
## Which Waypoints to Add: Water Sources, Resupply, Camp and Bail-Outs

Mark four kinds of waypoint in your route file before you leave home: water, resupply, camp and bail-outs. Bikepacking waypoints for water sources are the highest-stakes of the four, because water is the thing you cannot carry enough of and cannot improvise. Do it at the kitchen table, where you still have internet and patience.

The line on your map answers one question: which way. It says nothing about whether you can drink, eat, sleep or quit — and those are the four questions that decide how a bikepacking day ends.

So waypointing is not data entry. **It is pre-making decisions while you are rested, warm and online, so the tired version of you at 4 p.m. only has to read, not research.** It is the step in [bikepacking route planning](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide) that turns a file which navigates into a file that keeps you fed.

<Highlight label="The short version">
**Water.** Mark more sources than you need, and put the reliability in the name. A seasonal creek in September is not a water source.

**Resupply.** Stores, gas stations, cafes — but the opening hours are the data, not the dot. A shop you reach at 7 p.m. on a Sunday is not a resupply.

**Camp.** Two or three options per night, spread along the day, because your day will not land where you planned it.

**Bail-outs.** The junctions, ranger stations and trailheads that lead to a town — the class that turns a bad day into an inconvenience.

**Then name them properly.** `Waypoint 47` is a waypoint you will scroll past.
</Highlight>

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## The Four Things Worth Marking

Viewpoints, cool bridges and the bakery someone mentioned are decoration. Place these four first — they are the ones that change what you do next.

| Class | What to mark | How many | Failure mode if you skip it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Water | Springs, taps, spigots, streams, stores | Every plausible source | You ration, then gamble on an unknown source |
| Resupply | Groceries, gas stations, cafes, with hours | Every one in the corridor | You arrive at a closed door, ride tomorrow hungry |
| Camp | Established sites, dispersed areas, flat ground | Two or three per night, over 20-30 miles | You search for a site in the dark, the slowest search there is |
| Bail-out | Junctions to pavement, ranger stations, trailheads | One or two per riding day | A mechanical or a storm becomes an epic, not a shrug |

### Water: mark the reliability, not just the location

Water is where the map lies most confidently. A blue line is a cartographic convention, not a promise: the USGS Water Science Glossary defines a stream as a ["natural water course containing water at least part of the year"](https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/water-science-glossary). *At least part of the year* is doing enormous work there, and the part you are riding may not be it.

Springs tend to behave better because they are a different thing — groundwater surfacing where the ground ["intersects a flowing body of groundwater at or below the local water table"](https://www.usgs.gov/water-science-school/science/water-science-glossary), in the same glossary's words, rather than runoff that has already gone. Mark a spring and a seasonal creek differently even when they sit a mile apart.

So mark generously, and mark confidence rather than only coordinates. Every plausible source goes in — taps in cemeteries, campgrounds, town parks, gas stations — and we flag the ones we would plan a day around. **The failure mode is not finding a marked source dry. It is having only one, finding it dry, and having no second option in the file.** What to do with the water once you find it is a [water filtration](/posts/water-filtration-systems-bikepacking) question.

### Resupply: the opening hours are the data

The location of a rural grocery store is easy to find and nearly useless on its own. The useful fact is when the door is unlocked, and rural hours are short, idiosyncratic and seasonal.

So look them up while planning and put the closing time in the name as a number — not "check hours." A store is only a resupply if your realistic arrival lands inside its hours, which means the waypoint and the day plan have to be checked against each other.

Mark more than the one you intend to use: gas stations keep longer hours than groceries, and cafes exist where groceries do not. Which stops you lean on is the subject of our [resupply guide](/posts/bikepacking-resupply-guide). The waypoint's job is narrower — to tell you, without opening a menu, whether it is worth pushing for this one. **Skip the hours and the failure is always the same:** 55 miles planned around a store at mile 40, a slow day, arrival at 6:10 p.m., and the door locked since six.

### Camp spots: mark three, not one

A camp waypoint is a hypothesis, and single-hypothesis plans fail. You will not land where you planned — headwind, mechanical, a climb worse than its profile — so mark options at roughly 70, 100 and 120 percent of the distance you expect.

