If things are looking a bit bleak right now – lockdowns, short days, questionable weather – then at least we can all look forward to brighter days ahead, in all senses. If you had to gather your riding buddies and do your one favourite ride, what would it be? We want to know, and we’ve teamed up with komoot to pick our favourite UK routes. Tell us yours, and you could be in with a chance to win a Garmin Edge 1030 Plus worth £519! We have three to give away.

How’s this all going to work? Well, we want you to show us your favourite UK routes, and we’re going to pick our top road, gravel and mountain bike routes in cooperation with komoot and our colleagues over at off.road.cc. The reader who shares each winning route with us will win a Garmin Edge 1030 Plus, and the winners will also get a years’ subscription to komoot Premium. We’ll be riding the routes for a video series on our YouTube channel so you can all see how smashing they are.

komoot compo insert-pic-1
komoot compo insert-pic-1 (Image Credit: Farrelly Atkinson)

You’ll not be surprised to learn that we’ll be using the komoot platform to collate the entries for this competition. If you’ve never used komoot before then it’s a great multi-discipline planning and riding app. We reviewed it here and it has some neat features, especially a fully-featured route planner that gives you information on the surfaces you’ll be riding on. It also allows you to include highlights along the route that are added by the komoot community. 

Getting set up is simple: here’s a video showing you how to get going, if you’re not on the platform already. Make sure that you follow us on komoot: go to ‘find friends’ and search for ‘roadcc’. Here’s our profile: https://www.komoot.com/user/roadcc

How to enter

Once you’re set up on komoot, there are two ways to submit your favourite route.

If you’ve already ridden the route and it’s in your list of completed tours, you need to go into the tour and tag us. If you want to create the route from scratch then head to the route planner section of the site and get cracking! When you’ve finished your route, save it and use the invite function to connect us to the route. Whichever option you choose, we’ll get a notification and we’ll add you to the competition! If you keep your rides private on komoot you can still add us, without making the ride public. Whichever route you choose, make sure you comment on the route telling us what’s so great about it! Here are some of the road.cc team’s favourite days out…

Judging criteria

We’ll be picking three winners: a road ride, an off-road ride and a gravel ride. The panel of judges will include representatives from road.cc and komoot, and independent judges too. Different types of route have different sorts of highlights, but for the most part the way we judge them will be the same. Here are some things to consider.

Firstly: well, it has to be a great route, of course! If you’re planning a route from scratch then try to include highlights along the way. That will help the judges get a feel for what the route is like. If you’re submitting a saved route then make sure it includes photos or highlights. You can create your own highlights really easily, too; here’s a video showing you how.

Secondly, to help us out make sure that the ride is categorised correctly, so that we can split up all the entries easily. If you’ve saved your gravel ride as a road ride, then we might decide it’s not a great road route even though it’s a perfect day out on the gravel!

New to komoot? Have a region bundle on us!

Signing up to komoot is free. Normally when you sign up you can choose a single region of mapping to use on the komoot app. The smartphone app features turn-by-turn navigation, and maps can be stored offline so you’re not using your data or relying on a signal when you’re out and about. If you use the code ROAD*KOMOOT when you sign up you’ll get a free region bundle, normally costing £8.99. You’re welcome! Click here to sign up using our code. You can have all the world maps forever for a single payment of £29.99. For £4.99 a month you can upgrade to komoot Premium, which includes advanced planning tools, discipline-specific maps, weather updates and more.

Terms and conditions

The competition will be open for entries until midday on Monday 29 March. Employees of Farrelly Atkinson, komoot, their families, and agents are excluded from entering. The winners will be selected by a panel of judges including independent members, and notified using the email address associated with their komoot account. Farrelly Atkinson is not responsible for non-receipt of a winner’s email. Should a winner not respond within seven days of the sending of the winner’s notification, another may be selected at the sole discretion of Farrelly Atkinson. The names of the winners will be posted on road.cc and off.road.cc following the competition. The prize is as described above; no cash alternative will be offered.

Image credits:

Gary Butterfield, Illiya Vjestica, Nick Fewings, Didier Weemaels, Coen van de Broek, Larry Ferreira, Ian Cylkowski, Darren Cowie, Carter Moorse, Chris Kendall on Unsplash