Field notes 4 MIN READ
Komoot and RideWithGPS routes
Both hold planned routes as well as completed ones — and the difference matters more than you would expect once it is on paper.
Both platforms hold two kinds of thing that look identical until they are drawn.
Getting the file
In Komoot, open the tour on the web and use the export option in the tour actions. GPX is offered for both planned routes and completed ones.
In RideWithGPS, open the route or ride and use the export menu. It offers GPX Track for recordings and GPX Route for plans, along with TCX and FIT.
Both work.
The difference that shows on paper
A planned route is drawn by a routing engine snapping to a road network. Every curve follows the map's own geometry, every junction is exact, and the line is smooth in a way no recording ever is.
A recording is where your device thought you were, several times a minute, for hours. It wanders a metre or two either side of the road. It cuts corners where the signal lagged. On a long descent it may show you briefly in a field.
At the scale of a poster, this is the difference between a technical drawing and a handwriting sample.
Which one belongs on a wall
A plan draws better. It is cleaner, it is more symmetrical, and it never has a GPS spike in the middle of a roundabout.
A recording is the one that happened. The wobble on the climb is where you were struggling to hold a line. The strange loop near the end is where you went back for someone. Nobody else can read any of it, which is rather the point.
We would print either. But if the route was ridden, print the ride.
One practical note
A planned route often has far fewer points than a recording — a routing engine only needs a vertex where the road changes direction. That is fine for a shape, but it means a planned route carries no elevation profile worth drawing, and no honest time or pace to put under the line.
Questions people actually ask
- Where is the export in Komoot?
- On the web, open the tour and use the download or export option in the tour actions. Komoot offers GPX for both planned and completed tours.
- Does a planned route print differently from a completed one?
- Yes, and visibly. A planned route follows the map's own geometry — clean curves, exact junctions. A recording wobbles, because you did.
- Can I print a route I have not ridden yet?
- You can, and it will look tidier than a recording. Whether that is what you want is a real question rather than a technical one.
- Which is better to print, the plan or the recording?
- The recording, if you actually rode it. The small imperfections are the evidence.
YOURS, FROM A FILE, IN 90 SECONDS
One effort. One sheet of paper.
Bring the file and every choice is yours: treatment, colour, which numbers come along. Museum-grade 250 gsm matte, printed in Denmark, shipped in a tube with a nail taped inside.
Print it. FROM 349 kr