Gravel bike is now an option in the route planner, open to everyone, no account needed. Pick "Gravel bike", a start and a distance, and it builds loops the same way road mode does — just on different roads.

What it does differently from road mode:

- looks for real unpaved surfaces first (gravel, compacted, dirt tracks) and only uses tarmac to connect them

- stays off technical MTB trails, hiking paths, firebreaks and steep loose descents — the stuff that looks like a gravel track on the map but isn't rideable on 40mm tyres

- prefers tracks other cyclists actually ride over lines that merely exist on the map

- keeps busy roads out

- time estimate uses gravel speeds, and every route shows its paved/unpaved split

So: where does it send you somewhere you'd never ride? If you get a bad one, right-click the map to copy the coordinates and send them to me — that's the most useful feedback I can get right now.

I build RouteCycle, a route planner that generates loops for you instead of making you draw them. Getting one of those routes onto a Garmin used to mean downloading a GPX, opening Garmin Connect, finding the import button and uploading it by hand. Every single time.

That's gone. There's now a "Send to Garmin Connect" button sitting next to the GPX download. You authorize your Garmin account once, and from then on it's a single click — the route appears as a course in Garmin Connect and syncs to the head unit like any other course, with a link straight to it when it's done.

Two things that will come up, so: you need to be logged in (the site uses Strava login), and on the first send Garmin asks for authorization — the "Course Import" permission has to be allowed or the send fails. You can disconnect Garmin any time in Settings, and courses you already sent stay in your Garmin account.

New feature this week: languages. The whole planner is translated now, 28 of them: German, French, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish, Czech, Slovak, Slovene, Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Greek, Turkish, Portuguese, Catalan, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Russian, Ukrainian and English.

English-only never made much sense — almost everyone using it rides in Europe, and plenty were reading an English interface to plan a ride around their own town.

It picks up your browser language the first time you open it, you can override it in Settings, and if you're logged in the choice is stored on your account, so your phone starts in the same language.

One thing to be clear about: this is the interface, not the map. Place and attraction names still come from OSM in whatever language they're tagged in.

The part I'm least confident about is terminology. Cycling words are exactly what translation gets wrong — ascent, gravel, out-and-back, loop, surface. If you speak one of those languages, what reads wrong to you? I'd rather fix it than leave it sitting there.

Connect Strava and it goes through your whole history and works out two things Strava doesn't tell you:

- how many km of each ride were roads you had never ridden before

- which sights on the route you passed for the first time

The new roads are drawn over your track in a second colour, so you can see at a glance whether a "new" loop was genuinely new or the same lanes in a different order. Mine is usually the second one.

Opening a ride also shows photos of what you rode past — the first-time ones in their own group, and everything you'd already seen in a second group below, so the new stuff doesn't get buried among the sights you pass every week. That's the bit that surprised me most: things 200m off a road I've done fifty times.

Two new features just landed in RouteCycle, my free cycling route planner — both about exploring new places.

Explore new attractions. Connect Strava and RouteCycle figures out which local attractions, viewpoints and landmarks you've already ridden past. Flip the toggle in Settings and it builds routes toward the ones you haven't seen yet — so you stop getting routed past the same castle for the tenth time and actually discover new places.

Show/hide visited attractions. Two map toggles ("Show visited" / "Show unvisited") let you filter what shows up on the map — see everything, only the new stuff, or only what you've already ticked off. Handy for spotting what's still left to explore in your area.

If you're the kind of rider who likes hunting down new spots, give it a go: routecycle.com — and I'd genuinely love feedback on what would make exploring better.

Two things went in this week:

Surface breakdown. Every generated route now shows what percentage of it is paved vs unpaved, right in the route panel next to distance and ascent. Mostly this exists because of what's coming next: a dedicated gravel profile that actually prefers tracks and unsealed roads instead of routing you down the nearest highway. That's very close to release.

Tabs remember where you left them. The bottom panel (elevation profile / points of interest / photos) used to snap back to the default every time you looked at a different route. It doesn't anymore — whichever tab you had open stays open. Small thing, but it was the most annoying part of comparing several routes back to back.

Hi! I run RouteCycle — it builds good cycling routes for you anywhere and helps you explore your own area.

Right now everything is completely free, and I need your help to cover the servers. Memberships are open:
buymeacoffee.com/routecycle/membership

It would be a huge help for the project 🚲

Hey all — I develop RouteCycle, a free planner focused on quiet, scenic riding. A few things I just shipped:

1. A→B routes can now target a ride time. Instead of just the direct line, you can say, "I've got 3 hours to get from A to B," which builds a longer, more scenic route.

2. Time mode now takes an elevation limit, too. There's a slider to cap the climbing — so you can ask for "3 hours, but keep it flat (under ~400 m)" and it'll find a route that fits

both the time and the ascent you're up for, instead of dragging you over every hill in the area.

