Every bike needs a proper tune-up now and then: true the wheels, tighten what has worked loose, and bolt on the parts you’ve been meaning to add. Party Onbici 2.6.4 is that tune-up for the app. You can merge two rides into one, your Apple Watch can record a ride without your iPhone, and group ride leaders can change the route mid-ride. Ride sync works reliably again, and the iPhone app has a refreshed, more accessible look. Here’s what’s new.

🔗 Merge two rides into one

Stopped for coffee and forgot to resume? Your phone ran out of battery halfway home? A ride that comes out as two recordings can now be merged into one. The distance, time and route join up, so your stats show the ride you actually did.

Open a ride and you’ll also see your stops and riding time alongside the total time. The café stop no longer drags down your average speed, and you can see how much of the afternoon you actually spent pedalling.

⌚ Your Apple Watch can ride on its own

Some rides are better without a phone in your jersey pocket. In 2.6.4 your Apple Watch can record a ride on its own when your iPhone isn’t with you. When the two are back together, the watch hands the ride over to your iPhone and it appears with the rest of your rides.

Your wrist also gets a new map page, on both Apple Watch and Wear OS. It shows your route and the other riders in your group, so a glance at your watch tells you where the group is.

🧭 New tools for group ride leaders

Leading a group ride means making calls on the road: a closed street, a detour around roadworks, an early finish when the weather turns. Leaders can now:

  • Change the route mid-ride. Everyone in the party gets the new route, so nobody is left following the old line.
  • End the ride for everyone. One tap wraps the party up for the whole group, so no one is left wondering whether it’s still going.

🗺️ Find a ride near you

My Parties now lists nearby public parties and routes, within a range you choose. Set it to a few kilometres for a quick local spin or wider for a weekend day trip, and see what’s on near you.

🔄 Ride sync you can trust

We know sync gave some of you trouble, and we’re sorry. 2.6.4 fixes it:

  • No more duplicate rides. Each ride shows up once.
  • A ride you delete stays deleted. It won’t come back on the next sync.
  • Your phone can restore a ride the server has lost. If your phone still has it, it puts it back.
  • Rides recorded before you sign in stay on your phone until you sign in, then sync as normal.
  • Signing in no longer sends you back to the login screen.

📱 A refreshed iPhone look

The iPhone app now uses native iOS controls, bars and sheets throughout, so it looks and behaves like the rest of your phone. Along the way we improved colour contrast to meet accessibility guidelines and gave every screen a proper heading order for VoiceOver, so screen-reader users can jump between sections the way they would in any other app.

✨ Everything else in 2.6.4

  • New Auto-zoom setting. The map zooms and tilts to suit your speed, your next turn and your arrival, so you always see the stretch of road that matters.
  • Turn instructions in your language. Turn instructions, and the turn arrow on your Lock Screen, now follow the language you chose in the app.
  • Money saved in your own currency. The savings figure on your rides now uses your currency, written the way your language writes it.
  • Save rides to Apple Health. After a ride you can choose to save your rides to Apple Health.
  • Join an organisation with its invite link and see its parties. Before you join, the app tells you that the organisation’s admins can see your name and email address.
  • Report a photo from another member in a party gallery. Party galleries now take photos only.
  • Report a problem from Settings. If something isn’t right, you can tell us without leaving the app.
  • A short tour shows you around the first time you open the app, and a new Learn Party Onbici screen explains parties, live rides and recording.
  • Home Screen widget fixes, including Arabic and Indonesian.
  • On Android: a smaller download, and your preferences come with you when you move to a new phone.
  • Clearer location and privacy notices, plus translation fixes across the app’s 21 languages.

🧰 Also new since 2.6.1

We didn’t write up the two releases between our 2.6.0 post and this one, so here are the highlights.

2.6.2

  • Invite friends from Messages. A new iMessage app lets you pick an upcoming ride and drop the invitation straight into a conversation.
  • Invitations show a map preview of the route.
  • More dependable ride recovery if the app is interrupted mid-ride.

2.6.3

  • Group rides that survive anything. If the app is closed or your phone goes to sleep mid-ride, you rejoin your party automatically with nothing lost.
  • Smoother riders on the map. Other riders glide between updates instead of jumping, even on budget phones.
  • Radar and compass in one dial, and heading-up mode turns with your direction of travel.
  • Better Home Screen widgets. Pick both the stat and the timeframe, see trend sparklines, and change the timeframe any time after placing a widget.
  • iMessage invitations show the ride name and artwork, and tapping one opens the app straight into the ride.
  • Numbers follow your language’s formatting everywhere.

Get the update

Party Onbici 2.6.4 is out now on the App Store and Google Play. Update the app, merge that ride you split at the coffee stop, and if you’re leading a group this weekend, you can now change the route on the road.

Happy riding! 🚴