Below is the 2025 season's "gravel routes" series of posts, newest to oldest. Each one includes a link to the Facebook post and the discussion around it.

Gravel routes: Introduction

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Dream gravel

Want to find the best gravel routes for your summer adventures? A great gravel route rarely happens by accident, and a small investment in planning pays itself back many times over.

This post kicks off a series that goes through how to make a great gravel route:

• How to plan your own route
• How to avoid flailing about in the bushes
• Where to get ideas or ready-made routes
• Tips for navigating while riding, too

The series and its tips are based on the development work behind the Trailmap map app (https://trailmap.fi and "Trailmap Suomi" in the app stores). The app was originally created to solve the mountain biker's problem of "where are the rideable trails?", and has since expanded to support gravel too, which these days is what I ride most myself. It is developed at a brisk pace, based on my own rides and on user feedback.

I have put a few hundred hours into thinking about gravel routes, both out on the bike and designing the app. The other apps out there are pretty familiar too — the whole point is to solve their shortcomings for the kind of gravel you ride in Finnish conditions.

The first part comes out tomorrow. Want to influence the content of the series? Tell me in the comments which part of route planning is the hardest or the most interesting for you.

Gravel routes, part 1: Coming up with a route

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Overview map, the gravel paradise of Kemiönsaari

Zoom the map out, you see a bigger area and the map simplifies. The bigger the screen the better. In Trailmap I have gone after a precise balance where zooming out gives you enough of an overview: the road network, bigger roads distinguished from smaller ones and from gravel roads, fields, nature reserves, villages — the things that matter when you are working out what kinds of routes would be possible and also interesting. The other leading apps have gone for a different balance, where the overview is aesthetically green-based but also so simplified that it is of little help in coming up with a route.

From Trailmap's map settings (the "map" button on the left edge of the map) you can change the map as follows:

• The default map ("MTB") is the simplest; the Gravel variant brings more detail at the same zoom level: even the smaller forest roads show, and the surfaces of the ways, but at the same time the map gets harder to read. The map legend tells you what the various symbols mean.
• You can also switch on Places (breaks, shops, restaurants / cafés, etc.) and official Routes (LIPAS & OSM)
• If you have got routes or rides made by others as a GPX file somewhere and want to use them as support for coming up with your own route, you can open them on the map as tracks ("Tracks" in the top menu of the screen)
• From the map settings you can also open overlays on top of the base map; useful ones for gravel are "Digiroad paved road", "Digiroad speed limit" and "Strava bike heatmap"

With the Gravel variant you see the road surfaces and even the smaller roads more precisely

Places and Routes switched on - "Rannikkoreitti" selected for more information

An idea for a route often starts to take shape around a few fixed points that define it: I should see that place, I have not ridden those roads before, there would be a good break spot over there — or the idea is to combine familiar favourite ways with something new for variety.

At this point you can already start sketching the route by drawing it on the map: open route planning, pick the right routing profile and then just click your fixed points after the start point — the routing engine builds the route automatically, and also tells you what kinds of roads it runs along and how long it is. With the "undo" function you can quickly back up a stretch, or the whole route, and try again.

In Trailmap I have tried to make route drawing and routing very fast, bold (but not reckless) in its choices for gravel, and to report the essential details of the route immediately and visibly (road surface, notes & warnings). The aim has been to make fast, exploratory route drawing possible.

Gravel routes, part 2: Drawing the route

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The central feature of route planning is the app's automatic routing, i.e. when you click waypoints along the route in addition to the start point, the app automatically builds you a route that sensibly follows roads and perhaps partly trails. In a good app you can tell it what kind of route you want: gravel, mountain biking, road cycling and so on. Apps differ in the number of options, and also in what the routing profiles — "gravel", say — actually mean in practice.

Once the route line exists, the user should be able to assess the route rather than blindly trusting the routing: what kind of roads or trails does the route follow? Is some part of it something the user wants to change? And what if some stretch is too hard to ride on a gravel bike, is there a good alternative? A good app lets the user peek underneath the route line to see what ways the route follows, and the app can also give the user notes and warnings about the route so that the user can quickly assess some part of it (a stretch of trail, say, or a forest road whose condition is unknown). Most of the time you need to make at least small changes to the first suggestion from the automatic routing.

The differences in routing are perhaps clearest if you look at an example of how different apps route. The pictures show how each app handles a fairly demanding pair of waypoints, where the shortest way is a hike-a-bike trail.

