How to plan a cycling route: a step-by-step guide

The short version: how do you plan a cycling route?

Learning how to plan a cycling route is mostly about order. Decide what the ride is for, choose the roads, draw them, then check the drawing before you trust it.

The same nine steps work for an evening loop in Ohio, a day on EuroVelo 6 along the Danube in Austria, or a gravel weekend in South Africa's Karoo. Each section below summarises one step and links to the full guide.

The times are our own rough estimates. A first route in a new area takes longer.

What's the ride for, and how far should it be?

Start with the goal, because it decides the distance, the roads and the surface. Then choose a distance from what you already ride comfortably, not from your best day.

EuroVelo, the European cycle route network, gives useful starting points:

Then count the hours. At 20 km/h (12 mph), 100 km (62 miles) is five hours of riding before any stops, so check you'll finish before dark. Decide the shape too: a loop, an out-and-back, or a one-way ride with a train home.

Our guide to how far you can cycle in a day covers distances by rider, luggage and terrain.

Want this for your own route? Windline shows the wind for every stretch, timed to your pace. Free. Make a free ride page →

How do you choose quiet roads that suit your bike?

Start with roads other cyclists already use, then check each one's traffic, surface and whether bikes are allowed. Signed networks and heatmaps do most of the early work.

Signed networks. EuroVelo is a network of 17 long-distance cycle routes across Europe. The Adventure Cycling Association says the US Bicycle Route System covers more than 38,600 km (24,000 miles) in 35 states and Washington DC. In the UK, the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust (formerly Sustrans) calls the National Cycle Network a great starting point.

Heatmaps. The same trust suggests the heatmaps in Ride with GPS or Strava, which show where people ride most. A bright line can also be a popular route on a busy road, so check it.

Road class. A main road, such as an A road in the UK or an N road in South Africa, usually carries more and faster traffic than a minor one. Our guide to avoiding busy roads compares road classes country by country.

Where bikes are allowed. Rule 253 of the UK Highway Code says cyclists must not use motorways. Rules for other fast roads differ by country.

Surface. OpenStreetMap records surface with a "surface" tag, but there's no default value, so an untagged road isn't necessarily paved. Our guide to telling whether a road is paved explains the tags and the clues in satellite imagery.

How do you draw a route that follows the roads?

Let the planner snap the line to roads, then drag or add points to move it onto the roads you chose. Avoid freehand lines except to bridge a short gap.

In most planners you click a start and a finish, and the planner fills in the roads between. Where it offers a cycling, road or gravel profile, pick the one that matches your bike.

Many planners also have a straight-line mode, useful where a path you know exists is missing from the map. Used for long stretches, it cuts corners across fields, and your bike computer keeps saying you're off course. Hand-drawn files with too few points do the same.

Our guide to making a GPX route that follows the roads shows how to fix it. For which planner to use, see the best cycling route planners compared.

How do you check a route before you trust it?

Go along the whole line, stretch by stretch, and confirm each part is a mapped road you're allowed to ride, with the surface you expect. Do it before the ride, not at the first locked gate.

Look for:

• Gaps, where the line jumps across a field, river or railway.
• Surface changes, such as tar that turns to gravel.
• Roads closed to bikes, such as motorways and some expressways.
• Private roads and gates, including farm tracks that look public.
• Crossings and closures, such as fords, seasonal ferries and roadworks.

Satellite imagery shows surface and width, and street-level imagery shows signs and gates; the Walk Wheel Cycle Trust suggests Google Street View for scouting roads. An automatic check is faster, but only as good as the map, so look at anything it flags. Our route check guide has the full checklist.

How do you plan for the climbs?

Read the elevation profile for total climbing, the steepest gradients and where the climbs fall. Then shorten the day, move the hardest climb earlier, or find a flatter road.

Gradient is height gained divided by distance. A climb of 240 m (790 ft) over 4 km (2.5 miles) averages 6%, though short sections may be much steeper.

A 100 km (62-mile) ride with 1,000 m (3,281 ft) of climbing averages 10 m per km (about 53 ft per mile). Planners can show different totals for the same route, because they use different elevation data, so compare like with like.

