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Sites publishing popular Running Routes in cities (2/3)

April 14, 2021 — Nico Cartron

Second article in this series, this time focusing on sites publishing "popular routes in cities".


Preamble

In the first article of this series, the "requirement" was to freely draw routes from a random start point (e.g. an hotel).

In this second article, let's have a look at a slightly different use case: you've headed to a city that you don't know, and you want to find a nice route to run. (OK, this won't be useful in the coming weeks, but hey, one day this pandemic will be over!)

Specifications

I am not looking for an app to use on my phone, as I'll be using my watch to run.

As usual, a list of criteria that I'm looking for, to identify a list of "candidates" to test:

  • Possibility to specify the desired distance,
  • Possibility to specify the desired elevation,
  • Ideally ratings and notes from other runners,
  • Of course a map showing the route itself,
  • Free/no subscription needed,
  • Ability to export route as GPX, to upload it to my watch.

Shortlist

Qualified

  • MapMyRun
  • Strava
  • Plot A route
  • AllTrails

Disqualified

  • Routespinner.com (https://routespinner.com/)
    • Nice concept and clean interface, no need to register,
    • but search options are poor (only distance)

Testing

1. MapMyRun

  • URL: https://www.mapmyrun.com
  • Description:

    • Well known site, owned by Under Armor
    • In addition to the routes feature, provide some stuff around workouts
    • Also provides mobile apps and competing with the likes of Strava and Runkeeper
  • My opinion:

    • To be honest, I was neutral regarding Mapmyrun: didn't like it nor use it
    • But when checking the routes section, I found it surprisingly nice to use, and fitting all my requirements (distance, elevation, GPX export, ...)
    • And the interface is nice as well
    • On the "minus" side, there's no advice from runners for those routes

2. Strava

  • URL: https://www.strava.com/local
  • Description: Strava's section dedicated to "local" routes
  • My opinion:
    • Well integrated if you're using Strava already
    • Routes include distance, elevation, GPX export, and also "Strava segments"
    • But the selection of cities is super limitied (e.g. only London in the UK, Paris and Marseille in France, Milan and Naples in Italy, etc)
    • And there's no runners' notes

3. Plot A Route

  • URL: https://www.plotaroute.com
  • Description: The site's mission: "Simple but powerful and accurate outdoor route planning that puts you in control"
  • My opinion:
    • Not the sexiest website, but it does the job
    • Also, no need to register to browse the available routes and download to GPX
    • There's also a small video animation which shows the route (see 2nd screenshot below)
    • And the selection of routes is not only for popular cities, so there is choice

4. AllTrails

  • URL: https://www.alltrails.com
  • Description: AllTrails presents you with a list of nearby trails
  • My opinion:
    • I didn't know AllTrails before, and I almost disqualified it as the "download GPX" feature is super well hidden!
    • Which would have been a shame: the site is really nice to use, looks good, plenty of options to filter/find a route, and also comes with runners' advices

Conclusion

As with my previous article, I know that the list I've made is a bit biased/short, but that's also the goal of this exercise: pick 4 or 5 that match what I'm after, and ditch the rest :)

This time I'm making a ranking of those 4 sites:

  1. AllTrails: ticks all the boxes, nice to use, probably the most pleasant to use
  2. Plot A Route: 2nd because of the less nice UI, otherwise it ticks all the boxes as well
  3. MapMyRun: because it's using Google Maps (where the 2 previous ones use OpenStreetMap), and you have to register/login to be able to use the search options
  4. Strava: the most basic option here - no way to search based on distance/elevation, and selection of cities is super restricted

Thanks for reading and see you in the next article, where I'll be covering the sites with "route shuffling" options.


Tags: Running


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