Three kinds are worth marking: established sites, dispersed areas where camping away from a site is legal, and "probably fine" ground you found on satellite imagery. Mark which is which — a picnic table and a flat spot behind a berm are different arrivals.

Dispersed-camping rules are what people get wrong, because they are local rather than national. The Forest Service's Intermountain Region guidance says plainly that ["rules listed below may vary by forest, some additional restrictions may apply and your stay maybe day limited"](https://www.fs.usda.gov/r04/recreation/dispersed-camping), with campsites "at least 200 feet from any stream or other water source." **Check the forest, district or agency that manages the ground you are marking** — a waypoint does not know which jurisdiction it landed in. Using the site is a [stealth camping](/posts/camp-security-stealth-camping-bikepacking) question.

### Bail-outs and shelter: the class that turns a bad day into an inconvenience

Most riders skip this class, and it earns its keep on the worst day of the trip. A bail-out is any point where you can stop being committed: a junction where pavement leads to a town, a ranger station, a trailhead with a parking lot and therefore car traffic.

Mark at least one per riding day, with the distance to whatever it leads to. `B-d3-junction-to-town-11mi` tells you in one glance whether bailing is a two-hour decision or a five-hour one — the number you want when the weather turns, and the number you will not go looking for.

Bail-outs are what make an unplanned detour recoverable rather than serious; [off-route recovery](/posts/bikepacking-off-route-recovery) covers the mechanics. When the nearest one is not reachable under your own power, [emergency communication with no cell signal](/posts/emergency-communication-no-cell-signal) stops being an abstraction.

<PullQuote>
The line answers "which way." Waypoints answer "can I stop, can I drink, can I eat, can I sleep" — and those are the questions that decide how the day ends.
</PullQuote>

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## Where the Waypoint Data Actually Comes From

Four sources, four reliability profiles. Knowing which one a dot came from is most of the skill.

**Official agency data** — forest and park services, state park systems, municipal parks departments. The best source for established campgrounds and developed water, and the only one authoritative about legality. Also incomplete: agencies document their own facilities, not the tap behind the volunteer fire department.

**Crowd-sourced databases** — the camping and water apps riders, hikers and overlanders contribute to. This is where dispersed sites and unofficial water come from, and there is no substitute for it. **Crowd-sourced water and camp data is the most useful and least reliable data in bikepacking.** An entry is one person's report from one day, and nothing makes it age honestly. Cross-check anything your day depends on, and carry margin anyway.

**Satellite imagery** — for confirming a structure, clearing or pull-off exists, and reading whether ground is flat, treed or exposed. Excellent at geometry, silent about permission, season and whether the building is abandoned.

**Mainstream mapping search** — the fastest route to opening hours and whether a business still trades. Those listings come from owners and user edits and go stale, especially out of season. For a stop your day depends on, the phone number is worth more than the hours.

Use agency data for what is legal, crowd-sourced for what exists, imagery for what it looks like. **The data that is easiest to collect is the data most often wrong.**

<SectionDivider variant="ornamental" />

## Getting the Waypoints into the GPX File

GPX is an open XML format published by Topografix, and its schema is worth five minutes because it explains why waypoints and routes behave differently on a device.

In the [GPX 1.1 schema documentation](https://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/), a `wpt` "represents a waypoint, point of interest, or named feature on a map," while a `trk` is "a track - an ordered list of points describing a path." The consequence confuses everyone: **a waypoint is a standalone object that happens to sit near your line, not a part of the line.** It does not know what mile of your ride it falls at.

Some platforms also let you attach a point to a position along the course itself, which is what lets a device count down the distance and prompt you on approach. Two different objects, confusingly similar names, and on most head units only the second one alerts you.

