See the wind on every mile of your ride

A city forecast gives you one number for the whole day. Your ride doesn’t work that way. You’ll be on the climb at 9, turning into the valley at 10 and heading home at 11, and the wind can be in your face for one and at your back for the next. Route Forecast shows you each part.

1. Bring your route

Upload a GPX, FIT or TCX file, connect Strava, or paste a Ride with GPS link. No route yet? The home screen shows the riding weather where you are, or try a famous ride.

2. Set when you start and how fast you ride

Route Forecast works out when you’ll reach each part of the route, slowing you on climbs and speeding you up on descents. Set your average speed or plan by watts.

3. Read the answer

• The main card: a plain-language summary, feels-like at riding speed, rain chance, max wind and the minutes the wind adds or saves.
• Wind along your ride: drag along the bar to see the time, mile, wind and feels-like at any point. Rain shows where it’s likely to start.
• The map: headwind in red and tailwind in blue, with wind arrows timed to when you get there.
• Route notes: gusty crosswinds, low sun, ice risk, trail conditions, air quality and daylight.
• Sun and shade: stretches where hills or canyon walls hide the sun at the time you’ll be there.
• Route details: surface, traffic, climbs and stops from OpenStreetMap.

4. Take it with you

• Ride mode shows the wind you’re riding into, live, with “Headwind for the next 3.2 mi, then it swings behind you,” voice alerts and offline maps.
• Send to a friend as a text with a live link that opens the route with fresh weather.
• GPX for your bike computer with wind and water notes for Garmin, Wahoo or Hammerhead.
• Heading out soon: open the app near your usual start time and that ride’s forecast is waiting.

How the numbers are made

We’d rather you trust the forecast because you can see how it works, so here it is.

Where you’ll be, and when

Your route is cut into short stretches. Your speed slows on climbs and picks up on descents, and a headwind or tailwind changes it too, so each stretch gets the time you’ll actually reach it. The weather for that stretch is the forecast for that hour, blended between hours.

The weather itself

Forecasts come from Open-Meteo, which blends the sharpest models for each place, including high-resolution local models for the next day or two where they exist. To show how sure the forecast is, the European (ECMWF), US (GFS/HRRR), German (ICON) and Canadian (GEM) models are compared at the middle of your route. When the card says “models differ by up to 4°”, that’s how far apart they are.

Live readings for the next few hours (US)

Most people check right before they go, so we compare the forecast with what the nearest National Weather Service stations are reading right now. If the station is several degrees colder or the wind is stronger than the model, that difference is carried into your ride: in full now, fading out over three hours, and only near the station. The card says when this happens.

Rain odds from many runs

The US and European models are also run dozens of times with slightly different starting weather. We count how many of those runs bring rain to your route while you’re out (“rain in 7 of 82 model runs”), which says more than one percentage.

Temperature at your height

A forecast grid cell is a few kilometres wide and has one average height. When your route climbs above it or drops below it, the temperature is adjusted by about 6.5 °C per 1,000 m (3.6 °F per 1,000 ft), the usual rate air cools with height.

Feels at speed

Riding at 17 mph into a 10 mph wind puts 27 mph of air on you. Feels at speed uses that air speed (your speed plus or minus the wind along your direction) in the standard wind-chill formula when it’s cool, takes away the forecast’s humidity bump that moving air blows off, and adds back the sun’s warmth from the forecast sunshine, less of it the faster the air moves past you. Plain temperatures in the app (the big number, the hourly row, the map labels and the daily list) are air temperature, like any weather app. Feels-like is always labelled “Feels”.

Wind and terrain

Forecast wind is for open ground about 10 m up. Where higher ground rises on the upwind side, the map fades that stretch: you’re partly sheltered. On routes with big climbs, the winds 1.5–3 km up are blended in for exposed ridges and summits, and valleys steer the wind along their length.

Sun and shade

For each part of the route, at the time you’ll be there, we work out where the sun is and check whether hills, ridges or canyon walls up to 5 km away rise above it. Shaded stretches lose the sun’s direct warmth. Near the finish we also find when the sun drops behind higher ground, which can be an hour before the official sunset. Trees and buildings aren’t in the elevation data, so wooded trail can be shadier still.

Trail conditions

Rain over the last five days is counted, with older rain fading and the drying power of sun, wind and warmth taken away. That gives dusty, dry, tacky, damp or muddy, plus frozen and snowy when it’s cold. The topsoil where you ride (from the SoilGrids global soil map) sets how fast rain fades: about half every 36 hours in loam, longer in clay, much faster in sand and pumice. Forest stretches are shown too, since they dry more slowly.

Snow and wildfire on the route (US)

In the cold season, the nearest SNOTEL mountain snow stations to your route’s high point report the snow actually on the ground, and we compare their height with yours. Current wildfire perimeters from the National Interagency Fire Center are checked too: a fire your route crosses goes in “Before you go”, and one nearby goes in the route notes.

Trees

Forest and woodland along trail routes come from OpenStreetMap. Stretches under trees are shadier and less windy than the open-ground forecast, so they show in Sun and shade and fade on the wind map.

Hazards

Air quality and wildfire smoke (PM2.5) are checked at the start, middle and finish. US routes also get National Weather Service alerts along the route and live NEXRAD radar. Ice, frost in low spots, low sun in your eyes, heat on slow climbs and finishing after dark are all worked out from the forecast at the time you’ll be there.

Rider reports

Anyone can add a quick report for a spot on their route: muddy, snow, icy, tree down, closed, high water, smoky. Reports are anonymous, have no free text, and show on nearby routes for 48 hours.

Avalanche danger, hunting seasons and moonlight

Winter hikes and ski routes in US avalanche forecast zones get that day’s danger rating from Avalanche.org. Off-pavement routes in Oregon get a note when a general deer or elk season is open there (from ODFW’s Big Game Regulations). Rides in the dark say how full the Moon is and whether it’s up.

Satellite and road cameras

The map has a “Satellite, latest pass” layer: NASA’s daily picture from the NOAA-20 satellite, so you can see smoke, fresh snow and cloud. In Oregon, routes near ODOT road cameras show the latest still images.

Checking our work

If you connect Strava and your bike computer or watch records temperature, after your ride the app shows what it recorded next to what we forecast. Sensors read a little warm in direct sun and on slow climbs, so after a few rides the app tells you how your own device usually reads.

Questions

Is it free?

Yes. There’s no account and no paid plan, and your routes stay on your device.

How far ahead can I plan?

About 7 days for the detailed forecast, with a note on how closely four weather models agree. Beyond that, you see the typical weather for that date from the last 10 years.

Is it only for road cycling?

No. Gravel, mountain biking, running, hiking and skate skiing each get their own pace, clothing and food advice.

How accurate is it?

As accurate as the weather models, and those are best in the next day or two. The card tells you when the main models disagree, so you know when to pack an extra layer. See how the numbers are made.

Where does the data come from?

Weather from Open-Meteo; maps and road details from OpenStreetMap and Thunderforest.