Ride your own routes indoors: GPX upload and route editor
The Stelvio you rode last summer, the loop behind your house, a climb you want to practise before an event: with a GPX file you can take any route indoors. Zombike reads the heights from the file and lets you ride them with their real climbs and descents. If you have no file, you build the route yourself.
- Upload: a GPX file from Strava, Garmin Connect, Komoot or any other app becomes a route.
- Editor: build a route from sections with a length and a grade each, with a live elevation profile.
- Private: only distance and height are kept, never where you rode.
What a GPX file is
GPX is a plain text format that almost every cycling app understands. It lists the points of a route with position, time and often height. Zombike needs only two things from it: how far you have gone and how high you are at that point.
Get a GPX file
Most apps let you export a ride or a planned route as GPX on their website. The wording of the menus changes from time to time, so look for “Export GPX” or “Download GPX”:
- Strava: on the website, open an activity or a saved route and look in the options menu for the GPX export. The phone app usually does not offer it.
- Garmin Connect: open the activity on the website and look for the export option in the settings menu.
- Komoot, RideWithGPS and others: offer a GPX download for planned tours. Check the terms of the app, some limit the export.
The file needs heights (elevation). A file without them cannot be ridden, and Zombike tells you so.
Upload it to Zombike
- Open the Routes page and choose Upload GPX file.
- Zombike reads the file in your browser, smooths the heights and caps grades above 20 %, because GPS heights jump.
- Press Ride now. The world follows the profile, and the road ahead panel shows the climbs coming up.
Routes are ridden there and back: at the far end the road turns round, so the height never jumps. A route can be 300 m to 200 km long, a file up to 5 MB, and you can keep 20 routes.
Build your own route
No file? Choose Create a route. A route is a list of sections, each with a length and a grade, for example 4 km at 6 % followed by 1 km at −2 %. The profile above updates as you type. You can also drag the points of the profile, reorder sections by their handle, and start from a template such as a long climb or climbing intervals.
This is handy for a session with a plan: six climbs of 500 m at 10 % with short descents in between is a route you can build in a minute.
What stays private
Zombike keeps the distance and height of a route, not the coordinates. Your home, your usual start and the places you ride are not stored. The file itself is read in your browser and not kept.
What you see while riding
You see the current grade, the watts the road asks for at your speed, and the elevation profile of the next kilometre and a half. Your trainer’s resistance follows later: it is planned to send the grade to your trainer, so for now you decide the effort with your watts.
Frequently asked questions
Which apps does it work with?
With every app that exports GPX files with heights. You do not need a special trainer, only one that works with Zombike over Bluetooth.
Does the route count for the leaderboard?
The leaderboard looks at your watts, not the route.
Is my route visible to others?
No. Routes belong to your account, and nobody else can see them.
Can I change an uploaded route?
Not yet. Routes from the editor can be edited again. An uploaded file can be replaced by a new upload.
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