We tested seven cycling route planner apps on finding a route from a specific location, staying off busy roads and allowing us to follow it correctly. Remap takes the number one spot because it is the only one that builds whole routes from your door on quiet roads, by distance or by time, for both rides and runs.
Below is our comparison chart consisting of what we've found the strength and weaknesses of each of these services are.
Key takeaways
- Remap is the best pick for routes from your door. Pick a distance or a time and it generates several complete routes on quiet roads in seconds. The free plan generates and exports routes. Pro adds voice guidance, unlimited saves, Just Go intelligent routing, Explore Focus and Wahoo sync for $59.99 a year.
- Komoot is the strongest for touring and discovery. Its 45 million users have built a huge library of community highlights. Multi-day planning, worldwide maps and, for new accounts, sending routes to a bike computer sit in Premium.
- Ride with GPS is the planner clubs and event organisers rely on. Cue sheets, detailed editing and printable maps are unmatched. Voice navigation starts at the Basic plan, $59.99 a year.
- Strava generates routes from where other people ride. Its heatmap of more than 180 million athletes shows where people actually go. Creating routes needs the $79.99 a year subscription.
- Free options exist but are narrower in features. cycle.travel is free, plans round trips and is excellent for quiet touring roads. Garmin Connect builds round trip courses for free if you own a Garmin.
What makes a road worth riding? We wrote up how Remap finds the best roads for cycling and running, and why heatmaps and uploaded routes miss them: The infinite machine for cycling and running routes.
What a route planner actually is (and what it is not)
A route planner turns a start, an end or a distance into a line you can follow on real roads and paths. Behind the map, it reads a road network (almost always OpenStreetMap), scores each road for how pleasant and legal it is to ride, and searches for the best line through those scores. The good route planners know which roads have bike lanes, which surfaces are gravel, how steep each climb is, and which streets carry heavy traffic.
There are two kinds. Point to point planners ask you to place waypoints and then join them up. You do the creative work, and the planner calculates and splices in the routing between your clicks. Route generators ask what you want (a distance, a time, a direction, flat or hilly) and propose whole routes for you to pick from. Most apps on this list do the first well and the second in a limited way.
A route planner is not a fitness tracker, although several of these apps are both. Recording your ride, counting calories and ranking you on segments is a different job. It is also not a bike computer: you still need a phone mount, a watch or a head unit to follow the route, and the planner's job is to send the route there cleanly.
Finally, a route planner is not a map of where you've already been. Heatmaps of popular roads are a useful input, but popular is not the same as quiet. A busy arterial road can be the most ridden road in a city simply because it is the only direct way across.
How we ranked these cycling route planners
We scored each app on six criteria. Ratings and prices come from each app's US App Store listing on 15 October 2026, and features come from the company's own pages and help docs.
| Criterion | What we checked | Measured as |
|---|---|---|
| Route generation | Can the app propose a complete round trip from only a start point and a distance or time, with no waypoints placed by you? | Yes / limited / no, and how many options per request |
| Traffic avoidance | Does it judge roads by class alone, or also by measured traffic, so busy roads are avoided even when they look minor? | Road class only / traffic data |
| Price of a complete plan | The cheapest yearly plan that includes creating routes and spoken turn by turn guidance on your phone. | USD per year, App Store price |
| App Store rating | Average rating and number of ratings on the US App Store, as a broad signal of how people get on with the app day to day. | Stars out of 5, rating count |
| Sports covered | Whether the same planner builds routes for riding and running, so one app covers both. | Ride / ride and run |
| Device handoff | How the route reaches a bike computer or watch: GPX export, direct sync, or both. | GPX / Wahoo / Garmin |
The best cycling route planners in 2026
Seven apps made the list. Each is good at something, and the ranking reflects how well it does the core job: a route you'd happily ride, built with the least effort from you. Prices are US list prices for a year. Read the "best suited for" note on each one, because the right app depends on how you ride.
1. Remap, best for quiet routes generated from your door
Free plan · Pro $59.99/yr or $6.99/mo · 7-day free Pro trial · App Store: not enough ratings yet · iPhone and web
Remap is a route generator first. You set a distance or a ride time, choose how hilly and which surfaces you like, and it builds several complete routes from where you're standing. There are no waypoints to place. Each route is scored road by road for traffic, surface and the character of the area it passes through. The routes favour quiet streets, parks and riverside paths over the main roads a heatmap would send you down.