• RideWithGPS: Weak showing: if you pick "paved" then the routes are often fairly safe, e.g. asphalt instead of gravel, but if you pick "unpaved" then it happily cuts across trails and does not tell the user about it! The user cannot peek under the route line, and RWGPS only tells you whether the surface is asphalt or "something else", i.e. everything from a gravel road to a rooty singletrack goes in the same category.
• Strava: Very close to RWGPS, with the difference that the "gravel" profile routes very aggressively onto trails too. And Strava, of course, does not trouble the user with this — it just states, the same way RWGPS does, that part of the route is "dirt" surface. In the screenshot example Strava routed almost half of the test route along demanding trails; several kilometres of pushing would have been in store… Strava's strength is heatmaps and segments, and a heatmap alone does not tell you much about gravel.
• OutdoorActive: The gravel profile is often like RWGPS "paved", i.e. it only accepts gravel if it is a bigger driving road. It refuses to use recreational paths and ski trail beds even if you try to force it onto them. Safe, but mostly big-gravel-road gravel.
• Komoot and Trailmap are very close to each other on most of my test routes. The biggest difference is in the notes & warnings given to the user about the route: Komoot's notes, e.g. "restricted access" for a ski trail bed, are in places hard to interpret, as they have not been adapted for Finland specifically. Trailmap describes the challenging parts of a route very precisely, with the risk of course that some users worry too much.

Like Strava and RWGPS, Trailmap tells you directly through the pattern of the route line whether it is asphalt or some other surface; on top of that, a yellow and red edge colour tells you whether there are notes or warnings on the route. Once you learn to read these markings it is easy to quickly check the spots on a route that are worth checking.

The differences between the apps are considerable. With some, the adventures in the bushes arrive unannounced and unordered; with others the route is better in the planner's hands. And in other apps the gravel turns very asphalt-heavy, if fairly safe.

Trailmap: Gravel and a bit of asphalt. The route line also shows the tricky spot at the start directly: that stretch is coarser-grained "gravel".

RideWithGPS with the "paved" profile takes asphalt whenever it possibly can. Safe, but not really gravel.

RideWithGPS with the "unpaved" profile just sends it, i.e. the route goes straight along very demanding trails that mean pushing on a gravel bike

Strava: bold routing along trails, no bushwhacking, but guaranteed pushing on a gravel bike

OutdoorActive: Like RideWithGPS, i.e. asphalt rather than a recreational path or a ski trail bed.

Komoot: Exactly the same route as Trailmap on this stretch. The differences are in what the app tells you about the route.

Gravel routes, part 3: Checking the route

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Route drawn or picked up somewhere, now let's ride! Er, but where did this walk-it-out rooty singletrack on the route come from?!?

Smooth recreational path...

And rough singletrack you walk your gravel bike along. Some apps show this and a recreational path with the same symbol on the map....

In the previous post (link in the comments) I went through how the popular apps behave when you draw a gravel route with them. The differences in route choices are big: some apps favour asphalt over gravel, others boldly route you onto any old rough singletrack, and a few know how to look more precisely for a way that actually suits gravel.

There is no single definition of dream gravel, though, and even the best apps sometimes end up dragging a route onto ways that do not excite the person planning it — which is why it is a good idea to go through the route quickly once it has been drawn (or if you have got a ready-made route from somewhere).

• Some apps can show through the pattern of the route line whether the route runs on asphalt or on some other surface: Strava, RideWithGPS and Trailmap show a dashed line when it is a surface other than asphalt
• The route line can also carry notes and warnings about the route: Trailmap shows a yellow and red edge on those parts of a route that are particularly worth checking. These notes do not mean that a spot like that cannot be ridden — only that it is worth taking a look so you know what to expect and can reroute if need be.
• You should be able to "peek" under the route line, i.e. see what kind of road or trail runs there. All the common apps have a function that hides the route line for a moment so you can see the map symbols underneath. In some apps you may have to hunt for the function for a bit, but at the latest the help pages will tell you where it is.
• Peeking under the route line only helps if the map data and symbols are such that usable information shows on the map, e.g. whether the way is a wide, smooth recreational path / ski trail bed or a narrow rough singletrack: Strava and RideWithGPS generally cannot show a difference like that, OutdoorActive can in some places, Komoot and Trailmap do show the differences — Trailmap in great detail, because the map is carefully fitted to Finnish map data. The picture example shows one such recreational-path-or-rough-singletrack case.

Trailmap's route line: a dashed line tells you it is not asphalt, a yellow edge colour is a note and a red edge colour a stronger warning

Trailmap map symbols under the route line, a precise description of what road or trail is on offer - more on this in the next post

Checking the route often results in adjusting its course a bit, i.e. making some part of it run differently. In all the common apps this is done by adding a waypoint to the route and moving the existing waypoints. The automatic routing then rebuilds the course of the route. That new route needs checking straight away too, of course.

Often there is no need to change the route, but when you know about a possible tricky spot you can think up a "plan B", i.e. an alternative route, in case it looks on the day like you do not fancy riding that part.

