General
What is The Outdoor Club?
It is a private app for running a riding or outdoor club: who its members are, what outings it has planned, a shared feed, a live map while an outing is under way, shared expenses and a club ledger, and the club's own documents and rules.
It is deliberately not a social network. There is no public directory, no discovery and no way to see a club you have not been invited to or founded yourself.
Which platforms are supported?
Android and iOS, through their respective app stores. Check the store listing for the current minimum operating system version.
Is it free?
Yes, currently free — no advertisements, no in-app purchases, no subscriptions. We may introduce paid features in future. If we do, we will say so clearly in advance, nothing will be charged without your express agreement, and nothing you have already done will be charged for retroactively.
What do I have to provide, and what is optional?
Required to finish joining: your name, phone number, city, gender, t-shirt size, and a photograph of one identity document — a passport, a national ID or a driving licence, whichever you have. The app will not let you complete setup without them, and your name and phone number cannot be cleared afterwards.
Optional: your blood group, an emergency contact, a profile photo, your profession, your birthday (day and month only), the year you started going on outings, the year you joined, a federation membership number, a second identity document, any other papers, and your garage — which may stay empty.
Blood group and emergency contact are both there for one purpose: so that whoever is with you when something goes wrong can hand a paramedic something useful. Both are optional — blood group because it is health data, and the emergency contact because it is somebody else's name and number rather than yours to give away. Filling them in is strongly worth doing before an outing all the same.
Is there a minimum age?
You must be 18 or older. The app is built for adult club members and asks for a government identity document. It never asks for your age or date of birth — the birthday field stores a day and month only, so the app cannot work out how old you are.
Clubs & Membership
How do I join a club?
One of two ways. An administrator invites your email address, and the invitation is waiting for you the next time you sign in — you can accept or decline it. Or you found a club yourself, which makes you its administrator.
If you were invited before you had an account, the email contains a link that sets your password and then hands you the invitation.
Can I belong to more than one club?
Yes, and you switch between them from the top bar. Your profile, your garage and your documents follow you into every club you belong to, because they are yours rather than any club's — which also means you enter your motorcycle once, not once per club.
Everything else is walled off. Posts, outings, the ledger and the map belong to one club and are never visible from another.
What can a club administrator do?
Invite and remove members, decide who is a member, treasurer or administrator, create and run outings, appoint outing captains, edit the club's branding, documents and rules, pin or remove posts and comments, act on reports, and close the club. A treasurer can additionally keep the club's books.
A role applies only in the club it was given in. Running one club confers nothing in another.
Who can see my profile?
The members of the clubs you belong to. That includes your blood group, emergency contact and garage — a club that cannot see who is riding with it cannot look after them.
Your identity documents are narrower: only you and your club's administrators can open those. Ordinary members cannot, and neither can the treasurer.
A club you do not belong to sees nothing about you. This is enforced in the database rather than only in the app, so it holds even against a modified client.
What happens if I am removed or suspended?
Being removed from a club ends that membership only — your account and any other clubs are untouched, and you are returned to the club picker. Being suspended is also per club: it stops you acting in that club and nowhere else.
Outings & the Map
Is location sharing always on?
No. It is off until you turn it on from the map screen, and you can turn it off there whenever you like. While it is on, your position is shown to the members of the one club you have selected — switch clubs and it stops rather than reporting you to a club you did not choose.
It does keep updating while the app is in the background, because a map that only refreshes when somebody is looking at their phone is no use on a ride. Your device shows its own indicator while that is happening.
Does it keep a history of where I have been?
No. One position per member, overwritten each time. There is no trail, no route log and no history. Turning sharing off deletes the position entirely and your pin disappears from everybody else's map.
Until you turn it off, your last reported position stays visible to your club even if it is hours old — so stop sharing when your outing ends.
Can I rely on the map to know somebody is safe?
No, and please do not. A pin can be minutes or hours old, a phone can lose signal or run out of battery, and a member may not be sharing at all. The map is an aid for regrouping, not a safety system. If somebody is in difficulty, call the emergency services.
What is an outing captain?
A member trusted to run one particular outing — to advance its status, check people in and correct the plan — without being an administrator of the club. Captains are appointed by administrators, and being one says nothing about your standing in the club.
What happens if an outing is cancelled?
It is marked cancelled rather than deleted, and everything attached to it — enrolments, expenses, feed posts — is kept. Members had already committed to a date, and an outing that simply vanished would tell them nothing.
Notifications
What will I be notified about?
When a member joins your club, and you are an administrator; when you yourself join, as a welcome; when a member leaves, again for administrators; when you are tagged in a post; when a post is addressed to the whole club; when money is recorded in the club ledger, if you are an administrator or treasurer; and when an outing you enrolled on sets off.
What does the @all tag do?
Writing @allin a post notifies every member of the club, and sends part of what you wrote with it. It is offered in the composer's suggestion list, labelled so it is clear what it will do. The app also adds it automatically to the one post that warrants it — the announcement that enrolment for an outing has opened, since an outing nobody hears about is an outing nobody joins.