The same engine plans runs, so one app covers both. On Pro, Explore Focus points the search in a direction you choose, and Just Go starts guiding you the moment you set off and reshapes the route as you turn, so you can ride where you feel like and still end up home at the right distance. Pro also adds natural voice guidance before each turn.
Routes export as GPX to any bike computer for free. On Pro, Remap syncs with Wahoo both ways: your rides come into Remap and your saved routes go to your Wahoo.
Where it is weaker: Remap is new, so it has no large library of community routes, no multi-day touring planner, and not yet enough App Store ratings to show an average. It was incorporated in 2026 in Sydney, Australia.
Best suited for: People who want to step outside and ride a good route of a set length without planning it. It is especially strong in cities, where the gap between a quiet route and the obvious one is largest.
Sources: App Store listing, Remap pricing.
2. Komoot, best for touring and discovering routes others recommend
Free with one region · regions $3.99, bundles $8.99, World Pack $29.99 · Premium $59.99/yr · App Store: 4.7 from 9.5K ratings · 45M users
Komoot is the planner most European cyclists already have on their phone. Founded in 2010 in Potsdam, Germany, they have 45 million users, and it was acquired by the Italian software group Bending Spoons in March 2025. Its strength is its community: "Highlights" are places other people recommend, with photos and tips, and you can build a route through them in a few taps.
The planner is sport aware, with separate profiles for road, gravel, mountain biking, running and hiking, and it handles surface and climbing well. From a start point it suggests loop tours drawn from popular community routes, filtered by distance and duration, and its planner can turn any route into a round trip, though you shape the length with waypoints. Turn by turn voice navigation and offline maps work in any region you've unlocked, either one at a time or as a world bundle.
Premium adds multi-day routes with places to stay, live tracking, weather along the route, sport-specific maps, 3D maps and the komoot map on Garmin devices. Since March 2025, new accounts need Premium to send routes to a bike computer or watch; buying maps no longer covers it.
Where it is weaker: routing is based mainly on road type and surface rather than measured traffic, so suburban main roads can still slip through, and the pricing model has changed several times since the acquisition.
Best suited for: Touring cyclists and bikepackers. It also suits people who enjoy picking a route through places that others have rated.
Sources: App Store listing, komoot Premium, BikeRadar on pricing, BikeRadar on the acquisition.
3. Ride with GPS, best for detailed planning for clubs and events
Free Starter · Basic $59.99/yr · Premium $79.99/yr · 7-day Premium trial · App Store: 4.7 from 40K ratings
Ride with GPS is the planner for people who like to be in control. It was started in Portland, Oregon in 2007 by Cullen King and Zack Ham. Its web planner is the most precise on this list: you can drag, snap and edit every section, add custom cues at exactly the right spot, and print a map with a cue sheet for a group ride.
The free Starter plan lets you plan routes on the website, record rides and sync to Garmin, Wahoo and other cycling computers. Basic adds turn by turn voice navigation, offline maps, live logging and short term heatmaps on mobile. Premium adds the full planning and editing tools, all time global heatmaps, custom cue generation, ride analysis and cleanup, map printing and private segments.
Route libraries and event features have made it the default for many clubs, randonneuring groups and organised rides in North America, where a ride leader shares one link and everyone downloads the same file.
Where it is weaker: it doesn't generate whole routes for you the way Remap or Strava does, so a good route depends on your own knowledge of the area. The best tools sit in Premium, the most expensive plan here after Strava.
Best suited for: Ride leaders, event organisers and experienced cyclists who know their area and want precise control over every turn. It also suits anyone who needs printed cue sheets.
Sources: App Store listing, Ride with GPS pricing, GeekWire.
4. Strava, best for routes built from where other people ride
Subscription $79.99/yr or $11.99/mo · App Store: 4.8 from 377K ratings · 180M+ registered athletes
Strava is the biggest name in this list, founded in San Francisco in 2009 by Mark Gainey and Michael Horvath. It reported more than 180 million registered athletes in February 2026. Most people know it for recording rides and comparing times on segments, but its route builder is a serious tool in its own right.
With a subscription you can create routes from scratch, or ask it to generate routes for a sport, with preferences for popular or direct roads, elevation and paved or dirt surfaces. Those routes lean on Strava's global heatmap, built from billions of uploaded activities, so they follow the roads that real people choose to ride. Subscribers can follow routes in the app and send them to most bike computers.
