Easy track creation with Komoot

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Komoot is an app based on socialising through sports. The sports are cycling, mountain biking, bike touring, hiking and running. It integrates well with Garmin and allows you to track activities from your mobile phone or import GPX, Fit and other files from other brands. It also allows you to create your own tracks ahead of an activity as well as plan it for a specific day and time.

Sports

Running and hiking are two distinct categories with no differentiating between hiking, walking, nordic or rambling. Running does not have sub-categories for trail running, road running or other variants. Cycling seems to be the sport they are most focused on. They differentiate between road riding, mountain biking and touring.

Creating routes

Creating a route on the website is easy. You can choose between a linear route or a loop. You can select which sport is for. I tried creating two or three walking routes as well as two or three cycling routes based on walks I have done in the past. You mark point A and point B and then add the in between points. I created the 100km route I tried from Nyon to the Col de Marchairuz, around the Lac de Joux and then down via St Cergue to Nyon. It automatically gives you ascent information, gradient, an average speed and an estimated route time as well as level of expertise.

It provides difficulty, estimated time of completion, total distance, estimated average speed, ascent and descent. With this information it is easier to assess whether it is in within our capabilities.

It provides a profile for the ride, with the ability to mouse over each section and even to highlight a segment you are interested in knowing more about.

Finally it gives you the type of road as well as the surfaces. You can see whether to expect traffic, pedestrians, farmers and more. By knowing the type of road surface you can evaluate whether your tires are suitable or not.

The same is true of hiking tracks. I did this specific hike in about 5 and a half hours. I did start in Eysins and skip the summit. I went via a col on the right rather than going to La Dôle.

With hiking trails it provides the type of road surface you can expect to find along the way. If you're looking for a dirt track away from traffic you may decide to skip certain sections. It's a shame that it doesn't specify whether sections are main roads or agricultural paths.

The route is colour coded according to difficulty. Easy sections are in green and  harder sections as well as their gradient are highlighted in orange or red. As you can see sections of this trail were steep.

Google Maps offers some of the same functionality but you do not get so much detail and it is not integrated within a mobile app or gps units like Komoot is. Finally at the bottom of the route you get weather information. This can be useful if you plan to do an activity in a few days.

Planning a group activity

A feature I would like to see on this app is the ability to create a group event or activity. I would like to be able to take a route I have prepared and decide on a time and date when a group of people could come together to enjoy a hike or bike ride. If and when this is included it would be a one stop solution for people to meet up and enjoy activities together.