In the city
Stairs, quays, bridges, park mounds. Vert gets picked up in small pieces, and by running the climbs more than once.
iPhone and Android
Your city has more vert than you think.
Pick a start and a distance. TrailGen explores the paths around it and proposes the loops that climb the most.
And if one hill isn't enough, the route can repeat it.
Download onApp StoreComing soonGoogle Play
- Free on iPhone
- No ads
- No account
- Distance
- 4.6 miDistance
- Gain
- 425 ftGain
- Gain rate
- 92 ft/miGain rate
Minneapolis, 4.6 mi for 425 ft of vert. Real screenshot.
The most common case
Where a city hides its vert.
The steps up from a quay, a railway embankment, the ramp onto a bridge, the mound in a park. Each is worth a few dozen feet, and every one of them is in OpenStreetMap. What is left is stringing them together over the distance you want.
Stairs count
A flight of steps is a path like any other. TrailGen takes it when it gains elevation, and counts the vert.
One climb, three times over
Over six miles in a city, a single hill isn't enough. Mark it, choose how many times to run it, and the app shows the vert gained before you confirm.
A better place to start
Terrain is rarely right outside your door. TrailGen moves the start within the radius you allow, and looks for where the ground rises.
The same hill, ten times: 4.5 mi for 965 ft of vert, with most of the ground covered twice.
Three kinds of ground
From one kind of ground to the next, only the raw material changes.
Wherever you are, the app looks for the loop that climbs the most over the distance you asked for.
In the countryside
Dirt tracks, hillsides, levees, woodland paths. Paths no road map will show you.
In the mountains
There is no shortage of terrain here. What is left is choosing the climbs that fit the distance you want.
“At least 300 ft”, then how much ground may be covered twice.
Training
Training for a trail race without living at the foot of a pass.
A trail training plan is counted in feet of vert per week. In a city, those feet come in small doses, by repeating the climbs. Give the distance and the minimum gain: the app proposes the loops that make it, or explains what is in the way.
- Set a minimum gain and a tolerance around the target distance.
- Set trails, tracks and roads separately.
- Decide how much ground may be covered twice, and how many times to run the same climb.
- Export the route as GPX to your watch, or import an existing GPX to measure it the same way.
Before you go
See where it climbs before you get there.
A cursor runs along the map and the profile. Distance and cumulative vert climb with it, hill after hill.
2.0 mi covered out of 4.6, and 190 ft of vert out of the loop's 425.
Features
What the app does.
Find the best loop
You drop a start and a distance. The app downloads the area's paths and terrain, explores the loops it can build, and keeps the ones that climb the most.
Repeat a climb
Running the same hill several times is the most direct way to add vert over a short distance.
Draw it yourself
Tap the map and the app follows the paths from one point to the next. Distance and vert update with every point you add.
Pick your surfaces
Trails, tracks and roads are set separately: allowed, avoided or excluded.
Exclude a segment
A closed path, private land: exclude the segment once, and later searches won't use it.
Move the start
The app can look for a better start within the radius you set, where the ground rises.
Read it and play it back
Elevation profile, the real share of trail and road, how much of it overlaps. A cursor moves along the map and the profile, and the vert climbs with it.
Take it and share it
Export GPX to your watch. An image or a video of the route, map and profile included, ready to send.
Plan your nutrition
Enter what you're carrying, the distance and your target time. The app works out the quantities, places each feed on the route and reminds you at the right time on race day.
Run without a signal
A downloaded area stays on the phone. Later searches there are instant, even offline.
Free. One purchase unlocks it all.
- Two searches a day, the map, hand-drawn routes and GPX import are free
- One purchase unlocks unlimited searches, GPX export, Apple Watch and nutrition
- No ads
- No account, no trackers
No profile and no online history. To build a route, the app downloads the paths and terrain of the area you're searching, with no identifier attached. The details are in the privacy policy.
Sources
Where the elevation comes from.
Wrong elevation gain goes unnoticed. So the app uses the best survey available country by country, and never mixes two elevation models within one route.
- France and its territories
the IGN's RGE ALTI
the national reference survey
- United States
the USGS 3DEP at 10 m
the US national survey, served from our own tiles
- Canada
Natural Resources Canada surveys
the same chain as in the US, on the country's own data
- Rest of the world
AWS Open Data Terrain Tiles
a worldwide model, less precise, which tends to overstate gain on flat ground
Paths come from OpenStreetMap, which knows trails that road maps leave out. Some may have disappeared, been closed, or cross private land. Check the route before you set off.
FAQ
Frequently asked questions.
The first search is slow. Is that normal?
Yes. The app downloads the area's paths and terrain on the first search, then keeps them. Later searches there are instant, even offline.
Does TrailGen work in my city?
Anywhere OpenStreetMap describes paths, which is nearly everywhere. Elevation gain is most accurate in France, the United States and Canada, where the app reads the national surveys. Elsewhere it uses a worldwide model, which is coarser.
Do I need a signal while running?
No. An area you've already downloaded stays on the device. On Apple Watch, the map is drawn from the route itself, with no network and no phone needed.
What about my watch?
TrailGen has an Apple Watch app, included in the unlock: routes saved on the iPhone arrive on it automatically, and you follow them from your wrist. For other watches, the GPX export is read by sports watches. An existing GPX can also be imported and measured.
What does the watch show while I run?
The route, the paths around it, and an arrow showing your heading. If you leave the route, a marker points back to it. Distance and vert appear underneath. The run is saved as a workout in Health; the app reads nothing from Health, so no heart rate is shown.
What does it cost?
The app is free on iPhone: two searches a day, the map, hand-drawn routes and GPX import. One purchase unlocks unlimited searches, GPX export, the Apple Watch app and nutrition plans. No subscription.
Find what climbs near where you live.
Free on iPhone. One purchase unlocks it all.
Download onApp StoreComing soonGoogle Play