow the track or start navigation using the track. And Osmand+ will exactly route you on the track, even if you have to leave the track because a road is closed. Compared to Garmin this is a real advantage, because if you leave a calculated route on a Garmin or BMW Navigator, you will never get back to the originally planned route because of the routing algorithm. For Osmand+ you also get OSM maps for every part of the world for offline use.
The only weak point on Osmand+ navigation is the calculation of your arrival time. They use a very simple algorithm based on a predefined driving speed, which does not deliver good results. This is far more better in Calimoto.

I have also tried Locus Maps, which is a nice peace of software. But the main focus is not on motorcycle usage. As Jan already says, the interface is complex and not user friedly and the routing algorithm is not tailored to our needs. But the software does a good job when you are using tracks. At the moment, Osmand+ is the better solution for me.

The only time I use Google maps is finding for example a restaurant in a city, because with Google maps you also get user ratings. This is a wonderful featute with CI pad, because even if you are on a predefined route, leave your navigation software in the background, start Google maps, ride to the restaurant and than return to your already planned route. In the past I used my mobile phone to get a similar result, but this far less elegant.

Hope I could help a bit.

Best
Peter

Fantastic replies, I will experiment with those suggestions. My primary usage is creating a route and POIs the night before on a multi-week trip. I rarely have a full route planned in advance, since I dodge around weather, interesting sites, visiting random friends, etc.

I might have an idea in mind when I start, but no real plan. Each night I will create a planned route for the next day.. but I might make an overly ambitious route or it ends up being dumb. I often end up having to modify while on the road when I discover a closure, a road doesn't exist, a pass is too snowy or rock slides or any of a million things that happen randomly exploring. Or I get tired early and I cut my day to find camping or a motel. Any of those could be a 100+ mile detour.

So I need to be able to add/move waypoints and POI and have things route around offline. "tracks" don't really work for me in my experience - they're semi useful as a reference for what I originally intended, but I can't really follow them. There's been plenty of times I've ended up 90% off my original planned route. I rarely end up where I thought I'd be on a 5000 mile trip, but I usually have a good time anyways.

Of course if I was better at planning routes in advance this wouldn't be a problem, but I prefer to just improvise and see where the world takes me.. 😀 

Our system was actually developed specifically for your type of riding :-D. I historically used (and use) Locus, but looking at OsmAnd as it progressed over the past decade, it became also an app loaded with awesome features. But you know how it is - there are only as many apps one can (is willing to) pay for :-D. 

My preferred style of riding is either simple map roaming with maybe just a rough track or couple waypoints to keep general direction. The rest goes on the fly with heavy use of the controller while moving (panning, zooming all the time :-D). And when I've had enough, I just switch to Google Maps to get to final destination quickly.

BTW., a serious question - do you guys use our controllers with Google Maps? I know that Google Maps are pretty good at keep the important stuff in view, but I personally use zooming and especially the route overview pretty often - I often find myself in disagreement with Google how I want get to the destination 😀 (or the automatic zoom level is not what I want to see in the given moment). It would help for further development to know, if its just me or enhancing Google Maps features would do good also to other guys 😀

Google maps routing is awful for anything other than "get there the fastest" - so yeah, I don't use it much for nav. I mostly use it to find hotels/restaurants/etc because Garmin data was always pretty stale. But then I'd use some other app for navigating/routing to it. Also their offline map download isn't very good, so if I'm not careful I don't have any google maps data to even look at, so I definitely don't want to count on it when I am lost.

I have a cloned SIM in CI Pad, so I don't need to rely on offline maps only (and I ride within EU so no need to worry about data expense). Sure, Google Maps are primarily to get somewhere fast (not necessarily by doing an interesting route. Which works for me when I need to get to the camp quickly:-)). Offline maps in Google Maps suck, no doubt about that. 