The vocabulary makes it worse. Garmin's Edge 840 manual defines a course as ["a sequence of waypoints or locations that leads you to your final destination"](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-16B12CFE-F96E-4DE9-9F5F-8C4A5936D3B9/EN-US/GUID-AB1BC8CE-AD01-40E5-AF83-B1590443166E.html) — a different use of "waypoint" than the schema's — and on that unit the alerting you can switch on sits among the course options. That manual's course options include Off Course Warnings, which ["alerts you if you stray from the course"](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-16B12CFE-F96E-4DE9-9F5F-8C4A5936D3B9/EN-US/GUID-5FB6AF7B-6157-4AFC-B82B-C3AEED568646.html) — about the course, not your water points. Randonneurs USA, in its guidance for the Ride with GPS route files behind its permanents, is blunter: ["Placing a POI does not create a cue entry! POIs have no influence on the route track or cues!"](https://rusa.org/pages/guidelines-rusa-permanents-ride-gps-route-files)

Three ways in, mechanically. Drop points by hand in a planning app, fine for a weekend and tedious for two weeks. Import a batch, since most planners read a GPX containing waypoints. Or edit the file directly, the only sane way to fix names in bulk, covered in [how to build a GPX route](/posts/how-to-build-gpx-route-bikepacking). Then get it onto the head unit, which has its own failure modes — see [loading a route onto a Garmin, Wahoo or Coros](/posts/loading-gpx-garmin-wahoo-coros).

<Warning title="Devices drop waypoints quietly">
Head units cap how many points they store and draw at once, and the caps vary by model and firmware. Manufacturer documentation rarely publishes a per-model cap you can plan against, so treat any figure from a forum as a rumour about someone else's device.

**The failure mode matters more than the number.** Over the cap a file can still load, with some points missing, no error and no warning — you find out when the water waypoint you were counting on is not in the list at mile 48. So load the real file on the real device before you leave and check by name that day two and day five are intact. One file per day mostly sidesteps it.
</Warning>

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## Naming Waypoints So They Work at 4 p.m.

This is the part nobody writes about, and it decides whether the rest of the work pays off. Your device shows a short, truncated name in a small font, in a list, possibly in the rain. **The name has to answer the question on its own, because a waypoint's notes are three menu levels deep and you will not go there.** Use four parts: a type prefix, the day, the thing, and the one fact that decides the stop.

- `W-d2-spring-reliable` — water, day two, a spring, and we believe it.
- `W-d2-creek-seasonal` — same day, same class, explicitly not to be relied on.
- `R-d2-store-closes6` — resupply, day two, a store, shuts at six.
- `C-d2-dispersed-flat` — camp, day two, dispersed, flat ground.
- `B-d2-road-to-town-8mi` — bail-out, day two, a road, eight miles to town.

Each part earns its place. **The single-letter prefix** survives truncation and groups the list, so if your device sorts alphabetically, every water point sits together. **The day number** makes a long list navigable — you never want all the water, only today's. **The noun** tells you what you are walking up to, which decides whether you unclip. **The last element is the decision**, which is why it has to be the fact and not the category: `closes6` is a decision, `check-hours` is a chore.

Two rules we would not bend. Put the decision-critical fact in the name and nowhere else, because a fact in a notes field is a fact you do not have. And write it as a number where one exists — `8mi`, `closes6`, `200ft-off-road` — because numbers survive being read badly.

<Tip title="The density rule: close enough to matter, sparse enough to read">
Enough waypoints that the next one is always within a comfortable half-day of riding, and few enough that the map stays legible when you zoom out to see the afternoon.

Those pull opposite ways, so cull before you export rather than while you plan: collect everything, then delete the third cafe in a town you will clear in ten minutes and keep the lone tap in the 40-mile gap. Density follows from [how many miles per day to plan](/posts/bikepacking-daily-mileage-planning) — a 35-mile gravel day and a 70-mile pavement day do not need the same spacing between the same two towns.
</Tip>

## What the Waypoints Still Will Not Tell You

A waypoint says nothing about the ground between it and the last one, and that ground decides whether you get there before dark. Two water sources 30 miles apart are a comfortable morning on hardpack and a committing stretch on loose doubletrack, so settle the surface before the spacing — [finding real gravel](/posts/bikepacking-surface-routing-gravel) covers reading what is under the tyres.

