Explore

Explore is everyone else's riding on one map, so you can see where riders go before you plan. It draws every public route and ride on INVIA over the INVIA Base Map. Other riders' lines therefore sit on the same roads you build your own routes on. Read the four pages in order, because each one goes deeper into the part of Explore that the page before it introduced.

Zoom decides what you see#

Zoom 7 is the switch, so at zoom 7 and above the sidebar lists the routes in view and the zoom-in hint leaves the top of the map. The lines fade in rather than snapping on, starting to show at zoom 6.5 and reaching full strength at zoom 8, which is why the change reads as gradual. Below zoom 7 there is no route line to hover or click, because the map draws the heat glow in place of the lines at that scale. Every route is still on Explore, so zoom in past zoom 7 and the lines draw. The hint at the top of the map reads Zoom in to a region to explore its routes & riders, or stay zoomed out for the activity heatmap.

The Heatmap switch decides which kind of riding the glow describes, because planned and recorded lines answer different questions. Routes draws planned routes in blue and Rides draws recorded rides in orange, and one glow is drawn at a time so you are never reading the two mixed together. Switch to Rides and the blue route glow is not drawn, and the routes are still on Explore, so switch back to Routes to draw the blue glow again. Explore overview.

The sidebar reads the map, not your library#

The sidebar lists what is inside the current map view, which is why its counts change as you pan and zoom rather than holding still the way your library does.

Routes are ranked by distance from the center of the map, with your favourites first, so the route nearest the middle of the screen sits at the top of the list. Pan a route off the map and it leaves the list, drops out of the tab count and stops being drawn. The route is not deleted, because the sidebar follows the map view rather than your library, so pan back and it is listed again.

Search a place… flies the map to a town, a trailhead or an address, which saves dragging the map across the country to reach it. The tabs, the counts and the lists then describe the place you searched for rather than the one you left.

The chips All, Routes and Rides filter the sidebar and the map together, so what you read in the list and what you see on the map are always the same set. Two more rows appear when the view holds enough variety for them to sort anything, one of activity and one of difficulty reading Easy, Mod, Hard and Extreme. Both rows are derived from the routes in view, which is why a plain view has no difficulty row on screen and panning to a mixed area brings both rows back. Nothing a chip hides is deleted, so press All to list routes and rides together again. Tabs, search and chips.

Reading one route#

1. Hover a route line. Every other line dims.
2. Read the card: the name, the distance, the difficulty by consensus, who built it, favourites, collections and versions.
3. Click the line to select it, which holds the card in place with an Open button.
4. Press Open for the item page, where you can save the route or pin it.

The other lines dim so that the one under your pointer is the one you are reading. They are still on the map, and they return to full brightness the moment you move the pointer off. Esc clears the hover dim, the selected line and the road card together, and every route stays on the map and in the list, because clearing a selection changes nothing you own.

Several riders can upload nearly the same trail, and Explore draws one line and one row reading N riders · M collections rather than stacking near-identical copies on top of one another. Every rider's version is still stored on INVIA, because grouping changes how the trail is drawn and listed and nothing else. Expand the row to list the individual versions, then open the one you want. Hover, select and open.

Pinning what you find#

Pin any route, ride or collection straight from the list, so you can mark what you find while you are still reading the map.

Pins are saved to your profile, so pinning needs you signed in, and signing in then pressing the pin again is all it takes. A pin puts the item on your profile rather than copying it into your library, so use Import to Library on the item page when you want your own copy.

Roads under the routes#

Tap anywhere that is not a route line and Explore opens the card for the road underneath, so a map busy with community routes still lets you read the road itself. The card carries the road's number, class, surface, designation, season, managing agency, difficulty and one-way direction. A field that does not apply to that road is left off the card, and the rest of the card still shows.

Wilderness and military boundaries open a card of their own, which is how the map tells you why a road line stops. Tap the boundary to read its name, because the road either side of it is still on the map and still opens its own card when you tap it.

Selecting a route line and tapping a road are exclusive, so tapping a road clears the selected route and clicking a route closes the road card. Neither action removes anything from the map, so the route you had selected is still drawn and you can click it again.

Pins and layers#

INVIA's own riding areas and trails sit on top of the community routes, and they draw in that order as you zoom in.

Ride-area pins draw first, so a view with no trail pins on it yet is one you have not zoomed into far enough, and zooming in further draws them. Long single track shows its mileage on the pin. Tap a trail pin and the trail's line draws on the map with a card of the trail's details.

Layers opens the basemap picker, which offers Hybrid, Streets, Satellite, Outdoors, Dark, Nav Night and USGS Topo, and the layer control sits below it.

Turn a switch off and that layer leaves the map, and nothing is deleted, so turning the switch back on draws the layer again. Your choices carry over to the route builder, which means the map you set up on Explore is the map you plan on. Pins, tap a road and layers.

Free and Pro#

Explore is free on every account, and the Pro road classes stay locked here the way they are locked everywhere else in INVIA, so the legend reads the same wherever you open the map. A locked class stays in the legend, dimmed, with a lock, and its lines are not drawn on the map. Tapping the locked row in the legend names the class in the message it puts up, so you can tell which class you asked for. Tapping the same locked class in the Layers panel opens the plan picker instead, which is why no message appears there. The legend message reads Single Track is a Pro feature. or ATV · Narrow OHV (≤50″) is a Pro feature.

The four unlocked road classes, both pin layers, the basemaps and every road card work on a Free account. Read the map with those, or upgrade to Pro to draw the locked classes on Explore and everywhere else in INVIA.

1. 1
   Explore overview

   Explore is everyone else's riding: every public route and ride on one map, heat glow zoomed out, individual routes zoomed in, three tabs, duplicate grouping, and tap any road for its details.

2. 2
   Tabs, search and chips

   The Explore sidebar: the Routes, Riders and Collections tabs with counts, Search a place, the Heatmap switch, the All, Routes and Rides chips, and the derived activity and difficulty facets.

3. 3
   Hover, select and open

   What happens when you hover a line on Explore, click to select it, open it, pin it to your profile, and how near-identical routes from different riders group into one row.

4. 4
   Pins, tap a road and layers

   Ride-area and trail pins on Explore, the zoom each one waits for, what the road card shows when you tap a base map line, and the Layers button with its basemap picker.