Frequently asked questions

Hugos Bike-Touren App is a standalone Android app for Android 7.0 and newer. The narrow and wide layouts have been tested in an emulator for the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5; practical testing while folding and unfolding a real Fold5 is still pending. There is currently no iPhone version.

Open the HBTA home page on your Android phone, tap the download button and open the downloaded APK. The first time, you must allow your browser to install apps from this source. Android then shows you which app is about to be installed before installation begins.

The closed Google Play test is running for approved testers. A public Play release is not yet available. Your Google account must be approved for the closed test to participate; the test link alone is not sufficient. The current signed direct APK download on the HBTA home page remains available. These download buttons lead to the direct APK and do not enrol you in the Play test.

Direct APK: When the app starts, and when you manually check in the profile, it checks whether a newer direct APK version is available. First you see the version number and list of changes. The APK is downloaded only after you confirm. Android may additionally ask HBTA for permission to “Install unknown apps” for such a direct update. Before opening the Android installer, the app checks the file size, SHA-256 checksum, package name, version number and publisher signature, among other things.

Play version: Installation and updates take place exclusively through Google Play. This version does not download direct APK updates and does not need permission to “Install unknown apps”. The closed Play test is available to approved testers.

Yes. HBTA is a privately operated hobby project and provides the same functionality to everyone, regardless of whether they support the developer. Depending on your mobile plan, your provider's normal data charges may apply to downloads, maps and navigation.

In the profile, you can give €1, €2, €5 or an amount of your choice as voluntary support without receiving anything in return, using an external PayPal.Me link. Payment takes place outside HBTA and does not unlock features, badges or other benefits. The app and HBTA server do not query payment status; the operator can see the transaction details provided by PayPal in the operator's PayPal account. See the privacy notice for details.

Registration is open. Enter an email address, display name and a password with 8 to 36 characters. It needs at least one uppercase letter, one lowercase letter and one special character; digits are optional and spaces do not count as special characters. You then acknowledge the privacy notice, accept the terms of use and verify your email address using the link sent to you. You must be at least 18 years old to have your own account.

Tap “Forgot password?” on the sign-in page. You receive an email with a time-limited link that lets you set a new password. Never share this link with anyone.

Yes. For security, the account function in the app asks for your current password and then deletes your account and its associated private server data. If the app is no longer installed, you can request deletion by email on the public Delete HBTA account page. Details about deletion and backups are in the privacy notice.

If you enable optional fitness analysis, your age in complete years and weight are required for the local estimate. Age, weight and the resulting approximate calorie values remain on your Android device. They are neither shown in your public share link nor sent to the HBTA server. Public information and share pages use no analytics or advertising trackers and set no cookies. After sign-in, the protected moderation area uses a short-lived authentication cookie that is technically necessary. See the privacy notice for more information.

Yes. You can voluntarily choose a photo in the profile. The app crops it centrally to a square, reduces its size and re-encodes it; EXIF, GPS, file-name and other original metadata are not uploaded. In the current app version, a new image remains private and is not visible to other users. It never appears in public route links or on the freely accessible website. You can replace or delete it at any time.

HBTA needs access to your location only for the optional location display, navigation that you start or GPS recording that you start. Internal navigation and GPS recording require precise location; Android's “Approximate” option is not sufficient. It is used for the starting point, route matching, speed and direction of travel, among other things. HBTA does not request location permission for the optional hand-off to Google Maps; Google Maps may use its own location permission. Android displays a permanent notification for a recording that has started, so HBTA additionally asks for notification permission on Android versions that have a separate permission for it.

Direct download only: for the first APK installation, you grant “Install unknown apps” to the browser. For later direct app updates, Android may additionally ask HBTA for this permission. It is not required for installation and updates of the Play version through Google Play.

