How we describe routes

Routes on this site come from many different publishers, and each one describes rides in its own words. One publisher’s “intermediate” is another’s “hard”, and many say nothing about traffic or surface at all. We encourage you to read how the publishers describe their own routes. To help you understand routes across publishers, here we describe every route ourselves, the same way, with the same labels. When two routes both say Mostly gravel, they mean the same thing.

Here’s what each label means.

Difficulty#

Our overall read of how demanding a route is. We score surface roughness, climbing, singletrack, and how far it runs from services. The route publisher's own rating, a lot of busy road riding, or sheer scale can push the tier up, never down.

Easy: Smooth surfaces and gentle climbing.
Moderate: One step up. Some real climbing, or a rougher surface.
Ambitious: A real undertaking. Demanding on a couple of fronts, like rough surfaces plus steady climbing, or a long stretch on busier roads.
Challenging: Demanding on several fronts at once, or a lot of riding on busy roads.
Epic: Expedition scale. Many demanding factors stacked, or 1,000 km and up, or 10,000 m of climbing.

Comfort#

How much of the route you spend sharing the road with cars. Bike paths, quiet streets, and car free backcountry roads count as comfortable. Busy or fast roads don't.

Low-traffic riding: At least 75% of the riding we could measure is on bike paths, quiet streets, or car free backcountry roads.
Some traffic sharing: 45 to 75% of the riding we could measure is low-traffic. The rest shares busier roads.
Shares roads with traffic: Less than half of the riding we could measure is low-traffic. Expect regular stretches on busier roads.

Fast roads#

A heads-up when a route includes riding near fast traffic. Fast means the lowest rungs of our traffic-comfort ladder: roads posted 60 km/h and up with nothing built for bikes, or faster roads where there's only a painted line or shoulder between you and traffic. The label shows the distance so you can decide for yourself.

Fast-road sections: This route includes stretches on fast roads, often a highway link between quieter riding. The label shows how many kilometres; we flag from as little as 2 km on the fastest roads, because a short highway stretch is worth knowing about before you commit.
Mostly fast roads: Half or more of the route is on fast roads. This is a highway touring route.
No fast-road sections: We measured this route and found no meaningful fast-road riding. Under 2 km on the fastest roads and under 20 km on busier ones; routes we couldn't measure aren't in this list.

Surface#

How much of the route is paved versus gravel or dirt, by distance ridden. Surfaces come from OpenStreetMap. Where nothing is mapped we assume ordinary roads are paved and backcountry tracks are gravel, and leave the rest uncounted.

Mostly paved: Under 15% of the mapped riding is unpaved.
Mixed surface: 15 to 49% unpaved. Bring tires that can handle gravel.
Mostly gravel: 50 to 84% unpaved.
Almost all gravel: 85% or more unpaved.

Ruggedness#

Flags for routes where a good share of the riding is rougher than the surface label suggests.

No rough sections: Nothing we measured on this route is rougher than ordinary maintained gravel.
Chunky gravel: At least 10% of the riding we could measure crosses loose stones, ruts, or sand. Tires of 33 to 40 mm make it a lot more fun.
Rough, near-MTB: At least 10% of the riding we could measure crosses genuinely rough ground: rock, ballast, mud. Tires of 40 mm or wider recommended.
Lots of singletrack: The route's publisher reports 30% or more singletrack. That's their number, not one we measure, and only BIKEPACKING.com provides it.

Climbing feel#

Average climbing per kilometre over the whole route. It's an average, so a short steep wall can hide inside a gentle looking number.

Gentle grades: Under 6 m of climbing per km. About as flat as BC gets.
Some climbing: 6 to 12 m per km. Rolling terrain, or a few real hills.
Lots of climbing: 12 to 20 m per km. Expect sustained climbs.
Max climbing: More than 20 m per km. Genuinely mountainous.

Remoteness#

Remote stretches: At least 20% of the route runs far from resupply, roughly 25 km or more in a straight line from the nearest places to buy supplies. Carry what you need, and confirm shops are open. We measure distance to supplies, not water.
No remote stretches: We measured this route and less than 20% of it runs far from resupply. Routes we couldn't measure aren't in this list.

Distance and total climb#

Measured from the GPS track the route's publisher provides. Cross border routes show their BC portion only.

Where the data comes from#

Most of these labels are derived from OpenStreetMap, the open map of the world that volunteers build and keep up to date. That's where surface, road type, and traffic come from. Climbing and distance are measured from the GPS track the route's publisher provides. Steepness comes from satellite elevation data. How far you are from resupply is measured against our own directory of places to buy supplies. We credit the other open data we build on with thanks.

For this kind of question OpenStreetMap is the best open data there is, and it's good, but it is not perfect. Most backcountry tracks have never had their surface recorded, so we infer it. Some trails are missing. Some tags are years out of date, and a few are just wrong.

We need at least 5 km of a route measured before we'll show a label. When we can't measure it, we leave the label off rather than guess.

So we compute what we can, and there are surely some mistakes. If a label on a route looks wrong or misleading to you, tell us. We can correct the data, fix the map, or change how we handle the gap, and every one of those makes the next rider's plan better.

If you are curious about more detail than we go into here, please get in touch! We are happy to nerd out about it in very great depth :)