Nor do waypoints carry their own map. Download the whole corridor rather than the line, so a bail-out 11 miles off route still has tiles under it — see [offline maps with no signal](/posts/bikepacking-offline-maps-no-signal).

## The Pre-Trip Test

Fifteen minutes at home catches nearly everything. Load the finished file onto the device you are actually taking and put it in airplane mode, so it cannot quietly pull anything from your phone. Scroll to day two and answer three questions at arm's length: where is the next water, when does the day-two resupply close, and where do I go if I stop.

If you cannot answer those in ten seconds at the kitchen table, you will not answer them on a roadside in wet gloves. That is a naming problem, and you found it while it is still free to fix.

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## Waypoints Are Decisions You Already Made

A route file without waypoints tells you where to go and nothing about whether the day is survivable. Four classes of point — water with its reliability, resupply with its hours, two or three camp options, a bail-out per day — turn an hour at a desk into a dozen decisions you will not make while tired.

**The test of a good waypoint is not accuracy. It is that reading it changes what you do.** `Waypoint 47` fails. `R-d2-store-closes6` has already told you whether to take the long lunch.

For the rest of the workflow this sits inside — drawing the line, checking the surface, sizing the days, loading the file — see our complete guide to [planning a bikepacking route](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide).


Mapping Water, Resupply and Camp Spots onto Your Route


## How to Load a GPX File onto a Garmin, Wahoo or Coros

To load a GPX file onto a Garmin Edge, connect it to a computer and copy the file into the Garmin folder's NewFiles directory, then safely disconnect — Garmin says the device processes what it finds there and converts it for use. On a Wahoo ELEMNT or a Coros DURA the documented import path runs through your phone instead: you open the file on your phone, choose the brand's app, and let the app push the route to the head unit.

That sounds like trivia until day four, when the laptop is at home and motel wifi is the only connection you have. These three ecosystems do not just have different menus. They have different **transfer philosophies**, and the one you practised at the kitchen table may not be the one available on the road. If you are still upstream of this — deciding where the file comes from at all — start with [how to plan a bikepacking route](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide) and come back once you have something to load.

This article covers only the last step: moving a finished file onto a device.

<Highlight label="The short version">
**Garmin** is the only one of the three that still behaves like a storage device. Plugged into a computer it appears as a portable device, a removable drive or a removable volume, and a file placed in the Garmin folder's NewFiles directory is processed once you safely disconnect. It also syncs courses from Garmin Connect.

**Wahoo** is app-mediated by design. Routes reach an ELEMNT either from a linked third-party account or by opening a route file on your phone in the Wahoo app. Wahoo lists an internet connection for the app as a requirement.

**Coros** works the same way: open the GPX in the COROS app, save it, then sync it to the device from the Explore page.

**The practical difference:** Garmin is the only one of the three that documents an import procedure needing no account and no connection — and it needs a computer and a cable to use it.
</Highlight>

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## First, Is It a Track or a Route?

A GPX file can hold a bare track — a breadcrumb line of coordinates — or a route carrying routing intent and turn cues. What your head unit does after the transfer depends heavily on which one you handed it, and no amount of correct button-pressing fixes a file that never contained cues.

Wahoo is unusually explicit about this. Its documentation states that route files only carry embedded cues when synced over Wi-Fi or over Bluetooth from RideWithGPS or Komoot, and that on ROAM v1/v2 and BOLT v2 the unit generates turn-by-turn itself for files without embedded cues, up to a 200 km limit ([Wahoo Fitness Support](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/21692905750290-Routes-for-ELEMNT-computers)).

So decide what you need before you transfer anything. If you want spoken or beeped turn prompts rather than a line to trace, the file's contents settle that. We cover the distinction properly in [how to build a GPX route](/posts/how-to-build-gpx-route-bikepacking); everything below assumes your file is already the kind you want.

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## Garmin: The One That Still Looks Like a Flash Drive

Garmin gives you two documented paths, and they fail in different circumstances — which is exactly why it is worth knowing both.

