So despite time constraints, I'm going to attempt to keep a weekly dev diary (open to feedback) for those who want to follow along.
More and more, I feel like AusBUG is slowly turning into a community asset — which was very much the early intention. To be honest, I still very much like to drive it, but I would really like to see where the relationship with Bicycle Network steers the app. A main goal is to integrate with their membership base, which will not only grow the app's user base but hopefully give Bicycle Network another mouthpiece to communicate with their members.
That's not to say it's going to be a membership-only tool — it's just a hopeful add-on. Realistically, the most significant changes to the app have come through user feedback and some really dedicated contributors who I just can't thank enough. You know who you are.
So in writing these diaries, I'm hoping to get feedback on how we can further shape the app together and make a tool that really benefits the cycling community and supports advocacy right around Australia.
Reaching out to more advocacy groups
While we have BN in Victoria and Tasmania, I'd like to reach out to the main advocacy groups in each state, further integrate their membership bases, and work with them to deliver whatever they identify as ways to help their members and grow their organisations.
In terms of how that integration looks, I basically see it as linking your membership to the app for:
- Exclusive rewards and business partnerships in your state
- Checking the status of your membership
- Access to calendar rides, tours and events
- Access to news and special offers
Pretty simple sort of stuff, but good to have in your pocket.
Looking further down the track, if we can integrate with the state advocacy bodies, it would be good to apply the same approach to clubs and BUGs — and perhaps develop a free CRM these groups can call upon to manage their members, create and share partnerships and rewards for their members, and integrate with the AusBUG platform.
The AusDetour platform
This has been my main focus for the last few months, and it's why you may not have seen as many updates on VicBUG / AusBUG recently.
As some of you already know, the basic idea is to provide live bicycle infrastructure closure updates and detours in real time in the app, so riders can easily see where to go when they're affected.
Part of the bigger plan is to get private consortiums or government bodies using the AusDetour platform to create their own maps that automatically feed into AusBUG. It's designed as a mapping tool where you snap and tag closures and detours to actual roads, lanes and paths on a live map, so they translate directly to other mapping platforms like AusBUG.
Where I hope it succeeds: it's designed to work something like Canva — really easy to use — so these bodies are encouraged to jump on and create the detours themselves, because it's easier, cheaper and faster than outsourcing to an agency, with the added benefit of real-time detours for active transport users.
Despite only just launching, it's already had some early interest, and I'm jumping on a call with the team at the River Torrens to Darlington (T2D) Project — South Australia's biggest-ever road project — who have expressed interest in the live detours. (Big thanks to Bike Adelaide for the handball in front of goal on this one.) I'm pretty sure they're mainly interested in getting live detours onto the AusBUG platform rather than using the platform themselves — but all good things start in small measures, and it's really exciting to have the opportunity to get started on a real-life use case.
Watch this space!
Navigation & planner changes
Aside from those updates, I've been making some fairly large UI changes to clean up how in-app navigation works.
Mainly: I don't love the app loading an entirely new map every time you start a nav, so I've been making that transition seamless. I'm not going to say it's perfect, but it is feeling a lot better. These are pretty major changes, so I'm expecting some small bugs to reveal themselves in nav over the next few weeks.
I've also been condensing the planner so you see more map while planning, and it all presents a little cleaner. The route profiles are condensed, with the POI selectors squeezed in to their right to save a full line in the sheet. Hopefully this resonates and it isn't all too confusing — it does feel a lot cleaner.
Other UI changes
I've started using the same icons across iOS and Android, so the two apps look much closer in appearance than they did. Until now I'd been using native icons on iOS and a mixture of Lucide and Material on Android. I've made the move to Phosphor, which works really well cross-platform, and I've adopted a slightly minimal, AllTrails-style approach to our sheets and menus (they use Phosphor icons, and AllTrails has a beautifully clean approach to UI).
The only other change is dropping the dedicated orange line for rail trails. I'm going to use orange for intermittent detours instead, as it stands out better on the map. I didn't see the need to show inner-city rail trails in a different colour — really, they're just another shared path. And in rural settings, if there's a major trail, more likely than not it's a rail trail anyway.
Relevant data
A user pulled me up recently on how long it takes to update the data behind our trails versus OSM. It hadn't occurred to me that we have OSM power users on the platform — using it not only for their cycling navigation but also to assist with their OSM mapping.
First of all: I LOVE THIS. I'm so happy the app is being used this way — it was a real motivation booster.
So I've scheduled an update once a week from now on. 4am Monday, every Monday, the app will be updated with the most recent data (thanks, AI — the whole pipeline now runs itself while I sleep).
A note on costs, subscriptions and maintenance
Don't panic! AusBUG will always be cost- and subscription-free. AusBUG is owned by you — I simply will not put a price on an app that relies on contributed data like OSM and other community-derived sources.
Right now the app costs me about $700 a month to run: roughly $400 in server fees, domains, Vercel, Google and the like (some months more, some less), and around $300 in AI subscriptions — which I'd be paying anyway; if I'm not working on AusBUG, I'm working on something else.
The reason for pointing this out is to gather ideas on what others have done to fund projects like this when the costs become a little more unmanageable. Right now it's fine — the cost is managed quite comfortably — but I'm open to ideas (possibly sponsorships — curious to hear people's thoughts).
That's all folks
If you have any questions, please get in touch via the feedback form or drop a comment.
We LOVE hearing from you. Please tell us everything you like about the app, and please whinge to us about everything you don't. Honestly, no matter how trivial — tell us. The idea is to one day make this an enterprise-grade app, and it simply won't happen without some negative feedback.
Happy and safe riding,
Vince — DEV
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