Partly. Calculate the route before the ride: HBTA then stores the route line, elevation profile and turn instructions as a local route package. Route matching, speed display and voice instructions work on the phone with this package; after your separate GPS/tour-data permission, GPS recording can also capture the ridden route locally without internet access. Optional fitness analysis is not required. From version 0.7.11, you can additionally download a bounded tour offline package within the supported German map coverage. Only a package confirmed as complete contains the map for its area and saved zoom levels; check it before riding. New planning, map tiles not downloaded, address search, account synchronisation, share links and automatic recalculation after leaving the route still need a data connection. Voice guidance requires a suitable installed offline voice. Downloading the entire map of Germany is not included.

MapLibre displays the HBTA bike map using OpenStreetMap data from the shared map endpoint maps.mhui.de. BRouter calculates the route on the HBTA server according to your Touring, Road, Gravel or MTB profile and considers bike paths, gradients and available surface information, among other data.

During the ride, turn instructions, voice guidance, route matching, travel direction, distance to the next manoeuvre and current speed remain in HBTA. The current position is processed on the phone for this purpose. Only for the initial calculation and after a detected route deviation does the app send the required points to the HBTA routing endpoint. Google Maps remains available as an external alternative after a separate confirmation.

Yes, if you enable “Automatic pause detection”, which is off by default, under “Profile & settings”. You still always start and end a tour yourself. When a standstill is reliably detected, HBTA pauses recording after about 20 seconds. It smooths several quality-checked GPS measurements and uses the phone's motion sensor only as a supporting hint. The sensor alone can neither pause nor resume recording; inaccurate or missing GPS signals are not reliable evidence of a pause.

Active riding time does not continue during an automatic pause. GPS and local motion detection remain active and continue to use battery power. Motion signals are neither stored nor transmitted for this purpose. A manual pause, by contrast, stops location capture for recording and can only be resumed by you. If you turn automatic detection off during an automatic pause, recording remains manually paused. Independently running navigation may continue to require location data.

After a successful stop, HBTA opens the analysis of the tour that was actually stored. It shows the map, distance, active riding time, average speed and ascent. If enough reliable elevation data exists, an elevation profile also appears. If the separate fitness analysis was enabled when you started, HBTA also shows approximate calorie consumption, clearly marked as an estimate. The analysis remains available under “My tours”. A synchronised recording appears there only once despite its local offline copy and private account copy; an unsynchronised recording remains visible. “Follow tour” lets you prepare internal HBTA navigation directly from it.

Private automatic tour synchronisation is off by default and begins only after you explicitly enable it in the profile. Sharing, community publication and photo management remain separate deliberate actions; photos are never uploaded automatically. HBTA does not invent unrecorded surface proportions or a maximum speed that was not stored reliably. It likewise does not retroactively invent a calorie value for older tours or rides recorded while fitness analysis was off.

Yes. Your own recordings, routes stored in your account and community tours with a shared route line can be opened in internal HBTA navigation using “Follow tour”. HBTA takes the start and destination and reduces longer recordings to important bends and route points. BRouter then calculates a bike-suitable navigation route with an elevation profile and turn instructions. The calculated route can therefore differ from the original GPS line; signage, closures and the actual situation always take priority.

Older or interrupted recordings are also recalculated as one complete route through BRouter when you follow them. In your private recording and tour views, HBTA displays short gaps of no more than 50 metres between stored sections as a thin line that is explicitly marked as estimated; the measured GPS points, distance, speed, elevation, synchronisation and shared data remain unchanged. Larger gaps stay open. For privacy, public shares and community maps preserve every shared segment boundary and add no estimated line. For navigation, HBTA processes the complete available recording in chronological order; the connection calculated by BRouter may differ from the route actually ridden. If an older community publication lacks a deliberately shared route line, only its owner can open the publication editor and add it after confirming again. Private GPS data is never shared or made public automatically.

For a route that can be opened in HBTA, you have two options: a secret share link can be revoked and expires after no more than 30 days. A community publication can be found by signed-in HBTA users and remains visible until you withdraw it. In both cases, you deliberately decide whether cleaned route geometry is visible. For recorded tours, you can additionally trim the start and end areas; for planned routes, you review the selected destination and intermediate destinations before sharing. Email address, weight, calories, live location and the complete private GPS track are not published.

