The New Road ID App Lets Family Track Your Ride or Run

If you’re setting out for a long ride, run, walk, or even a kayak trek on the bay, keep yourself a little bit safer with RoadID’s new app. Take your friends and family on the road with you as you travel on your workout, and make sure they know where you are in case of an accident.

The Road ID App 

Cost: Free

Recently released by the folks at Road ID, the bread crumb app has some simple functions that are basically aimed at letting family keep track of you. Not so great if you’re trying to be off-the-grid, great if you’re wanting to stay safe.

• eCrumb Tracking Feature: Set up your contacts list before your ride, and each of those people will receive real-time updates that show your position on a map.

• Stop Alert: The RoadID app has an optional stop alert setting that will send out an alarm to your preset contacts if your progress ceases for 5 minutes. You’ll hear an alarm 60 seconds before the emergency alert is sent, so you have a chance to stop it if you’re just taking a long breather. But if you’ve crashed and are unable to respond to the alarm, you have can make sure your contacts will know right away to come and get you–oh, and they’ll also know exactly where you are.

• Lock Screen: You can also save your lock screen image to work like a digital Road ID. In other words, you can set up names, numbers, blood type, allergies, and other things that you probably already have on your Road ID (or should have since it’s actually a really important and necessary piece of gear. Click here to check out Road ID’s line of products).

The Final Word

I really like the Road ID app since you can set a list of contacts that can check on your progress in real time. Plus, you can set it to both email and text them with a map to your location. It works really well, and I’m a big fan.

One thing the app won’t do, however, is track your workouts or upload them to your favorite online tracker like Daily Mile. But if you already have a Garmin or other watch/computer, you probably won’t really miss this feature. If you want an app that does all these things and more, I use Cyclemeter–which also does send out location links every 15 minutes or so to preset contacts, but they can’t really follow you in between updates.

As for the lock screen option, while this could be useful, it’s a slight hassle go through the steps to set and reset the background on your phone. Especially if you don’t want to see your RoadID info when you’re not out on a run or ride. Also, in order for someone to see the information, they’d have to dig in your jersey pocket, or somehow rifle through your things, to find your phone and turn it on to see the lock screen. It seems slightly unnecessary, but I suppose every line of defense is potentially helpful. But since the app stands on its own with only the eCrumb feature and Stop Alert, it’s really a great addition to your arsenal of safety devices. Oh, and did I mention that it’s FREE? So, try it out. If you don’t like it, simply delete the app. Although it’s currently only available for iPhone, the Road ID app is coming soon to Android.

Download the RoadID App