The subscription covers far more than routing: segment leaderboards, training analysis and safety features. A Strava and Runna bundle costs $149.99 a year, and a family plan for up to four people costs $139.99.
Where it is weaker: popular is not the same as quiet. Heatmap routes tend to follow the roads club cyclists use, which are often fast, open roads rather than calm ones. Free users can't create routes at all, so the route builder costs $79.99 a year unless you already pay.
Best suited for: Cyclists who already pay for Strava and want routes that follow local favourites. It suits road cyclists who are comfortable with traffic and want the roads the local club rides.
Sources: App Store listing, Strava help: creating routes, BikeRadar.
5. Garmin Connect, best for people who already ride with a Garmin
Free · Connect+ $69.99/yr (not needed for routes) · App Store: 4.4 from 59K ratings
Garmin Connect is the free companion app and website for Garmin watches and Edge bike computers. Its course creator is often overlooked, and it is better than many people expect. You can draw a course point to point, or ask for a round trip of a set distance, and Garmin uses its popularity routing, built from rides recorded on Garmin devices, to favour roads that cyclists use.
The bigger strength is on the bike. Edge computers can create round trip courses on the device itself, offering several options for a chosen distance and direction, with no phone needed. Routes sync to the device automatically, and navigation runs on the head unit, so your phone stays in your pocket.
Garmin launched a paid tier, Connect+, in March 2025 at $6.99 a month or $69.99 a year. It adds AI insights, a performance dashboard and expanded LiveTrack, but routing and courses remain free.
Where it is weaker: the planner only really makes sense if you own a Garmin. The phone app doesn't navigate on its own; it sends courses to a Garmin device. And like Strava's heatmap, popularity routing follows busy cycling roads rather than quiet ones.
Best suited for: Garmin Edge and watch owners who want quick routes on the device with no extra apps or fees. It also suits people who'd rather keep their phone in a pocket.
Sources: App Store listing, Garmin manual: round trip courses, DC Rainmaker on Connect+.
6. Bikemap, best for a low cost planner with ready made round trips
Free plan · Premium $54.99/yr or $6.99/mo · App Store: 4.7 from 9.6K ratings · About 7M shared routes
Bikemap is a Vienna based app with a long history, and one of the largest libraries of shared cycling routes: BikeRadar puts it at around seven million routes in more than 100 countries. It is purely a cycling app, with profiles for road, mountain and city riding.
Its Loop Planner generates round trips automatically from your location without manual planning, and a separate Tour Planner handles multi-day trips. You can also plan in more detail on the bikemap.net website and sync the result to the phone. The Loop Planner is free; Premium unlocks offline maps, turn by turn voice navigation, weather and 3D previews.
At $54.99 a year on the US App Store, Bikemap is one of the cheapest complete plans here, and it often runs discounts.
Where it is weaker: the App Store lists several Premium prices from $34.99 to $59.99 a year, so what you pay depends on when and where you buy. The planner's road scoring is less refined than the leaders', and route quality varies from region to region.
Best suited for: Cyclists on a budget who want automatic round trips and voice navigation in one app. It suits leisure and city cyclists more than performance road cyclists.
Sources: App Store listing, BikeRadar.
7. cycle.travel, best free planner for quiet roads and touring
Free, with optional supporter plans from $1.99 a month · Web planner and phone app · App Store: 4.8 from 64 ratings
cycle.travel is a one person project with a cult following among touring cyclists. It is built by Richard Fairhurst, who has worked on OpenStreetMap since its first months in 2004 and spent seven years maintaining its map editor. That depth shows in the routing.
Most planners decide which roads to use by their class. cycle.travel uses motor traffic statistics in the UK and US to steer you away from busy roads, and it favours canal towpaths, rail trails and signed cycle routes. Its own base map draws quiet roads more prominently and adds contours and hill shading, so you can read a route's character at a glance.
Plan on the website or in the app, from A to B or as a round trip; the website can also suggest a ride of a set length. Routes export as GPX for any device. The app has free turn by turn directions and offline maps, and optional supporter plans add extra maps such as Ordnance Survey.
Where it is weaker: its round trip suggestions are basic next to its A to B routing, coverage is Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand, and traffic data covers only the UK and US. There is no ride recording, community or training layer.
Best suited for: Touring cyclists who want quiet roads between two places and pay nothing. It suits people who are happy to plan on a computer and export a file.
Sources: cycle.travel on its map, OpenStreetMap wiki, App Store listing.