BTW., sometimes Google makes pretty interesting routes for me, especially when I start the routing in the middle of nowhere (of course that is a matter of luck - there is not much to control that. On the other hand, when I hate the route, I just start riding off the pre-calculated track and sooner or later Google wakes up gives me another one (doesn't try to stick to the original track). That's usually when I start discovering pretty decent roads even in the neighborhood I didn't even know 😀  

Tried Locus Map today, I don't think it is very practical, but I suppose it could be user error too.

1) The data sources are weak (I cannot type in my own address and find it.. only the street name.)

2) The routing sent me the wrong way up one-way streets, multiple times.

3) You cannot get street name turn-by-turn without recalculating and abandoning all your waypoints (so I got lost several times when it just says "turn right" or "turn left" instead of the street name.) Even though I created the route within Locus Maps (ie, not imported GPX.)

4) If you set it to "always point the direction you're going" the street names are often upside down.

5) You cannot offline generate a route to a previously saved favorite (which I was going to use to get home.. ended up bailing for google maps.) I didn't try to generate a full route offline yet but I am not optimistic.

That was within a simple ~50 mile ride. I did, however, enjoy a delicious sandwich. 🙂

I think I'm going to have to talk less crap about Garmin at this rate! I guess I'll try CaliMoto next, despite their rather steep pricing.

😀 I guess every app has its quirks. I might have misunderstood what you need the app for exactly, because Locus and Calimoto are both intended for a very different use case. There are for sure better apps than Locus for dynamic navigation. 

@carpe-admin you just described by style of riding :). I use Google Maps more or less at the end of a trip when I have a fixed destination and time of arrival to get the fastest route depending on traffic. Good management with the controllers would be very helpful in these situations and avoid sometimes tapping on the CI with the stylus that I have attached to the holder.

Like demstuffka, I'm trying to better understand how offline maps work on the CI. I want a solid GPS for both on and off road riding, without the need to be connected to the internet. I currently have a TomTom Rider 550, which is great for on road, but I need something that can handle GPX and tracks for off road. I'm planning on doing the Trans American Trail as well as the Backcountry Discovery Routes in the U.S.A. With the CI purchase, we get Locus Map Gold which gives offline world maps. I recently downloaded the basic Locus app and don't see how it can work well for basic road navigation: I also cannot put in basic number and street addresses for a house, POI, or location. So it would only work for me in offroad, or with the Gold version I can use it for basic road navigation? As I mentioned, my TomTom Rider works fine for street/highway, I just need something for the off road. But if I purchase something as pricey as a Carpe Iter or Garmin Montana or other premium GPS, I'd like to have everything I need offline and no need for a connection. Thanks, Sean

I've been using LocusMap Gold for years (first Locus classic with paid maps, later Gold) for offline, offroad navigation (mainly hiking, but also on the bike and in the car). This works absolutely brilliantly. 

In fact, Locus is the only navigation app that can do it all: on-road, online navigation with recalculation when you take a wrong turn, but also strict navigation of a GPX track without any recalculation, but with navigation prompts, or even just following a GPX track without prompts, but with beeps indicating that a turn is coming or another beep indicating you are off-track.

That said, Locus does have a learning curve. The app is extremely powerful, but the number of settings and options is endless. It took me a while to get it working the way I want, with custom dashboards for hiking, motorcycle and car use etc.  

Comparing Locus to Tomtom: Tomtom cannot navigate GPX. It will always recalculate a route on the Tomtom maps (and often slightly off). If a road or track does not exist on the Tomtom map (and many don't) then the Tomtom will either crash or make detours of hundreds of kilometers. Tomtom will also always re-calculate a route if you are off the planned route. This is a horrible "feature" which essentially assumes the rider is too dumb to get back to the route by themself. If you keep ignoring the proposed route, it may take a long while before it guides you back properly. Furthermore, it will always take into account traffic (if you leave data on). The same holds for the BMW ConnectedRide app which uses a Tomtom engine internally.

