How RideLoop works

Step 1

Choose a start, a distance and your ride

Tap From and type an address, press My location, or tap the map. Save as home makes every loop start at your door.

Pick a distance with 5 mi, 10 mi, 20 mi or 30 mi, or slide the ruler anywhere from 2 to 80 miles. Choose how hilly: Gentler, Moderate, Sporty or Climber. Turn on Scenic roads for farms, woods and water.

More options holds the rest: Quiet roads (keeps you off highways and state roads), True loops (no out-and-backs), roads to avoid, road closures and must-ride waypoints. Then press Build my loop.

Step 2

Get a loop, automatically

No dragging a line road by road. RideLoop builds a loop of about your distance that starts and ends where you chose, weighing pavement, traffic, shoulders and climbing as it goes. Each road on the map is colored by its pavement grade.

Not your kind of ride? Press Reloop for a different one, or step through the loops it found with the arrows. Keep saves a loop to Your loops to ride again.

Step 3

Check the road grades

Tap the % smooth score to see every road on the loop in riding order. Each graded road has a pavement grade from 1 (Bad) to 5 (Great), plus its shoulder (wide, narrow, none or a bike lane) and how busy it is (quiet, moderate or busy). Tap a road for its details and what to watch for.

Not every road is graded. Grades come from riders, so some areas have many more than others. A road without one shows as not graded, and the score reads Smooth so far with how many roads and miles it covers, like "11 of 20 roads graded". Press Grade 9 new roads (or Grade this loop) to fill in the gaps from your plan's grading allowance.

Rode a road and the grade was off? Mark it Great or Rough under Rode it? Tell RideLoop.

Step 4

Review climbing, weather and stops

The ride card shows the distance, an estimated ride time, total climb and how many busy road crossings the loop has. Drag along the elevation graph to see each road, and a chip calls out the steepest climb, like "10% at mile 5.5".

The weather row shows the temperature, wind and the chance of rain from the National Weather Service (US only). On a windy day loops favor heading out into the wind, and the card says Tailwind home. If you'd finish after dark, it reminds you to bring lights.

Stops such as cafés, water, bike shops and restrooms show on the map in New Jersey, where that data is live today. When a café fits the loop, the Coffee stop switch routes you past it.

Step 5

Send it to Garmin

Connect once: You › Settings › Garmin, sign in with your Garmin Connect email and password, and press I understand, connect Garmin. RideLoop never saves your Garmin password. After that, every loop is one press of Send.

• Free (Bronze): the loop lands in Garmin Connect as a course. Open the Garmin Connect app, find the course and tap Send to Device.
• Silver and Gold Paid: the loop goes straight to your Edge or watch and arrives on its next sync.
• No Garmin? Press GPX on any plan for a file that works with any bike computer or app.

RideLoop's Garmin connection is unofficial. RideLoop isn't made by or affiliated with Garmin; it uses Garmin Connect's public sign-in, and Garmin could change how that works. How RideLoop handles your Garmin sign-in.