The above may sound like hard work when you read it. But with a good app and a bit of practice, a quick scan of the route and a little fine-tuning take hardly any time at all. And even if you got a ready-made route from somewhere, most apps let you edit it — and edits are often a good idea anyway, so that the start point, length, break spots and so on match your own needs.

Gravel routes, part 4: Map detail

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Wonder if you could get through there? This is a common question in gravel once you start building routes for something other than big gravel roads.

And to my mind the absolute beauty of gravel is exactly that there is an almost endless supply of new places, roads and trails to explore — it is hard to get bored, and great rides often turn up in surprising places.

An accurate map is a huge help when you are weighing up the tricky spots on different route options, i.e. the spots where you have to take smaller ways and perhaps trails in order to link bigger, more dependable gravel roads together. Out in the countryside the challenge is often passing through people's yards as well. An accurate map gives you the best possible information about what would be waiting on the route — and on that basis you can make a "plan B" if needed, or drop a route option entirely if it looks too risky for your taste.

The maps in different apps vary a lot in accuracy and in how they make use of the map data available in Finland. The pictures show the same spot on the map (a bit northeast of Fiskars) in each app, with a tricky spot on one route: can you get from the bottom of the map, following the eastern shore of the lake, onto Kvarnbyvägen so you can make a nice loop around the lake? The spot is quite tricky because at first glance the smoothest route goes along a tractor path, a trail, a field and finally through a farmyard, i.e. it is not usable — and how well you can spot that problem differs enormously between apps.

Pictures in order: Trailmap (gravel mode and default mode), RWGPS, Strava, OutdoorActive, Komoot. Comments:

• RideWithGPS: The map is very stripped down, so you see hardly any detail on the smaller ways. RWGPS does try to distinguish asphalt roads from gravel roads. Smaller gravel roads look the same as tractor paths. Then again, tractor paths show up better than some of the gravel roads meant for cars, which you only see by zooming right in. Rideability classifications for forest roads, tractor paths and trails do not show. Prohibited roads do not show, fields do not show properly.
• Strava: Many of the same problems as RideWithGPS, but a bit better in these respects: smaller roads show up better, you can tell a tractor path from a road, trails only appear when you zoom right in. On the other hand Strava does not distinguish asphalt from gravel for car roads. Strava's strength is the "heatmap", which helps in busier areas.
• OutdoorActive: A step better again than Strava: trails show from further out and, with the paid version, so does the rideability classification of trails & tractor paths — although OA has its own classification system that differs from the practice adopted in Finland (which Komoot and Trailmap, among others, do follow). OA does not distinguish asphalt from gravel on roads either.
• Komoot: Better still than the preceding apps, but as in Strava and OA the road surface only shows for so-called tractor trails, and you have to zoom right in to see prohibited roads. The rideability classification of trails and tractor paths (& ski trail beds) shows in the way adopted in Finland.

Trailmap distinguishes precisely, with different map symbols, the roads of the road network, forest roads, tractor paths, recreational paths and trails. In gravel mode the map also shows the road surface (if the information is in OSM). For tractor paths, ski trail beds and trails the rideability classification is shown clearly with colours. Because of this the map looks a bit more complicated (in gravel mode), but in return it makes route planning easier as you see possible different routings and their problems faster.

The rideability classification ("MTB classification") of trails and smaller ways is important information on the map for another reason too: it tells you that someone has ridden the trail on a bike at all. And if a trail has no classification while there are classified trails around it, that is a fairly strong signal that the unclassified trail is not suitable riding for a bike.

In Trailmap, buildings are pulled from MML's data, which makes it easier — even out in the countryside — to spot whether a route runs through a farmyard. The map also shows, from MML's map data and the JYU LIPAS data, things like official cycling routes, places (lean-tos, fire pits, beaches and so on) and MML's roads and trails, some of which are missing from OpenStreetMap. The features of MML's NLS topographic map are in there too: contour lines, hillshading, nature reserves, and so on and so forth. On top of that you can open up Digiroad information on the map, e.g. road surfacing and private roads with road associations (so you can see the status of roads running through farmyards, among other things).

Significant differences between apps also show in how quickly the details disappear as you zoom the map out. When planning a route this is common, as you try to get an overview by first looking at the map from a bit further out and then looking at the details up close for the route options that interest you. Global apps do not really fit Finland's sparser network of ways here (correspondingly, Trailmap has a bit of trouble in the densest population centres of central Europe, where the map gets somewhat clogged).

If you ride "road gravel", i.e. only the bigger roads of the network meant for car traffic, any of the above apps will do fine. But if what you want from gravel is peace from cars and adventure on smaller ways and even the odd stretch of trail, then route planning is made a great deal easier by an app that tells you as much as possible — and at the very least it is worth being aware of the limitations of the app you use.

