Exploring Waypoints: Planning Efficiently

Amanda's Dales Divide 2025

I did my first ever solo ultra race in April this year. The Dales Divide seemed like the perfect first race for me; not too long, off-road, no overseas travel. In my mind it was so achievable that I barely did any planning beyond what kit I was taking and a very short list of refuel options.

Mentally I divided the route into three sections and planned my sleep around this simplified version. The refuel notes were all listed by kilometers into the route, and I felt like my plan really couldn’t go wrong.

Wrong! At the first sleep stop I ended my ride, had a couple of hours kip whilst my Garmin charged, and I started a new ride when I set off for the second part of my adventure. What this meant was that my list of notes didn’t line up with the distance I was at, so I spent 387km having to do maths every time I needed food or water. Normally I’m quite happy occupying my mind with maths (we all convert miles to kilometers and then back again, right?!), but I was pretty tired and it resulted in me missing several of my noted taps or shops.

On top of this, I had also been foolish enough to not hear the sarcasm in my partner's voice when he said ‘the last 50km is downhill’. I quite literally did a sweetspot interval up Cam High Road because I believed I’d be descending for the rest of the route, yet it was full of the classic sharp climbs you get near the coast. One of these was a hike-a bike through a field, and had I known about it, I would have refilled my water beforehand, and I would not have emptied myself up one of the longest climbs on the route.

Next year I plan to plot Waypoints on the route, the most important being the climbs and water refill points.

Millie's Kromvojoj 2025

Earlier this year, I took part in Kromvojoj, a 1,400km road ultra with 28,000 m of elevation gain, through the Pyrenees during a heatwave, with temperatures reaching the mid to high 30s. The race was a fixed route, and we received the GPX files about a month before the start, just enough time to plan. I used Ride with GPS to split the route into the sections I wanted and to add all my POIs, which I use for resupply points, petrol stations, and water sources.

About 10 km before the start of the Port de Bales, I found a water fountain. I stopped and had to check my downloaded offline map, and work out where my next water POI was to figure out if this was the last water source before the climb. It was, so I made sure to replenish as much water as possible. With this new feature, I could have saved some time and been confident I was carrying enough water for the long, steep climb in the midday sun.

I would have loved to implement Ride with GPSs Waypoints during the race. Being able to know exactly how far each resupply point is from the others would be so good, so I could plan ahead and actually know the distances instead of doing the calculations in my head. And knowing where the resupply is on the elevation profile, whether the water source is at the bottom of a climb or the top, is super useful for planning, especially when racing across the Pyrenees' Cols in the high heat.

Kitty's Wild West Country 2022

In 2022, I finished the Wild West Country, an 800km ultra around the South West of England. The race had around 14,000m of climbing and I’m very unfamiliar with the South West of England, having grown up in the North. Splitting that up into 100km rides it would be 1750m of climbing per 100km. That seemed pretty manageable. I was wrong.

It wasn’t until deep into the first day I realised the South West was littered with punchy inclines and descents that were relentless in both directions. I spent any moment I could pulling up the RWGPS app and checking how long there was until the summit of the climb, scrubbing through their Elevation feature.

Top this off with a 100km food desert, which I didn’t think was possible. I spent my ride wishing someone could tell me when I’d next have food, when the climb that I was holding onto for “just ten more seconds” or how far it was until my rest.

If I could do the same event again, having the ability to essentially plan my route in chunks based on Waypoints would’ve alleviated the mental load but also prevented some bad decisions. Resting in the right places, refuelling when necessary rather than over or under shopping wherever I saw a petrol station. Using the personalised estimated times for the next Waypoint would save fretting and ease decision making.

Whilst these are just a few ultra-examples of Ride With GPS' new Waypoints feature, there's plenty more to explore and you can see their .