### The folder drop

Garmin's support instructions for manually installing a file onto an Edge are short: connect the device to the computer, navigate to the Edge drive, select the Garmin folder, then the NewFiles folder, place the file there, and safely disconnect. Garmin adds that the device then processes the files in NewFiles and converts them into .fit files for use, and that compatible Edge units can import .crs, .fit, .gpx and .tcx files this way ([Garmin Customer Support](https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=rzvP53Si4O3barYoXzw5L7)).

```
Garmin\NewFiles
```

The Edge owner's manual describes how the device presents itself: depending on your operating system it appears as "a portable device, a removable drive, or a removable volume," and most file types have a named folder within the Garmin folder ([Edge 1040 Owner's Manual](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-0083D0A0-EA6E-41F0-8207-3F1498875E61/EN-US/GUID-50017E96-C40C-471D-BE61-3A0C09E93916.html)).

Two details do most of the damage when people skip them:

- **Disconnecting properly is part of the procedure.** Garmin's steps end with safely disconnecting the device, and it is after that disconnect that the Edge processes NewFiles into a usable course. Garmin's published steps do not include a reboot; if a file never appears, power-cycling is the usual next thing riders try, but the documented trigger is the disconnect ([Garmin Customer Support](https://support.garmin.com/en-US/?faq=rzvP53Si4O3barYoXzw5L7)).
- **Macs are a special case.** Garmin states that Mac operating systems do not detect the device by default and that you must use Garmin Express software to interact with files on it ([Edge 1040 Owner's Manual](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-0083D0A0-EA6E-41F0-8207-3F1498875E61/EN-US/GUID-50017E96-C40C-471D-BE61-3A0C09E93916.html)). If your only laptop is a MacBook, "just drag the file over" involves installing software first — do that at home, not in a campground.

Where the route then shows up on the unit varies by model. Look in the navigation or courses area rather than trusting a menu tree someone wrote for a different Edge three firmware versions ago.

### The Garmin Connect path

The second path goes through Garmin's cloud. You need a Garmin Connect account; then create and save a new course or select an existing one, choose **Send to Device** on the Garmin Connect website or the equivalent control in the Garmin Connect app, and pick your Edge ([Edge 1040 Owner's Manual](https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webhelp/GUID-0083D0A0-EA6E-41F0-8207-3F1498875E61/EN-US/GUID-3E9F932E-22BF-4454-8520-1EFCA047EF87.html)).

The tradeoff is clean. The folder drop needs a computer and a cable but no account and no signal. Connect needs an account and a connection but no computer. On a long trip you will probably want both set up before you go.

<PullQuote>
Garmin's offline path is real, and it requires the one thing you deliberately left at home.
</PullQuote>

<SectionDivider variant="ornamental" />

## Wahoo: The App Is the Cable

Wahoo's ELEMNT line is configured and fed through its companion app rather than by dragging files onto a drive. Wahoo documents two ways to get an outside route onto an ELEMNT ([Wahoo Fitness Support](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/20582927265042-Import-and-delete-routes-to-ELEMNT-computers)):

1. **Link a third-party account.** Authorize Komoot, RideWithGPS, Strava or Trailforks in the app, then sync your whole route library to the computer over Wi-Fi, or push a single route over Bluetooth.
2. **Open a file on your phone.** Download the .GPX, .TCX or .FIT file to the phone, open it, and select the Wahoo app when asked which app to use. That imports the route into your Wahoo account, from where it loads onto the computer.

Two requirements in that documentation matter more to bikepackers than to commuters. Wahoo lists **an internet connection for the app** under requirements for single-route importing and syncing, and a local Wi-Fi network for the computer itself when bulk-syncing a route library. And for the newer ELEMNT ACE, BOLT 3 and ROAM 3, Wahoo is blunt about why: your phone needs a data connection "so that the Wahoo app can upload the route file into the Wahoo Cloud to be converted into a viable route" ([Wahoo Fitness Support](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/25936827245970-Import-a-FIT-GPX-or-TCX-route-file-via-the-Wahoo-app-for-ELEMNT-ACE-BOLT-3-and-ROAM-3)).

Read that again with a dead zone in mind. The file can be on your phone, fully downloaded, and still not become a route until something reaches the internet.

