A Little Pit Stop – Ridi Newsletter #3

Hey riders,

This isn’t the update I was hoping to write, but it’s all part of the journey!

Over the past year and a half, I’ve poured a ridiculous amount of time, energy, and love into Ridi. I created, tested and finetuned the routing algorithm, open-sourced it, built the backend, the app, everything. And I’ve been incredibly happy to see riders like you try it out, send feedback, and share your real-world adventures with me!

But here’s the tough part: right now Ridi only has a handful of active users, and the server costs alone don’t make sense for such a small group. As much as I wish I could keep everything running unchanged forever, I simply can’t justify the monthly bills for just a few riders.

So I’ve made the difficult decision to temporarily shut down the service. If you want to download your favourite routes, you can do that now in the next few days. Or later you can email me at info@ridi.bike and I’ll make sure to send them over.

I will be refunding everyone that has an active subscription.

Hopefully this isn’t goodbye—just a pit stop.

I built Ridi because I needed it. My friends needed it. Without it, riding next summer would mean going back to boring loops on Google Maps, and honestly… I can’t imagine that. So I’m already thinking about how to rebuild Ridi in a way that isn’t a financial burden, even with only a small number of users. Lighter infrastructure, smarter architecture, maybe even a simpler design approach.

The goal: Make Ridi sustainable even if it’s just me and a few friends using it.

I want this app to exist. I need this app to exist. And I know some of you do too.

I’ll keep you updated as I work through things, experiment, break stuff, fix stuff, and hopefully bring Ridi back in a form that can live long-term without burning a hole in my wallet.

In the mean time the Ridi routing engine is avilable free and open source in https://github.com/ridi-bike/ridi-router - you can download the engine to your computer and generates routes for yourself as much as you like, just without the convenience of the app.

Thank you for riding with me, for sending feedback, for testing routes, and for caring about this weird little project I built because I couldn’t stop thinking about better motorcycle routes.

If you’ve got thoughts, ideas, or just want to chat, you can always reach me on the Subreddit or BlueSky. I’d love to hear from you.

Ride safe, and I’ll see you soon(ish) with more news.

– Toms Creator of Ridi