Comparing Locus to Garmin: Garmin can navigate GPX without recalculation. However, if you leave data on, then road closures will always be avoided. This cannot be switched off which is a pain as road-closure data is often outdated. When leaving the planned route, you have to manually get back onto it and hope that it picks up the navigation again. It sometimes does, sometimes does not. For offroad use, Garmin can show a GPX, but the maps are not detailed enough. You can get topo maps, but these cannot be used to calculate a route (last time I checked for the Zumo series).

Locus Gold can do all this, but only the Gold version, i.e. offline maps with offline route calculation is a Gold feature. You cannot do this in Silver or even in Locus Classic. What Locus doe not (yet) offer is a perspective view of the map. The map is always 2D and unfortunately the labels in the map are always drawn north-up, i.e. if the map turns, so to the labels. You get used to this quickly though. 

So far, I've found the maps of Locus to be very up to date, even the smallest trails are in there as the app was originally designed for hiking. I've also found that if a path is not in Locus, but is in an older GPX file or a written description of a hike, then the path does no longer exist. So the maps are really up to date.

Reasons why I use it:

- Hiking: It's simply the best. Accurate, routable, offline, vector maps make this the best app for hiking.

- Bike-use: It sticks to the designed route, navigation prompts are sufficient (Tomtom is too chatty sometimes) and it does not recalculate routes unless asked to. For boring fastest route A-to-B with proper time-indication and traffic avoidance, Google maps or Tomtom are better.

- Car-use: For boring fastest route A-to-B with proper time-indication and traffic avoidance, Google maps or Tomtom are better. However, when driving with a larger vehicle (car+trailer, car+caravan, Camper) where weight, height and width are an issue, Locus wins as you can stick to the route planned. Google will simply recalculate as it sees fit, which may lead the driver of a 3,5 ton, 12m long, 2,2 m wide combination to enter the city center of Hamburg or an Italian backroad with a 1.9 m width restriction and no place to turn around (sorry to the Italian grandfather who had to back up for a km or so to let me pass).

Finally, Locus has a very active community. Feature requests can be given on the forum, with voting options and then they may be implemented. 

Posted by: @demstuffca

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Tried Locus Map today, I don't think it is very practical, but I suppose it could be user error too.

1) The data sources are weak (I cannot type in my own address and find it.. only the street name.)

2) The routing sent me the wrong way up one-way streets, multiple times.

3) You cannot get street name turn-by-turn without recalculating and abandoning all your waypoints (so I got lost several times when it just says "turn right" or "turn left" instead of the street name.) Even though I created the route within Locus Maps (ie, not imported GPX.)

4) If you set it to "always point the direction you're going" the street names are often upside down.

5) You cannot offline generate a route to a previously saved favorite (which I was going to use to get home.. ended up bailing for google maps.) I didn't try to generate a full route offline yet but I am not optimistic.

That was within a simple ~50 mile ride. I did, however, enjoy a delicious sandwich. 🙂

I think I'm going to have to talk less crap about Garmin at this rate! I guess I'll try CaliMoto next, despite their rather steep pricing.

1): I do not recognize this, but it may depend on the version of the app though. 

2): I know this to happen in certain places in my home country, but both Garmin and Tomtom do the same. The one-way direction just changes too frequently there.

3): Turn-by-turn does not provide street names. I think this is a plus (Tomtom, Google and Garmin are too chatty). For recalculation: check the settings to be "route-priority" and not "destination-priority". The former puts you back on the original track asap, the latter gets you to your final destination. As I said in the previous post: Locus has many, many settings.

4): Correct. That's a fundamental issue and is already an open item on the Locus forum. Changing this is not easy for the Locus team as it has something to do with the way the maps are being handled internally.

5): You can in Locus Gold. All other versions require an Internet connection for routing, but Gold can calculate routes offline on the LoMaps. You can even create your very own vehicle profiles for that.