Example routes
What a planned route actually looks like.
Three routes built the way you’d build one: draw it or ask for a loop, set the time you’ll go, and read what the app says about the shade, the hills, the wind and the crossings before sending it to the watch. The figures under each are what the app reports.
Greenway out-and-back
6.2 mi↑98 ft81% shade at 5 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
The easy case, and the reason people look for greenways in July: mature canopy on both sides, so it barely matters what time you go. Asked for as a 6 mi Out & back from the loop generator, it turns at exactly half the distance and runs home the same way.
Downtown grid loop
3.4 mi↑142 ft29% shade at 5 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
Where the crossings layer earns its keep: two of the three big roads have signals, and crossing there instead of mid-block is the whole difference. In a city where we’ve imported the buildings, they cast their shadows too, so the side of the street under the taller block reads as shade in the late afternoon.
Riverfront evening loop
4.8 mi↑212 ft55% shade at 6 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
The route the homepage slider is built on. At one in the afternoon it’s 7% shaded; by six the street trees have thrown their shadows across the road. The river stretch is open, so it gets the gold edge for a low sun in your eyes, and with the wind coming off the water the app suggests running it the other way round.
Under the map
Four tracks, one distance axis
Open any route’s details and the panel under the map lines up what you’ll meet along it: Hills, Shade at the time you set, Sun where it’s in your eyes, and Wind, headwind or tailwind, with the pace it feels like. Point at any spot on a track, or on the route itself, and every track says what’s happening there.
Each track sums itself up in a few words beside its name. Open it for the full sentence and, where it applies, whether the route is better run the other way round, with a Reverse button. This is the riverfront loop at six in the evening.
Reading the colours.
The bar under each route above is the same Shade track the app draws under the hills, on the same distance axis: left is the start, right is the finish, and the colour is how much shade falls on that part of the road at the time shown. The route line on the map uses the same colours.
On the Wind track, blue is wind behind you, raspberry is into it, and grey is across you or next to nothing. On the Sun track, gold is the sun low and ahead with nothing in the way.
These three are illustrative. They’re built from the same model the app runs, on real street layouts, but they’re here to show what the output looks like rather than to be routes you should go and run. Draw your own, or ask the loop generator for one — it takes about a minute.