About · EnduroRoute

Hi, I'm Alex.

Solo dev · UK · Enduro rider

One person, one VPS, one custom routing engine, and a healthy obsession with green lanes and twisty B-roads. EnduroRoute is a side project that took over my weekends. If something on the app feels broken or weird, it's because I haven't fixed it yet. Drop me an email and I'll have a look.

How it started

A few of us ride enduro bikes around the UK most weekends. Mostly Peak District, Yorkshire Dales, occasionally the Welsh hills if we can be bothered with the drive. None of the off-the-shelf nav apps worked properly for what we do.

Google Maps and Apple Maps don't even know BOATs and byways exist. The dedicated motorcycle apps know about them but don't route through them. They just draw them on a layer. Anyone who's tried to plan a green-lane day will recognise the workflow: stitch a route together by hand in a planning tool, export to GPX, copy to your phone, hope for the best.

I got tired of doing that. So I built something better. A custom routing engine that actually understands which lanes motorbikes are legally allowed on, plus a proper map that shows them clearly. Originally just for me and the mates I ride with.

"It worked. People kept asking if their mate could have it. Then their mate's mate. At some point it stopped being a side project for friends and started being… an app."

How it grew

The off-road bit was the original problem to solve. Once that was working, I added the things I'd been missing on every other ride too:

Background GPS recording, so I could see where we'd actually been afterwards. Live hazards, because dry-stone walls don't move but locked gates do. Offline maps, because half the lanes we ride don't have phone signal. A group-tracking mode using LoRa radios, because phone signal isn't a thing on most of the country lanes I care about.

Then I realised most motorcyclists I know aren't enduro riders, they're road riders looking for the curvy bits. So I added a Lanes mode that prefers B-roads and country lanes over motorways. Then a Fast mode for the days you just need to get somewhere. The same app now plans curvy Alpine passes for road riders and rocky UK byways for the green-laners.

The map and 3D terrain now render anywhere on Earth. Routing currently covers the UK and Europe, and it's rolling out worldwide as I add more regional data.

What I'm trying to do

Free, forever

There will always be a free version of EnduroRoute. Routing, off-road overlay, 3D terrain, community, hazards: all free, no time limit. If you want to support the project and get a few extras (like satellite imagery, which costs me real money per tile load) you'll be able to subscribe for a supporter tier. Kept as affordable as I can make it.

Quiet on data

No location tracking for ads. No selling your routes. Anonymised crash reports and feature usage so I know what to fix; that's it.

Honest about coverage

If a feature only works in the UK (like BOAT routing), the app says so. If routing in your country isn't great yet, I'll say that too rather than pretend.

Built by a rider

Every feature exists because I or one of the people I ride with hit the problem on a real ride. Nothing is here because a growth team thought it'd boost engagement.

What it isn't

It isn't a venture-backed startup. It isn't a team. It isn't supported 24/7. If I'm out riding I'm not answering emails. If something breaks, I usually find out from my crash reporter before users notice, but not always. Please tell me when something's off.

I'm in this for the same reason I ride enduro: it's fun, and there's something genuinely satisfying about building the tool that didn't exist. If it ever stops being fun, the app stays free and the source stays running. That's the deal.

Got something to say?

Feature requests, bug reports, route ideas, complaints about the colour scheme. All welcome. I read everything.

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