Ride Planner

Paste a RideWithGPS route and rider profile to estimate ride time, wind/temp exposure, and calorie needs.

Most ride-time estimates are a single flat average speed applied to a whole route, which falls apart the moment a route has real hills or wind. Ride Planner instead simulates your ride segment by segment, using the route's actual elevation profile, a wind and temperature forecast for your ride date, and your own power and weight, so the estimate reflects the specific route you're about to ride rather than a generic guess.

It's built for riders planning an unfamiliar route, a century, a gran fondo, or a multi-day tour who want a realistic finish time, a sense of how much headwind or heat to expect, and a printable route card with checkpoints and fueling stops -- not just a distance and elevation gain number.

Route
Rider

One of FTP or fixed power is required.

Nutrition estimate (optional)
Fetching route + wind, simulating…
How these numbers are calculated
Time & speed
Simulated segment-by-segment from your weight, power, and the route's actual grade — not a flat average speed.
Wind
Distance-weighted headwind/tailwind component along the route's actual heading and time-of-day. Forecasts get less reliable more than ~15 days out.
Avg heat index & fluid target
Heat index (temperature + humidity) is time-weighted across the ride, since humidity limits evaporative cooling and drives sweat rate more than raw temperature. Fluid target ramps from a ~20oz/hr baseline up to a 40oz/hr cap as heat index rises above 65°F — a rough guide, not a substitute for your own sweat-rate testing. Only shown when a ride date/wind forecast was provided.
Precipitation timeline
Rain chance for each hour of the ride, looked up at where you're actually projected to be on the route at that time (not just the start line). A ⚡ marks an hour where the forecast shows thunderstorm-type weather — Open-Meteo doesn't give a calibrated "% chance" for thunderstorms specifically, only a yes/no forecast per hour, so this is shown as a flag rather than a percentage. Only shown when a ride date/wind forecast was provided.
Calories burned
Assumes ~24% gross cycling efficiency, and accounts for reduced effort while coasting/braking on descents — not just power × time.
On-bike calories consumed
Your on-bike fueling rate (kcal/hr) × estimated ride time — the total calories you'd eat/drink during the ride if you stick to that rate.
On-bike deficit/surplus
Calories burned minus on-bike calories consumed. A deficit means the ride burns more than your fueling rate replaces (made up from body stores); a surplus means you're fueling more than the ride burns. Colored green under 1500 kcal deficit (or any surplus), yellow up to 2000 kcal, red beyond that — a rough bonking-risk signal based on typical glycogen stores, not a hard rule.
Off-bike food
On-bike deficit/surplus plus a Mifflin-St Jeor BMR estimate for the rest of the day's non-riding hours.
Fueling warning
Flags an on-bike rate outside the standard 60–90g carbs/hour endurance guidance, for rides over 2.5 hours.
Route card climbs
Sustained stretches of 3%+ grade, rated 1-5 stars by an informal grade% × length score — a rough at-a-glance signal, not an official climb category.
Editing checkpoints/climbs
Remove a row with ×, or add your own stop below the checkpoints table. These edits only affect the downloaded route card, not the stats above — and reset if you run the analysis again.

Guides

Longer write-ups on the ideas behind the numbers above:

Estimating ride time from power and FTP Heat index and hydration planning Reading climbs, grades, and route cards Gran fondo vs. sportive vs. century How a rotating paceline changes your numbers Cycling glossary

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a RideWithGPS account?
No. Public RideWithGPS routes work with just the route URL or numeric ID. If you don't use RideWithGPS at all, upload a GPX file instead -- both routes into the same simulation.
How accurate is the time estimate?
It's a physics-based simulation (grade, weight, rolling resistance, and wind), not a flat average speed, so it tracks a real route much more closely than a generic "15mph average" guess. It's still an estimate: it doesn't know about traffic lights, unplanned stops, group dynamics, or how you're feeling that day.
Where does the wind and weather forecast come from, and how far ahead can I plan?
Forecasts come from Open-Meteo, looked up along your specific route and ride date. Like any forecast, it gets less reliable more than about 15 days out -- useful for a rough sense of conditions that far ahead, but re-check closer to ride day.
What if I don't know my FTP?
Enter a fixed target power in watts instead -- whatever pace you actually expect to hold. FTP plus an intensity fraction is just a convenient way to express "hold roughly X% of threshold" without doing that math yourself.
Is my data saved anywhere?
No accounts, no ride history. Your rider profile (weight, FTP, etc.) is saved only in your own browser's local storage so the form is pre-filled next time. See the privacy policy for the full picture.
Is this free?
Yes. Ride Planner is a small, independently-run side project -- see the contact page.