I said no to notifications. Can I change my mind?
Yes, but it has to be done in your device settings — once you have declined, neither iOS nor Android will let the app ask again. Settings inside the app shows a Notifications row that explains this and takes you straight there.
Are notifications guaranteed to arrive?
No. They travel through Expo and then Apple or Google, any of which may delay or drop one, as may your own device's battery settings. Nothing time-critical should depend on a notification arriving.
I signed out. Will my phone still buzz?
No. Signing out withdraws the device, so whoever uses the phone next does not receive notifications meant for you.
Documents & Money
Why does my club want an identity document?
Club members meet in person, travel together to remote places and share their live position during an outing, so a club's administrators need to satisfy themselves that whoever turns up is the person they invited. Uploading one document is required to finish joining — the app will not let you past that step without it. The second one beside it is optional.
Any government document is accepted — a passport, a national identity card, or a driving licence. The app does not ask for one in particular: clubs differ, and a walking club has no reason to want a licence.
We do not check or verify what you upload. No club should treat the presence of a document in the app as verification of it.
How are my documents stored?
Identity documents, vehicle papers and receipts are held in private storage and cannot be fetched with a plain link — opening one issues a short-lived signed link for that single file, and only to somebody entitled to it. For an identity document that means you and your club's administrators only. Profile photos, post photos and club artwork are stored without individual access control, because they exist to be shown to your club.
One thing worth knowing: on Android a PDF cannot be drawn inside an app by the operating system, so a PDF you open is rendered through Google's document viewer, which means Google receives that file. Upload an image instead of a PDF if you would rather it did not.
Does the app take payments?
No. The ledger and the shared-expense split are record-keeping tools. No money moves through the app — it does not process payments, hold funds, or settle up between members. Every figure was typed in by somebody, and how the club actually settles is up to the club.
Who can see the club's books?
Every member of the club can see the ledger. Administrators and treasurers can add to and correct it. Shared outing expenses can be added by any member, and corrected by whoever logged them or by an administrator.
Privacy & Your Data
Do you show adverts, or track me?
No. There is no advertising, no advertising identifier, no analytics, no crash-reporting SDK and no tracking across other apps or sites. We build no profiles, make no automated decisions about you, and never sell or rent your data.
Where is my data stored?
In a database and file storage hosted by Supabase in its Mumbai, India region. If you are in the EEA or the UK, the Privacy Policy sets out the transfer and the safeguards we rely on.
What third parties are involved?
Supabase for hosting, authentication, storage and email; Expo with Apple or Google to deliver notifications; OpenStreetMap for place search and, on Android, map tiles; Apple Maps on iOS; and Google's viewer to render a PDF on Android. All of them are named, with what each receives, in the Privacy Policy.
Is the biometric lock the same as encryption?
No, and it is worth being clear about. The optional biometric lock asks for your fingerprint or face when the app opens; it keeps a casual passer-by out but does not encrypt anything on the device. Use a device passcode as well.
Leaving & Deleting
How do I leave a club but keep my account?
From the club screen. That membership ends and the club stops seeing you, while your account, your other clubs and your garage are untouched. You are asked what should become of the posts and comments you wrote there: delete them, or leave them behind with your name detached, shown as "Former Member".
If you are the club's only administrator you have to make somebody else an administrator first, or close the club — otherwise it would be left with nobody able to run it.
How do I delete my account?
Settings → Danger Zone → Close My Account. It is irreversible. It ends every club membership and deletes your login, profile, garage, documents, profile photo, reactions, poll votes, push tokens and location record, and you make the same choice about your posts and comments across every club.
If you cannot reach the app, email toc@airmicroservices.com from the address on the account and we will verify the request and delete it within 30 days.
What does my club keep after I go?
Its books and its history: ledger entries, shared outing expenses, receipts and past outings, all with your name detached. A club's accounts are its own records, and one member's departure cannot rewrite them. If you think a specific record should still be erased, write to us.
What happens if the club closes?
Its posts, outings, ledger, documents and rules go with it. Members keep their accounts, their other clubs, their profiles and their garages — a club folding does not take away the motorcycle somebody rode to its outings.
How do I get a copy of my data?
Email toc@airmicroservices.com and we will send it within 30 days, at no charge. Your rights are set out in the Privacy Policy.
Trouble
My invitation link opened a browser instead of the app
Make sure the app is installed before following the link, and open the link on the same device. An invitation link works only once — if it has already been used, ask your club to send another.
I am signed in but see no club
That is what you see with no membership yet: either an invitation is waiting to be accepted, or you can found a club of your own from the picker. It is also where you land after leaving your last club.
Nobody appears on the map
Only members who have turned sharing on appear. Check that you and they have granted location permission, that sharing is switched on for the club you are looking at, and that background location is allowed if you want it to keep working with the app closed.
Questions or bug reports
Contact us at toc@airmicroservices.com. See also the Privacy Policy and the Terms & Conditions.