A collaborative platform for multi-day bikepacking adventures.
- Core features
- Trip management
- Navigation and social
About TrailSync
TrailSync is a collaborative mobile app designed to simplify the planning and management of multi-day bikepacking adventures. By bringing routes, files, expenses, trip details, and group communication into one shared workspace, TrailSync helps riders spend less time coordinating and more time exploring.
Problem
Planning a multi-day bikepacking trip requires groups to juggle multiple disconnected tools — including mapping apps, messaging platforms, shared documents, weather apps, and expense trackers. As trips become more complex, important information becomes fragmented, making coordination difficult and increasing the burden on the trip organizer.
Research
Conducted interviews with outdoor enthusiasts and combined those findings with my own experience organizing community rides and bikepacking trips. While planning styles varied, several consistent patterns emerged.
Design Opportunity
How might we create a collaborative workspace that keeps every rider, route, and resource synchronized before and during a multi-day bikepacking adventure?
Information was fragmented
Groups relied on multiple apps to organize a single trip.
One person became the coordinator
The organizer carried most of the responsibility for routes, logistics, files, and communication.
Offline access was critical
Participants needed reliable access to maps and important documents when outside cell service.
Everyone wanted a single source of truth
Users wanted one place where the latest route, itinerary, files, and updates were always available.
Information Architecture
How TrailSync's core sections and features are organized.
- Current TripWorkspace for your active trip
- Weather WidgetTemp + conditions
- Offline StatusMaps downloaded?
- Quick StatsFiles / Expenses / Members
- Recent ActivityCollaborator updates feed
- All TripsPast + upcoming
- Trip DetailsLinks into Trip workspace
-
Trip WorkspaceWorkspace for your active trip
- RoutesSaved routes, GPX, offline maps
- FilesGPX, docs, photos
- ExpensesTransactions, split costs
- PackingChecklist, shared gear
- WeatherForecast, alerts
- EmergencyContacts, medical info
- NotesRide notes, reminders
- Trip DocumentsShared beyond one trip
- SettingsApp preferences
- Offline MapsManage downloaded maps
- DownloadsOffline files and content
How riders move through the app
Low Fidelity Wireframes
One of the primary challenges during wireframing was balancing functionality with simplicity. Consistent naming conventions and information hierarchy helped ensure users could move confidently through the app and always understand where they were.
Mid Fidelity Wireframes
Goal: creating a new trip and inviting collaborators. The goal was to validate the app's core experience before moving into visual design, ensuring users could easily begin planning and collaborating in one shared workspace.
TrailSync Design System
A collaborative workspace for multi-day bikepacking adventures — the visual language that ties it together.
Prototyping
The final prototype brought together the TrailSync design system with the validated flows from wireframing — bringing color, real content, and interaction states into the Dashboard, Trip Creation, Trip Workspace, and Invite Riders screens.
What I learned
Thoughts, reflections, and learning points from this project.
Recommendations & next steps
Where TrailSync could go from here.