komoot – Planning out your (gravelly) future
Posted By Gravel Union
On 8 April 2020
GRAVEL UNION MEMBER OFFER:
Full Brevet Card?
First 100 Gravel Union members will get a FREE 12-month upgrade to komoot Premium (worth 59.99).
For any gravel riders out there who don’t know what komoot is, it’s a planning and navigation tool aimed at the outdoor market. While it’s not specifically designed for gravel riders, you can use the web package (or the accompanying smartphone app) to help you find the best gravel routes in your area.
At the minute, when most of us aren’t able to get out on our gravel bikes you might ask why you would be interested in komoot? The answer is that komoot is the perfect tool for planning future adventures. The route planning function will pick what it thinks is the most appropriate route between your start and finish points - komoot describe this as “sport specific, topographic routing”. This AI-based system is super clever, but you can override this if you want full manual control over your route choice.
Once your route is confirmed it will give you all the standard stats – distance, height gained and lost and an estimate of the time the route should take. But in addition (and where it differs from the competition), it will give you a detailed breakdown of the ‘way types’ and surface conditions you’re likely to encounter during your ride – singletrack, road, unpaved, asphalt etc. While this may not be 100% accurate, it will give you a good representation of what you’re likely to meet while you’re actually out on your bike.
komoot connects with both smartphones and dedicated GPS units (Wahoo/Garmin etc) with a simple interface and slick connectivity. Once you’ve finished your ride it will give you a log of your ride and can be linked with apps such as Strava.
So, what’s the difference between komoot and komoot Premium and why is it worth you paying for the premium service? The paid service gets you all the standard route planning and navigation functionality, but also includes the ability to plan multi-day events, gives you worldwide sport-specific mapping and provides on-tour weather forecasts.
Member Offer – komoot have partnered with Gravel Union to offer all of our members free access to a regional bundle (worth £8.99/€8.99/US$8.99). Existing members will be sent an e-mail around the middle of April 2020 with their personalised code contained in it – this code needs to be applied when you either set up a komoot account or when you log in to an existing account.
Any Gravel Union readers who aren’t yet signed up as free members can sign up here and you will receive an email confirmation of your membership and a personalised code within around 48 hours of signing up.
Gravel Union Brevet Card & komoot – We’re going to be giving away a 12-month upgrade to komoot Premium (worth £59.99/€59.99/US$59.99) to 100 Gravel Union members. To be in with a chance of receiving this upgrade you’ll first need to get hold of one of the Gravel Union brevet cards. Each time you ride at one of the Gravel Union supported events, you’ll be able to get a stamp in your card. Once your card is full, send us a photograph of it to this email address and the first 100 riders to complete their cards will receive a komoot Premium code valid for 12 months.