Road Runner Magazine

[vincep]

Interested in comments from actual Road Runner subscribers.

Have subscribed to this magazine for years and is the only print bike magazine I read (along with AMA magazine I guess).

Here is the gripe:  Road Runner has good stories and planned rides in it.  It is backed up by a website with a searchable, global map with all their planned rides going back 20 years - great resource for route cards and .gpx files.  I use this feature a lot.  If you subscribe to the magazine you get access to these files.

In 2020 they develop a navigation app - Rides.  This phone app has all the planned rides plus a route planning function.  Sounds good.  I do not like using my phone for navigation on the bike, so I am not interested in paying an additional $60 annually for the app.

In 2021, they stop posting the .gpx files and route cards to their website (which I have paid for through the magazine subscription) and tell me to purchase the app (additionally).

Seems to me I was paying for a bi monthly magazine and access to the archived rides through their website.  Now I only get the magazine.

Anyone else with a Road Runner subscription peeved by this change?  Or am I the unicorn?

Vince 

[1moreroad]

I have almost subscribed to Road Runner many times. Never did. The routes seemed very good, but if you can't access them with the magazine, I'm not sure I would subscribe. Can you get the GPX file thru the app or do their routes only work with their app? That would be a deal breaker because, like you, I only use my phone for GPS as a backup. 

[vincep]

@1moreroad, they state you can get the .gpx out of the phone app, but I have not been able to get it to work.  The ability to export the .gpx from the app elude me.  You can share a QR code that gets someone else with the Rides app the tour, but that is it.  I have a two week trial of the Rides App and am about to cancel it.

[2and3cylinders]

Call them with this IMO key ?!

[vincep]

I put my concern again to RoadRUNNER and to their credit it looks like they are resolving - I got this response this morning:

Hi Vince,

Thanks for your kind words and feedback. Most of the GPX files are on the website, but we keep running into problems with our backend. We're working on a new site. In the future you'll be emailed each issue's GPX file. The Shamrock Tours will always have the tankbag maps, and we're looking at ways to make the others into useable tankbag maps again too. It's just that the other maps really lack the necessary detail to actually use on the road. The GPX files and the app are the easiest way to follow the other tours.

Kind regards,

Florian Neuhauser - Editor-in-Chief RoadRUNNER Motorcycle Touring & Travel