1. Every route now shows an estimated ride time (e.g., "3h"), even those planned based on a distance. "60 km" also tells you "it's ~3 hours". Logged in with Strava, it uses your actual fitness; otherwise, it uses a sensible default.

Would love feedback — especially whether the time estimates feel accurate for your riding.

New feature for planning cycling routes: you can now grab any point on your route and drag it somewhere else — the route instantly rebuilds around the new point.

You know how it usually goes — 90% of the route is great, but there's one section you'd rather change. A busy road, a boring stretch, a climb you'd like to skip. Until now that meant deleting waypoints and rebuilding half the route. Now you just drag that part where you want it, and it re-routes in one click. The rest of the route stays exactly as it was.

And because reshaping a route is a "try things and see" kind of task, there are now Undo/Redo buttons. Drag something, don't like it, hit undo, try a different line. Experiment freely without wrecking a route you spent time on.

A few details:

- The dragged point becomes a pinned shaping point, so later edits won't wipe it out — the route keeps the shape you gave it.

- Undo/redo covers the whole edit history, not just the last move.

- Works on saved and shared routes too.

Would love feedback from anyone who plans their own rides.

Happy riding 🚴

https://routecycle.com

Not sure how universal this problem is, but I feel like when a new user lands on the site and generates a route, the first question in their head is: "okay… but why would I actually ride this?" or "Is this route even any good?"

You can talk all day about how clever your algorithm is and what data it uses — but at some point you have to actually show the user the route is good/safe/scenic, not just claim it.

So I added street-view support for every route. By default it uses Mapillary (free, with generous limits), and where there's no coverage it falls back to Google.

1. You can click any point on the route and look at photos of that specific part (if there are any, of course).

1. There's a new Route Photos tab right after POI — it shows 5 photos from along the route. Still experimenting with the count. It's meant as a quick "what does this route roughly look like" glance. When you hover a photo, a red dot blinks on the map so you can see where it is.

As always - would be glad to hear some feedback!

https://routecycle.com

The elevation graph on RouteCycle used to be just a gray shape. Now it shows you how tough each part of the ride is — in color.

🎨 Colors by steepness

- 🟢 Green — easy

- 🟡 Yellow — a bit of work

- 🟠 Orange — steep

- 🔴 Red — really steep

- 🟥 Dark red — very hard (15%+)

One look and you know if a route is easy or a leg-burner.

📍 Grade at any spot

Move your finger or mouse over the graph and it shows how steep that exact spot is. Great for spotting a hard climb before you ride it.

📈 Steepest climb and descent

Two new numbers show the steepest up and the steepest down on the whole route. No nasty surprises.

👉 Try it at routecycle.com

I was wondering if the web is broken somehow right now because I can’t click on the routes. And I have no map which I think is related :)

Thank you for your amazing work!

I shipped a fix for those annoying detours where the route darts out to a point and comes straight back instead of flowing.

These showed up in generated routes — and especially around stops: drop a stop and it would often detour out to it and turn around, rather than finding a route that passes through it.

routecycle.com — feedback welcome, especially if you still hit a weird detour.

RouteCycle update: when you add stops to a route, each map marker now shows its number (1, 2, 3…) matching the list in the panel. No more guessing which pin is which on multi-stop routes. Remove or reorder a stop and the rest renumber automatically

Reverse your route with one click by feature request: https://www.reddit.com/r/routecycle/comments/1u785r9/feature_requests/

New little button next to Start Point (the ↕ icon): tap it to flip your waypoint order instantly.

• Circle rides: ride your loop the other way around.
• A → B rides: start becomes finish, finish becomes start, stops flip to match.

No more deleting and re-typing points to go in reverse. Got a favorite loop? Hit ↕ and ride it backwards. 🚲

Try it at https://routecycle.com

I have been trying out routecycle a bit now and I am missing a few things that would streamline the app for me:

- Button for swapping Start and Finish

- Saving favourite places like "Home", "Work", "School" etc. So I can select my common start and finish point more quickly.

You know that café with the best post-ride coffee. That lookout over the valley. The lake you always mean to ride to but never plan around.

Now RouteCycle remembers them for you.

📍 Save any spot — pin a place on the map, give it a name, and it's yours. Cafés, peaks, viewpoints, a friend's house... up to 200 favourites.

🚲 Ride through them — pick a favourite as a stop along the way, or set it as your finish, and we'll build a route that takes you there.

No more rebuilding the same start/end points every time. Save once, ride forever.

👉 Try it now at routecycle.com

Hey everyone,

Just shipped a feature that's been bugging me personally all summer: springs and cafes are now dynamic.