After you deliberately create a share link, HBTA opens the Android share sheet. You then choose WhatsApp, Telegram or another installed app yourself. Only your selection passes the link to that service; merely storing or synchronising a tour publishes nothing.

When you paste the link into a messenger or social service, that service may automatically retrieve and store a preview containing the route title, distance, duration and ascent. By default, HBTA shows a general preview image without a route line. After revocation, HBTA no longer displays tour data; a preview already sent or cached by a third party may nevertheless remain visible.

From version 0.7.11: When newly sharing a recording, you may separately enable a map image in the messenger preview. Your selected hidden start/end distances also apply to this image; gaps are not connected. Without this choice, and for existing links, the general HBTA image remains. If the self-hosted basemap is unavailable, the image is explicitly labelled “Route outline”. Review the shared route before sending it: trimming does not create a complete privacy radius. Recipients and messengers can keep their own copies permanently; revocation or expiry does not retrieve them.

From version 0.7.11: Guest mode lets you record locally after voluntary GPS consent and try GPX files without creating an HBTA account. Fitness and server synchronisation stay off. Guest tours are not automatically transferred to an account used later. Normal map loading still contacts the self-hosted map server and reveals the requested area.

GPX imports are saved locally and separately for each account or guest profile only after your preview choice; they are not automatically uploaded. Export creates an unencrypted file with the full selected route, title and optional elevations; timestamps require an additional choice. The Android document provider may be cloud storage. File copies cannot be revoked and are not protected by trimming a share link. Original-track guidance shows the line, your location and distance from the track, but does not invent turn instructions or automatically recalculate.

Tour offline packages retain the calculated route with available instructions and its bounded map area within the supported German coverage on the phone. Wait for confirmed completion and check the package before riding; the map covers only the package area and saved zoom levels. Oversized or incompletely covered tours are not silently split into partial routes. Recalculation after leaving a route still requires internet, and voice guidance needs an installed offline voice. Deleting a package removes that package copy, not your original tour.

From version 0.7.11, you can enter a town, district or region across Germany, such as Kassel or Werra-Meißner-Kreis. The filter searches the tours' published region labels. It does not automatically assign tours to official boundaries or guarantee complete regional coverage; newest tours remain first within the selection. You can also filter by distance, ascent and declared surface. The optional radius filter uses a planning destination you choose, not automatically your current GPS location.

From version 0.7.10, an optional tour video export is available. It creates an MP4 file on your phone with the map and route line, an editable title, tour details and, optionally, up to three images from the Android system picker. Music is not included. Check the preview and hide start and end sections if needed; the remaining map, your title and photos may still show private places.

Video rendering and the selected images are not uploaded to a video or AI cloud. The existing HBTA map server may supply additional map tiles; these requests can reveal the region being viewed. Original photo metadata, age, weight, calories, account details and GPS measurement times are not automatically copied into the video. Use only images you have the right to share.

You can pass the finished video to apps such as WhatsApp or Telegram through the Android share sheet. Recipients can keep their copy permanently and forward it; the video cannot be revoked and does not expire after 30 days. To let someone open and follow the tour, also share a route link. For recordings loaded directly from your account, you can optionally add this link when sharing. It uses the selected hidden distances and the original tour title; editing the video title does not change the link title. No such link is created for a recording stored only locally. A video is not an automatically playing link preview.

You can provide a description, difficulty, up to four surface types, e-bike suitability and up to six photos. Photos are re-encoded before upload; EXIF, GPS and file-name metadata are removed. The visible image content may nevertheless reveal people or private places. Upload only images for which you hold the necessary rights and whose publication does not compromise the rights or safety of others.

Curated tours are expressly labelled as such in the app. The precise source, attribution, data licence and modification notice appear directly in each tour's details. The first regional route lines come from OpenStreetMap and are licensed under the Open Database License 1.0. HBTA uses no third-party photos or logos for them and writes the short tour descriptions itself.

A curated line can also be out of date or not continuously rideable on site. Signage, closures, access rights and the actual situation always take priority.