A steep climb near the end hurts more than the same climb early on, so try the loop the other way round. For gentle gradients, follow rivers, coasts and old railways, such as New Zealand's Otago Central Rail Trail.

How do you plan around the wind and the time of day?

Choose your direction and start time so the strongest headwind falls on the shortest or most sheltered stretches. Then check a forecast for each stretch at the hour you'll ride it.

A 20 km/h (12 mph) headwind slows a rider who'd hold 25 km/h (15.5 mph) in still air to about 15 km/h (9.3 mph) at the same effort, as our headwind numbers show. Over an exposed 30 km (19-mile) stretch, that's 2 hours instead of 72 minutes.

On an out-and-back, riding into the wind first usually pays, unless the wind builds or swings during the day; see riding into the wind first. Watch for side-on gusts on bridges, coasts and ridges, and check them against our too-windy table.

Over land, the wind is often lightest early and builds through the afternoon, when the heat peaks too. A town forecast gives one place at one time. A route-timed forecast gives each stretch its own wind at your hour. Our guide to cycling in wind covers how to read it.

Where will you find water, food and a way out?

Mark every reliable refill and every place you could leave the route, and space them by how far you can ride on what you carry.

Say you carry two 750 ml (25 fl oz) bottles and drink about one an hour on a warm day. That's two hours, or 40 km (25 miles) at 20 km/h (12 mph), so plan a refill at least every 40 km. In remote country, such as the American West or South Africa's Karoo, shops can be much further apart, so check opening hours too.

Bail-out points are plan B: stations, bus routes, towns and shortcuts home. EuroVelo suggests combining cycling with trains and ferries, but notes that every train company sets its own rules for bikes.

On a multi-day trip, water and bail-outs also decide where each day ends. See planning a cycling tour and splitting a route into stages.

How do you get the route onto your bike computer or phone?

Export a GPX file from your planner and load it onto your device, or sync it directly if the two are linked. Then check it arrived intact.

The GPX 1.1 standard stores a line in two ways. A route is an ordered list of turn points; a track is an ordered list of points describing the path. Most cycling planners export tracks, and turn cues depend on your device.

After loading, check that the distance matches the planner's, the start is where you'll start, and the file name is clear, such as "Day 01". Keep a copy on your phone with offline maps. Our GPX files for cycling guide explains the format, and exporting a GPX file from Strava walks through one planner.

How do you preview a route before you ride it?

Look at the hard parts before you reach them: complicated junctions, surface changes, steep descents and exposed stretches. Each method shows something different.

None of them shows traffic on the day, so local knowledge still counts. Our guide to previewing a cycling route compares them in detail.

Which route-planning terms should you know?

• Elevation profile: a chart of height against distance along the route.
• Heatmap: a map layer showing where people ride most often.
• Map matching: fitting a rough line onto the roads it was meant to follow.
• Routing mode: the setting that tells a planner which roads to prefer.
• Waypoint: a single named point, such as a turn, a café or a water tap.

How do you put it all together on a real route?

Here's one example, step by step. It's illustrative, not a real route.

Goal. A Saturday loop of 100 km (62 miles) with about 1,200 m (3,940 ft) of climbing.

Roads. Minor roads from a signed network, chosen with a heatmap. One unavoidable 3 km (1.9-mile) stretch of main road goes in the first hour, while traffic is light.

Check. The first line uses a gated farm track with 600 m (0.4 miles) of gravel, so the route moves to a tar road 2 km (1.2 miles) longer.

Climbs and wind. The steepest climb sits at 70 km (43 miles), and the forecast shows a westerly building to 20 km/h (12 mph) after midday. Riding the other way puts the climb at 30 km (19 miles) and the exposed western leg first.

Water, export and preview. A café at 45 km (28 miles), a fuel station at 75 km (47 miles), and a station at halfway as the way out. The GPX file reads 102 km (63 miles), matching the planner.

The same order works on a coast road in California or a tour day on the Loire.