Round trips
Some days you don’t want to go anywhere in particular — you want to go for a ride and be home for lunch. Tell the app roughly how far and roughly which way, and it builds you a loop that starts and finishes where you’re standing.
Two controls do most of the work: how far, and which way. Everything else has a sensible starting point.
Under some of the heading buttons you’ll see up to three small green dots. That’s how much twisty road the app can see about 40 km out in that direction, read off the map data on your phone.
Generating a loop
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Open the menu and tap Round Trip
A padlock on it means it isn’t available on your current plan.
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Wait for your position
The sheet reads Getting GPS position…, then shows Start: with your coordinates. If it can’t get a fix you’ll see No GPS — tap to retry, or No GPS fix — enable location and try again. The loop is built around where you are, so it needs this first.
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Set the distance
Distance runs from 10 km to 300 km in 5 km steps and starts at 80 km. This figure is always in kilometres, whatever you’ve set your units to elsewhere.
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Pick a heading
Eight compass points plus 🎲 for a random bearing. This is the direction the loop heads off in first — it comes back regardless.
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Choose Road or Adventure
Same two profiles as anywhere else in the app. Switching between them resets the sliders below to that preset.
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Tap Generate Route
The button reads Calculating… while it works. A loop takes longer than an A-to-B route because the app routes it more than once.
Here’s what actually happens. The app places three points around you, routes the loop through them, and measures what it got. If that’s within about 10% of what you asked for, it stops there. If it’s out, it works out how far out, rescales the loop and routes it a second time to get closer.
If the first attempt is wildly off — less than half your target or more than double it — it keeps that first result instead of chasing. That happens where the roads aren’t there: dead-end valleys, coastline, big blocks of national park. In that case you get a loop, but not the length you asked for.
Always read the distance on the result card before you set off. It is the real number. The slider was a request.
The result
The sheet collapses to a card so you can see the loop on the map. It shows the distance, the riding time, and Loop, with four things you can do:
- Regenerate — a fresh variation at the same distance, heading and profile. Different roads, same brief.
- Start — begin navigation around the loop.
- Export GPX — send the loop to another app or your computer.
- Save to Calendar — store it against a date. It’s saved as Round Trip with its distance in the name.
Swiping the card away doesn’t throw the loop out. It stays drawn on the map with a bar near the bottom carrying a green Go, so you can look the route over properly first and start when you’ve made up your mind.
Regenerating until you like it
Regenerate is meant to be pressed several times. Each tap builds a different variation, so if the first loop sends you down a road you ride every week, tap it again. Change the heading between taps and you’ll get somewhere else entirely.
Three dots under a compass point means the app can see plenty of twisty road that way. No dots means either it’s flat and straight out there, or you haven’t downloaded map data covering it. On a day out, head for the dots.
When it doesn’t work
If routing fails you’ll see Route failed: with the reason. On a loop it’s nearly always one of three things:
- You’re near the edge of the map region you’ve downloaded, and the loop wants to go outside it. Try a smaller distance or the opposite heading.
- The heading points at water, or at country with no through roads. Try the next compass point round.
- The distance is too big for the road network where you are. Halve it and generate again.
Your start is captured when the sheet opens. If you’ve since ridden 20 km up the road, generate it again from where you’re standing rather than starting a loop anchored to the car park you left.