May 24, 2023
The more time you spend on your bike, the better you get at handling it on technical trails, and the more confident you are when it comes to whizzing downhill. Using komoot to plan great routes is similar. There’s a lot of awesome functionality, and the more you use the app and engage with the community, the more you discover little tricks that make planning your mountain bike routes better – better experience during the planning stage, better experience on the trails.
Let’s shortcut the learning curve and give you some insider hints and tricks so you can start planning better MTB routes now.
Pay attention to the suggested route direction Going down singletrack = good. Going up singletrack = bad. That’s why komoot’s uphill MTB routing prioritizes gravel fire roads with a more gradual gradient for uphill riding and steeper, technical singletracks for descending. When planning a route with MTB selected as your sport type, pay attention to the route line – the little arrows suggest a direction. Reversing that direction could result in an uphill slog or worse, meeting another MTBer hurtling down towards you.
Experiment with sport types in the planner If you’re after a downhill, adrenaline-inducing thrill (and you live in a place with topography that can deliver) the enduro setting is what you’re after. For a slightly more chill singletrack adventure, go for the mountain bike setting. However, it frequently pays to experiment with these options, because depending on where you live (the French Alps vs the Netherlands) enduro and mountain biking routing will deliver different routing results. Likewise, if you’re visiting a mountainous area but want a less hair-raising ride, selecting gravel cycling could route you along some great double track, or even friendly singletrack.
Use Trail View to see up-to-date photographs of the trail The komoot guides give an overview of the map key and trail types, but if you want to check the route “with your own eyes”, Trail View is the way to go. It populates the map with user-sourced photographs of the trail, so you can see if the enduro mountain biking trail suggestion is within your skillset. Access this map layer when planning on the web at komoot.com by clicking on the small “Maps” block in the bottom left corner of the screen.
Use Highlights for alternative sport types Community Highlights show up on the map as red dots. Generally they’re sport-specific, but there’s no harm in selecting a Highlight for another sport, particularly another cycling discipline. After all, things like great views, good coffee and delicious cake are universally appreciated. However, if you look at hiking or running Highlights, double check bikes are allowed on that section of trail!
Hide the blue route line to view the surface type or singletrack rating When you’ve planned a route in komoot’s planner, said route shows up as a blue line on the map. That’s useful, until you want to zoom in to check the singletrack scale. If you do your planning on the web or Android, you’re in luck. You can temporarily hide the line to see the trail underneath by clicking the “eye” icon, or holding down the “M” key on your keyboard.
Don’t ignore route warnings if you want to avoid unwelcome surprises Seasonal trail closures, codes of conduct in national parks, conflict with hikers – all these surprises can be avoided by paying attention to the route warnings that appear as you plan a route. If a route warning pops up, don’t ignore it. Double-check the route profile to see if and how the warning affects your plan, so you can be forewarned if mountain biking is prohibited on a section of trail, or if the trail is closed altogether.
Learned something new today? Head to the komoot planner to try out some of these tricks as you plan your next mountain bike adventure.