Side-by-side comparison
The same six criteria we ranked on, in one table: route generation, traffic avoidance, the price of a complete plan, App Store rating, sports covered and device handoff.
| App | Generates a route from a start point | Avoids traffic by | Complete plan, USD/yr | App Store (US) | Sports | Device handoff |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Remap | Yes, several routes by distance or time | Estimated traffic on every road | $59.99 (routes free) | Not enough ratings | Ride, run | GPX, Wahoo sync |
| Komoot | Suggested loops near a start point | Road type and surface | $59.99 (device sync on new accounts) | 4.7 · 9.5K | Ride, run, hike | GPX, Garmin, Wahoo |
| Ride with GPS | No, manual planning | Road type, heatmaps | $59.99 | 4.7 · 40K | Ride | GPX, Garmin, Wahoo, Hammerhead |
| Strava | Yes, by sport and preferences | Popularity heatmap | $79.99 | 4.8 · 377K | Ride, run, walk | GPX, Garmin, Wahoo |
| Garmin Connect | Yes, round trip by distance in the app and on Edge | Popularity routing | Free (Garmin device) | 4.4 · 59K | Ride, run | Garmin |
| Bikemap | Yes, Loop Planner | Road type | $54.99 | 4.7 · 9.6K | Ride | GPX, Garmin, Wahoo |
| cycle.travel | Yes, round trip by distance (website) | Traffic data (UK, US) | Free | 4.8 · 64 | Ride | GPX |
Checked 15 October 2026 on the US App Store and each company's own pages. Prices change often; check the store before you buy.
Which cycling route planner fits your use case
Match the app to the ride you do most often.
| If you mostly | Pick | Why | Also consider |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ride from home after work | Remap | A quiet route of the right length in one tap, no planning | Garmin Connect |
| Ride and run | Remap | One engine plans both, from the same door | Strava |
| Commute in a busy city | Remap | Scores roads by traffic, not only road type | cycle.travel |
| Tour for several days | Komoot | Multi-day planning with places to stay | cycle.travel |
| Lead club or event rides | Ride with GPS | Precise editing, cue sheets, printed maps | Komoot |
| Train on popular road routes | Strava | Heatmap routes follow where local cyclists go | Ride with GPS |
| Ride with a Garmin Edge | Garmin Connect | Round trips built on the device itself | Remap (GPX) |
| Keep costs low | cycle.travel | Free, with excellent quiet road routing | Bikemap |
Frequently asked questions
What is the best cycling route planner in 2026?
For routes from your door, Remap is the best pick because it generates whole routes on quiet roads from just a distance or a time. For touring, Komoot is stronger, and for precise planning, Ride with GPS leads.
What is the best free cycling route planner?
cycle.travel is the best fully free planner for quiet roads and touring. Remap and Garmin Connect both generate routes for free, with paid extras on top.
How do route planners avoid busy roads?
Most planners judge a road by its class in OpenStreetMap. A few go further: Remap estimates the traffic on every road, and cycle.travel uses traffic counts in the UK and US, to steer you off roads that are busy in practice.
How do I get a planned route onto my bike computer?
Every app here exports a GPX file, which any Wahoo, Garmin, Hammerhead or Bryton unit can load. Several also sync directly, so the route appears on the device with no file to move.
What is the difference between a route planner and Strava?
Strava is mainly an activity tracker with a route builder inside its subscription. A dedicated route planner puts the route first, with more control over road choice and, in Remap's case, whole routes generated for you.
How much does a cycling route planner cost?
Complete plans cost between about $55 and $80 a year, and every app here has a free tier. Strava is the most expensive at $79.99, and cycle.travel is free.
Can one app plan both rides and runs?
Yes. Remap, Komoot and Strava all plan routes for running as well as cycling. Remap uses the same route generator for both, so a 10 km run from your door takes one tap.
Try Remap for free (no credit card required)
You don't need to plan a route to ride a good one. Open Remap, choose a distance, and it builds several routes from where you are. Each one favours quiet streets, parks and paths over busy roads. You can ride it with your phone or send it to your bike computer. The free plan keeps generating routes for as long as you like. You don't even need an account to start. Build your first route in your browser now.
About this comparison
Remap makes one of the apps on this list. We ranked it first on the criteria above and listed where each other app is stronger. Corrections are welcome at the address on our support page.
App Store ratings and prices: US store, checked 15 October 2026. Next review due by January 2027.