What is ROVR?
ROVR is a free web app for tile hunting, the game where the map is cut into squares and riding through one makes it yours. Connect Strava or Ride with GPS, or upload your ride files, and it maps the squares you've covered, points out the ones you've missed and draws rides to collect them. There's nothing to install.
It's one person's project. The privacy policy says it's run by Dries, from the United States, and both the homepage and the privacy policy call it a small beta (as of October 2026). Most of what follows comes from the homepage's own "In the box today" list; a separate "On the workbench" list covers things still being built, like a Garmin app and routes that pick their own tiles, and those aren't described here as features.
Key Features
Three grid sizes
Everyone shares the same squares, and touching one corner is enough to claim it. ROVR tracks big, middle and small grids, and its middle tiles match the explorer tiles other services use. You get your cluster (ridden tiles with ridden neighbors on all four sides, corners don't count) and your max square (the biggest square of ridden tiles with no holes). Patches cut off from your main one, say a vacation or the town you grew up in, become "places" you can name.
Your next tiles
A list of unridden tiles near you, easiest first, plus the exact tiles standing between you and a bigger max square.
Routes that collect them
Tick the tiles you want and ROVR draws a route through them. One button sends it to Ride with GPS, or you can download it for Strava or a bike computer. As of October 2026 the homepage says route drawing knows greater Houston so far. You can also paste in a Ride with GPS route to see what it would add to your map before riding it.
Every GPS point counts
ROVR reads every point you recorded rather than a simplified outline of the ride, which the homepage says can miss a tile on some services.
A line in your ride descriptions
Rides that find new ground get a short block in their Strava description: what you bagged, how your map changed, and optionally the weather along the ride.
Distance numbers too
Your Eddington number (in miles or kilometers) and your Mex: picture a ladder with a rung for every whole-mile ride length, and your Mex is the last filled rung before the first gap.
Who It's For
- Tile hunters who already know their max square from another service and want a route planner built around the next tiles
- Riders around Houston, for now, since that's where the route drawing works (as of October 2026)
- Ride with GPS users, who can import trips and send planned routes back, with or without Strava
Worth Knowing
Outdoor, human-powered activities with a GPS track count, which the homepage spells out as bikes, feet, boats and skis. Indoor and virtual rides don't.
Connecting Strava asks up front to read your activities, private ones included, and to write to them. The sign-up terms explain why: Strava can't widen permissions later without signing you in again. The write permission is for the description block. The sign-up terms say it's on by default, while the privacy policy describes it as something you switch on in Settings, so check Settings either way. The sign-up terms also say anyone who follows you can read it. Weather in that block starts on for accounts made since October 9, 2026, unless you untick it at sign-up.
There's a scoreboard comparing riders' tile and distance numbers next to their initials, and you're on it by default unless you switch it off in Settings. The sign-up terms say it will never show a ride, a route, a ride name or a date, though a zoomed-out shared map (cities, suburbs and big neighborhoods, never a street) may be added. Coming off it also hides everyone else's numbers from you.
Strava limits how many riders an app can connect, so ROVR's Strava places can run out. When they do, the homepage suggests starting with Ride with GPS or your files and leaving your address for when a spot opens (the privacy policy calls rovr.cc/waitlist the waiting list). When this listing was checked in October 2026, that page said a place was free.
The game is free. The homepage mentions a ROVR Plus tier that isn't out yet (unlimited drawn routes, Garmin, full weather write-ups and more), with the first 250 riders to sign up getting it free for life, and says the game itself stays free for everyone.
