App to navigate a point to point – gravel

Ideally I want to pre-plan a route, but utilising bridleways/tracks without poring over maps and not really knowing what the terrain will be

Is there an app where you can pinpoint a start and end and it will calculate a suitable route for you?

I’ve a feeling Alltrails should do this, but I’m not sure how

TIA

Komoot will do this. In fact I think that’s really what it was developed for.

I use https://cycle.travel/

Yeah cycle.travel is ace.

Komoot and Strava are both able to tell this, Strava you just tell it “prefer dirt surfaces”.

In the UK they both work relatively well if you can pick a-b and even better if you know/pick a few points along the route that you know are good. I find Strava works significantly less well than komoot for “pick me a 120k circular gravel route”, but perhaps better for a get me from a-b.

They seem to achieve the routing totally different ways though. Komoot appears to have a better routing algorithm, it uses “highlights” which are places or segments along the ride that humans have said “I like this, it’s noteable” or where there is photos of a section (probably a good proxy for someone enjoying the ride). Strava however has 10+ years of historic ride data and have used that to generate a heat map which means you won’t get totally stitched up with a route going down paths that require walking.

This all changes outside the uk. In Australia for example komoot is barely heard of, the routing is a bit rubbish and the risk of a 10k hike a bike on rough and unrideable track means the value of Strava heat-map routing is higher.

Basically either will work.

HTH

Komoot big in Germany! 
https://komoot.business/en/news-and-stories/online-magazine/20230626-studies-show-that-german-hikers-and-cyclists-use-komoot

Komoot

I find has some awful route choices, some locally are completely inexplicable and dangerous.

Main A84 or gravel national cycle route for the next 4 miles? It chooses the section of road that 3 cyclists have been killed on.

Just tried both Komoot and Strava

Strava – useless. Only gave me one route (Ashbourne to Middleton Top – based on one of my previous threads) and just goes via Tissington and HPT. When I try and add a waypoint (Carsington), it fails to generate a suitable route – mtb or gravel. Albeit, I can pick a route from Ashbourne to just Carsington

Komoot gave me a much better route with just the start and end points set. Might not be the best route – set as gravel, but 7 miles of the 12 mile route are on roads. Better than Strava though

Not tried cycle.travel yet

I use OutdoorActive for all my route planning. It works pretty well to seperate footpaths from bridleways if you set the routing to MTB or Walking. You can choose Road bike, gravel bike etc and it’ll try to make the route as appropriate as possible. Seems to work fairly well.

Does snap to track and then voice guided turn by turn navigation. It’ll sync with your Garmin account if you have one so the routes appear on your garmin by magic.

Komoot big in Germany!

I could be wrong, but I think the company is German isn’t it?

I find has some awful route choices

I think becasue it’s designed for that sort of point to point riding, it does make some weird route choices sometimes, especially when you’re trying to do a loop and the start and finish point are the same location. You have to ‘trick it’ into think you’re doing a one-way trip to begin with and then change the route to a round-trip.

I’ve used plotaroute.com quite a lot. It’s pretty easy, but i never just put two points in, you breadcrumb the route.

… it includes a bike base map in the free version.

I use https://www.cyclinguk.org/journey-planner

I think becasue it’s designed for that sort of point to point riding, it does make some weird route choices sometimes, especially when you’re trying to do a loop and the start and finish point are the same location. You have to ‘trick it’ into think you’re doing a one-way trip to begin with and then change the route to a round-trip.

I am also of the view that crowd sourcing routes is a really crap way of finding routes. You get too many visitors to an area planning things, a numbers game dominated by roadies or folk unwilling to use anything other than tarmac, and then the algorithm ‘confirms’ the routes it creates as all the sheep follow the routes… Then add in the ‘popular must be good’ default and Komoot ‘hides’ routes.

The more remote or scenic the place, the more those ∆ issues seem to rise.

I generally use Komoot for all route planningl these days, but I’m too fussy just to let it calculate its own route without me wanting to check it out before riding, walking or running it. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes I’ll add in a wee detour, or make a slightly different choice. I’d not ever generate a gpx file – on any tool -and blindly follow it.

I do also add/correct stuff on OpenStreetmap, which is what most routing tools use. Typically, my changes will be live on Komoot in a week to ten days but sometimes within 48 hours.

Just plotted the route I like the look of best on cycle.travel – 52 miles and with options to trim as I know the area (want to get my first half century though). Will be doing it Friday if I manage to have the day off AND it doesn’t piss it down

Another Komoot vote. Here in the south east, I’ve never had a problem. It seems to constantly give me better and better suggestions for routes inspiring me to get out and try new places.

Komoot fan here too. If you plan on a desktop, you can turn on the trail photos which gives a good idea of what the trail/surface is like.

Also use Komoot.

I find the bike sport setting important,  gravel setting will give you off road light with a bias to road.

As the software is German based when it selects A-roads (as per Mat’s comment above) it is probably still in German mode, where almost every road has a nice cycle path running along side 😀

I normally plan a gravel route, then compare the MTB route and edit the best of both.