The Trailmap map in gravel mode: simplified, and road surfaces in more detail

The Trailmap map in default mode

RideWithGPS: a heavily simplified map, but road surfacing does show

Strava

OutdoorActive

Komoot

Gravel routes, part 5: Suitable roads and trails

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There are many kinds of gravel riding: one person likes quiet country roads through the fields, another is happy with technical rocky trails for variety on the route. That is why drawing your own route is the surest way to get a route that suits your own riding.

To get the route to follow the ways you want and to successfully avoid the ones you do not, you have to be able to read information about the properties of different ways from the map. And of course you have to have an app that shows detailed information about the ways in the first place — these points were covered in the earlier posts in the series.

Dependable, easily rideable ways — i.e. smaller car roads (gravel or tarmac), cycle paths and recreational paths — show up reasonably well in all the (comparison) apps. OutdoorActive does have trouble recognising some gravel-surfaced recreational paths. Differences come mostly in the details, i.e. whether the surface of the way is reported (tarmac vs. gravel) and how easily the different types of way stand out on the map. The biggest differences then come in how the automatic routing behaves: in some, "gravel routing" makes effective use of recreational paths, for instance; in others it cannot do that (see the earlier post on routing) and routes you onto car roads instead of recreational paths.

Slightly more challenging and variable ways — forest roads and ski trail beds, say — are often interesting riding, but their properties (rideability) and telling them apart from the most challenging category below are no longer something every app manages. The MTB rideability classification made for these smaller ways (which suits gravel too, with caveats) can only be seen in Trailmap and Komoot, and in the latter it requires the map's "MTB" mode, which otherwise makes the map harder to read for gravel.

The most challenging ways — "tractor paths" and forest trails — are not the main gravel riding for many people, but many an interesting gravel route picks them up as short stretches, because otherwise you cannot smoothly link smaller gravel roads or recreational paths together. Information on the rideability of these ways is offered only by Trailmap and Komoot; the "MTB" information OutdoorActive offers is too generalised to work in practice. Trailmap also offers MML's NLS topographic map information (contour lines, bogs, ditches and so on) in detail, so that you can work out from it how challenging a stretch you are dealing with.

The easiest way to learn the map symbols of the app you use is to go through ways you know well in your local area on the map and learn to interpret how they are marked. I strongly recommend comparing against Trailmap as well, if only so you learn to understand where and how your own app "simplifies" the map, i.e. leaves out essential details.

The map examples this time show a typical gravel route situation: one ski trail bed needs to be connected to another — is the trail rideable?

Trailmap: the colours and widths tell you precisely how rideable the recreational paths and trails are, and the NLS topographic map underneath also tells you the landforms and e.g. boggy areas

RideWithGPS partly distinguishes the types of way, but the details are left to guesswork

Gravel routes, part 6: The classic problem

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On a gravel route the problems are easy to avoid by sticking to the bigger roads that cars use — but many people find those pretty boring, and one of the points of gravel is usually to get away from cars.

If you do not like riding trails, they are easy to spot on a good map and so either skip or at least minimise their share of the route. And again, with a good map that shows the MTB classification of trails, you can pick at least the easiest trails to include — many of us also enjoy the more technical sections in the right doses.

And then between the roads and the trails sits the classic gravel route problem… The idea is to ride a wider forest way, like a forest road, a recreational path or a ski trail bed — exactly the right sort of riding for gravel. But every now and then a surprise turns up: a hard-going, maybe muddy or half-overgrown harvester or tractor path — what on earth?!?

The root cause of the problem is in the map data that practically every app with routing (Strava, Komoot, RideWithGPS, OutdoorActive and Trailmap too) uses — that is, OpenStreetMap (OSM). OSM has a class of way (highway=track) which, without further qualifiers, can mean almost anything from champagne gravel to a deep muddy tractor path that you could not drive an electric quad up.

Many apps show these ways on the map always in the same style. So then you get to guess what is ahead… Trailmap shows very precisely what is available in the OSM data. Komoot shows it partly in MTB mode, and the other apps offer little useful information.

If you want certainty, it is worth looking, besides OSM, at what MML's NLS topographic map says about a way like this: a solid black line is usually safe, a dashed line (even a thick one) is more on the risky side. OutdoorActive (paid version) and Trailmap support quickly switching the base map to MML's NLS topographic map, so checking is easy without hopping between apps.

How does the app you use show these problem ways on the map? And can it warn about or account for spots like this in route planning?

Take a look at this place in Trailmap, for instance, and then in the app you use yourself: 👉 https://web.trailmap.fi/#14.49/61.58228/23.37673

Remember to switch "photos" on in Trailmap's map settings too, so you can see pictures taken of the ways.

This is the good stuff we were after...

...this is what we got, though...

Trailmap, a spot on the map with a great many kinds of OSM track type way