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Community Ways
Community Ways shows the roads and tracks that 3 or more riders have ridden, learned anonymously from the GPX files riders let the HUB index. It is the HUB planner’s layer, drawn over your map in DMD2: solid lines are paved, dashed lines unpaved, and dotted lines are tracks riders use that aren’t on the map yet.
- Switch it on
- Map Settings → Online Map Layers → Community Ways, or Quick Actions → Extra Map Layers (see below).
- The lines
- Solid paved, dashed unpaved, dotted missing from the map; light pink a few riders, bright red 10 or more (what they mean).
- Options
- Colour the lines by riders, difficulty or suitability for your vehicle, and filter what shows (the options).
- Where it comes from
- The rides of riders who let the planner learn, updated every night (how).
Switching It On
Open Map Settings → Online Map Layers and switch on Community Ways, under Public GPS Traces. Once it is on, a slider sets its opacity, and Community Ways options opens the options below it.
The Community Ways card in Online Map Layers.
The same switch in Quick Actions → Extra Map Layers.
Quick Actions → Extra Map Layers has a Community Ways switch too, to turn it on and off from the map; like the other online layers there, it shows while the device is online.
The Online Layers button counts it while it is on, and its Map Layers dialog lists it with a switch of its own; while it is off, you find it under Global after Show More.
Your choices are saved with your rider profile.
What the Lines Mean
- Solid lines are paved, dashed lines unpaved, and dotted lines are tracks riders use that aren’t in OpenStreetMap, which routes can’t follow yet.
- Unless you colour them another way, the colour is how many riders rode a way: light pink means a few riders, bright red 10 or more, and the busiest ways are drawn wider.
- Your loaded GPX tracks and routes draw on top of them.
In DMD2 the lines are to look at: tapping one does nothing. On the HUB planner, a click on a way shows its riders and rides, the month it was last ridden, its surface and what riders report about it.
Community Ways Options
Tap Community Ways options, under the opacity slider, to open them. They are the planner’s options, so the same choices show the same ways in both.
The options, with the key under them.
| Option | What it does |
|---|---|
| Colour lines by | Riders (the default), Difficulty, or Suitability: how well each way suits a vehicle. |
| My vehicle | Any, Enduro, Adventure, ATV, SSV, 4x4 Car or Van / RV. With a vehicle picked, Difficulty and Suitability show what riders report for that vehicle. |
| Surface | All, Unpaved or Paved. |
| Difficulty up to | Any, Easy or Medium: hides the ways rated harder. |
| At least 3 riders | A slider from 3 to 15 riders: hides the quieter ways. |
| Hide ways not suitable for my vehicle | On by default, and works once you pick a vehicle. |
| Show ways nobody has rated | On by default; switch it off to keep only the ways riders have rated. |
| Show only ways missing from the map | Only the dotted ways: tracks riders use that OpenStreetMap doesn’t have yet. |
| Reset options | Puts every option back to its default. |
Under the options, a key shows what the lines and colours mean for the choices you made. With Difficulty it also says whose rating you see: Difficulty for your vehicle, or The rating riders give most.
A way that suits a vehicle is possible for every smaller one, and one level easier for each: Enduro, Adventure, ATV, SSV, 4x4 Car, Van / RV, from smallest to largest.
Where the Ways Come From
The ways come from the GPX files riders let the HUB index — see Help the Planner Learn. Only ways at least 3 different riders rode are shown, plus joins of up to 200 m between two of them. The first and last kilometre of every recording are never used, and nothing on the map shows who rode where.
Difficulty and suitability come from what riders report about their rides: the vehicle they rode and how hard it was. The HUB updates the ways every night.
Good to Know
Without a signal
DMD2 keeps the Community Ways you have viewed, so they still show without a signal. They are not part of Download Current Selection or Download For GPX Track.
Planning with them
On the HUB planner, Community routes in Routing Options leans a route towards these ways.
A dotted way you know
Tell local mappers with a Missing Track report in Improve the Map.
Continue Reading
Back to the online layers, or how your rides help the planner learn.
Settings & Layers GPX Manager & Sharing Improve the Map