Only if you expressly select that when publishing. Otherwise, the neutral name “HBTA rider” appears with your tour. Your email address, user ID and fitness details are not returned in community responses.

Open the tour and choose “Report tour”. The app stores only a fixed reason, with no free text. For a detailed, reasoned report of allegedly illegal content, you can additionally use the contact described in the legal notice.

Chat requires a verified HBTA account and enabled chat access. Communication features are being opened gradually and initially by invitation only. Plans include a moderated general room, optional broad regional rooms, a support inbox and, only after separate activation, direct messages about community tours. As long as a feature is disabled on the server, an older or modified app cannot use it either.

Before first use and after the rules are updated, the app displays the current version for separate confirmation. If the server requires renewed acceptance before writing, HBTA automatically takes you there; your existing community name remains. The rules can also be opened at any time through the HBTA community guidelines.

Only text messages are allowed at the first stage; media, clickable links and live locations remain disabled. Messages and users can be reported separately, users can be permanently blocked, and blocks can be removed again in the inbox.

An exact postcode is not required for an account or the general chat. If regional rooms are enabled, you voluntarily select only a broad region such as Werra-Meißner, Göttingen or Eichsfeld. HBTA publishes neither your postcode nor your exact home or live location in chat.

Not by default. Before the first GPS recording, HBTA requires separate optional GPS/tour-data permission. The app then initially stores GPS track points and measurement times, start and end, and calculated values such as distance, duration, speed and ascent locally. Independent fitness analysis is optional and not required for recording. A server copy is created only if you synchronise a tour individually or additionally enable “Private tour synchronisation” in the profile. HBTA then privately backs up suitable recordings that have not yet been synchronised and retries when connectivity returns or the app next starts. Other users see them only after you share or publish them to the community yourself. Age, weight and calories are never sent to the HBTA server. Photos are transferred only after a separate deliberate upload action and never automatically. Turning synchronisation off ends future automatic transfers; existing account routes and deliberately created shares or community publications remain until you delete or withdraw them yourself.

Open the tour under “My tours”. An unsynchronised recording remains visible there as a local recording and can be removed with its raw GPS track using “Delete recording”. Once synchronised, it appears only once even though its local offline copy and private account copy remain technically separate; you can delete only the local copy or delete the tour everywhere. “Delete everywhere” additionally removes the account route, its share links, any community post and uploaded photos. To delete an account-only route, open it and use “Delete route”.

Yes. You can revoke a share in the app. The link then no longer returns tour data. Independently of that, every share automatically expires after no more than 30 days.

For security, the secret link is returned only when it is created. The later list shows its status and expiry date, but not the complete link again. If you no longer have it, revoke the old share and create a new one.

Yes. Enter a street, complete address or place in the route planner. The app displays clear results for safe selection and only uses the point you choose internally as the destination coordinate. The starting point remains open in a newly saved plan. Only when you ask HBTA navigation to calculate the route is your then-current location sent as the start, together with the destination, optional intermediate points and bike profile, to the HBTA routing endpoint. For the optional external Google Maps hand-off, HBTA does not set a navigation start and does not transmit your current device location. Alternatively, set the destination and up to three intermediate destinations by long-pressing the map.

Enable the separate “Fitness analysis” in the profile and enter your age in complete years and weight. For tours recorded afterwards, HBTA displays approximate calorie consumption in the tour-completion analysis and under “My tours”. It deliberately shows no retroactively invented value for older tours or rides recorded with fitness analysis off. Age, weight and calorie values remain exclusively on your Android device and are not sent to the HBTA server.

Not fully yet. Because the app does not currently know the selected assistance level, the estimate for an e-bike may differ significantly from actual energy expenditure. Every calorie value is therefore labelled as an approximate, non-binding estimate and is not a measurement or medical information.

The current version does not yet have a Bluetooth connection to the Bosch Smart System or your CUBE e-bike. It therefore does not read the assistance level, battery, motor power or other bicycle data. Any later integration would first need an officially documented interface and safe testing on the real bicycle.