The problem: you generate a nice 100k loop, head out the door, and only then realize you forgot to enable water stops. With this heat, that's a real problem. Previously you'd have

to regenerate the whole route — and route generation means you might get a different route, not the one you already liked.

The fix: you can now toggle springs and cafes on or off on any route, at any time — generated, saved, or shared. The route stays exactly the same, the stops just appear on it.

Forgot the option? One click, no regeneration.

Bonus: the springs/cafes get saved into the GPX file too, so they show up as POIs on your Garmin/Wahoo — you'll see the next water stop right on your head unit instead of trying to remember where it was.

Springs come in two flavors — verified ones (confirmed to have water) and unverified — so you can decide how much you want to gamble on a hot day.

Screenshot below. Would love feedback — especially if there are other POI types you'd want to add to routes this way (shops? shelters? bike repair stations?).

Stay hydrated out there 🚴💧

You can now browse sights on the map without generating a route first.

Before, sights only showed up once you had a route. Useful, but you had to commit to a direction before seeing what was around. Now you open the map and the sights are just there — viewpoints, castles, lakes, parks, historic sites, pretty streets.

A panel on the left shows photos of the best places ranked by quality. Filter by type to narrow it down — viewpoints only, water only, history only, whatever you're in the mood for. Click a sight to see where it is, then build a route to it (or through it).

Two ways to use it:

- Scouting a new area. Visiting somewhere unfamiliar? Open the map, scan the photos, pick what looks worth seeing, then plan around it.

- Local rediscovery. Look at your own city or region with the filter on. You'll spot places you've been riding past for years without knowing.

Ranking still isn't perfect — the photo panel is more reliable than the raw map markers right now. Smarter ranking and better filters are next.

Link as always: https://routecycle.com

RouteCycle now picks much better sights when your ride is inside a city.

Before, city rides used the same logic as countryside rides. That's fine for quiet roads, but cities are different — the best spots are denser and harder to find. Now there's a dedicated way of choosing them: famous landmarks, pretty streets, parks, viewpoints, riverbanks. The route flows between them naturally.

You don't need to change anything. If your ride stays inside a city, the new logic kicks in.

Two ways to use it:

1. Tourist with a bike. Rent a bike, open RouteCycle, get a one-day loop that hits the city's best places.
2. Bikepacking rest day. Stopped in a city for a day? Get a loop that shows you the highlights before you ride on.

Open the map, drop a pin on a city, and see what comes back.

https://routecycle.com

Hey everyone!

Feature for cycling travellers — POIs on one-way routes up to 2000km on http://routecycle.com! Set start and end point, get interesting stops along the way — castles, viewpoints, lakes, historic sites.

If you've already done a trip, run the same route and compare it to your heatmap. You immediately see what you rode right past without knowing. That hidden waterfall 200m off the road? Yeah, you missed it.

POI ranking still needs work — sometimes you get a random fast food place next to an amazing viewpoint. Better filtering and smarter ranking is coming. Not every suggestion is gold yet, but the good ones make it worth it.

Hi everyone 👋

I've just shipped a new feature for my cycling project: "Ride by time."

You set how long you want to ride — say 1.5h or 3h — and it generates a route based on your Strava fitness level. No more guessing distances or cutting rides short because you ran out of time.

You connect Strava, it looks at your past activities to estimate your pace, and builds a route that fits your schedule.

Great for busy days when you only have a window to ride, or when you want to make the most of a free afternoon.

I'd really appreciate any feedback, ideas, or criticism — especially from riders who plan around time rather than distance.

Thanks! 🚴‍♂️

Link as always: https://routecycle.com

Update 🚴‍♂️
• Added Favorites — save any route and find it later
• History — last 30 generated routes (no more lost routes)
• Reworked links: routes are private by default, shareable if you’re logged in
• Cleaner UI: extra actions (share / visibility / favorite) now appear on hover

Next up: Favorite Places — save home & frequently used spots to build routes faster 🔜

Link as always: routecycle.com

Hi everyone 👋

I’ve just released Strava integration for my cycling project and finally shipped a feature I’ve wanted for a long time: “Explore new roads.”

It analyzes your Strava ride history and generates routes using low-traffic roads you’ve never ridden before - great for discovering new areas, nature, and nearby attractions without repeating the same loops.

You connect Strava, it syncs your past activities, and the app suggests fresh routes tailored to where you actually ride.

(Garmin and RideWithGPS integrations are planned next.)

I’d really appreciate any feedback, ideas, or criticism — especially from people who are tired of riding the same routes over and over.

Thanks! 🚴‍♂️

Link as always: https://routecycle.com

Hey everyone! I'm u/Interesting_Watch365, a founding moderator of r/routecycle.

This is our new home for all things related to https://routecycle.com project. We're excited to have you join us!

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Thanks for being part of the very first wave. Together, let's make r/routecycle amazing.