Worth knowing before you build a workflow around it: **the ELEMNT app does not contain a route builder.** Wahoo says so directly — to create a route manually you use a third-party service like Komoot, RideWithGPS or Strava ([Wahoo Fitness Support](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/21692905750290-Routes-for-ELEMNT-computers)). Wahoo's route documentation describes only these app-mediated import paths. A USB connection does exist: Wahoo documents that an ELEMNT, BOLT 1/2 or ROAM 1/2 connected to a computer with a USB data cable supports file transfer over MTP for ride files and for route files in GPX or TCX, with routes kept in a routes folder ([Wahoo Fitness Support](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/115000127910-Connect-an-ELEMNT-BOLT-1-2-or-ROAM-1-2-to-a-desktop-laptop-computer)). That page is written around getting files off the device, and Wahoo's own route-import instructions are the app ones, so we would not build a trip around copying a route on over USB.

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## Coros: Import in the App, Then Sync to the Device

Coros is also account-and-app centric, and its documentation is refreshingly concrete. To import an outside route, Coros says to download the route in GPX format, select the file, choose the COROS app when prompted, and press Save. To get it onto a DURA: open the Explore page, select the route library icon in the top right, open the route, tap **Sync with Your Device**, then **Send** ([COROS Help Center](https://support.coros.com/hc/en-us/articles/26895703330196-Downloading-and-Syncing-Routes-to-DURA)).

Coros also syncs automatically from linked Strava, Komoot or Ride with GPS accounts, with the synced routes landing in the Route Library on the Explore page.

On size, Coros gives numbers instead of vagueness. It states there is **no size limit** for routes synced to DURA, but recommends keeping them under **2,000 kilometres, 100 MB, and fewer than 200 waypoints** for best performance and processing speed ([COROS Help Center](https://support.coros.com/hc/en-us/articles/26895703330196-Downloading-and-Syncing-Routes-to-DURA)). For any other brand, check your own device's documented limit rather than assuming these transfer.

One more Coros caution, aimed at exactly the kind of file bikepackers collect from route websites and forum posts: the files should be originally created in standard GPX format and come from trusted sources, because importing non-standard GPX files "may result in data issues" ([COROS Help Center](https://support.coros.com/hc/en-us/articles/360040243352-Troubleshooting-GPX-Route-Imports-for-Breadcrumb-Navigation)).

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## Loading a Route Without a Computer

This is the section that actually decides your trip. Strip out the laptop and the picture changes for every brand.

**Wahoo and Coros are already phone-native** — their documented import path starts with a file on your phone. But both lean on a connection. Wahoo requires internet for the app to import or sync a single route, and Coros's import and sync flow runs through the app and your account. Hotel wifi is usually enough. A gravel road at dusk is not.

**Garmin is the inversion.** Its no-account path is the one that needs hardware, and its phone path needs an account and a connection. If you are Garmin-based and travelling without a computer, treat Garmin Connect as your transfer mechanism and make sure you can log into it before you leave.

The cleanest workaround for all three is a **cloud planning account that the device already talks to.** Komoot, RideWithGPS and Strava are the names that recur across Wahoo's and Coros's own documentation, and once linked, tomorrow's route is a sync rather than a file-handling exercise. Choosing which one to live in is its own decision — we compare them in [the best bikepacking navigation apps](/posts/best-bikepacking-navigation-apps).

Then there is the fallback everybody forgets: **email the GPX to yourself before you leave.** An attachment in your inbox is retrievable from any borrowed device and survives a wiped phone, a dead head unit and an app that logs you out. Cheap insurance, zero setup.

Finally, do not let the head unit be the only copy of the plan. Keep [offline maps on your phone](/posts/bikepacking-offline-maps-no-signal) so a failed transfer means squinting at a small screen rather than guessing at a junction. A phone-primary setup is a legitimate choice rather than a downgrade; if you go that way, sort out mounting and weather protection first with our guide to [phone navigation mounts](/posts/phone-navigation-mounts-bikepacking). Either way, charging is the constraint that eventually bites — see [how to keep a GPS and phone alive on tour](/posts/navigating-with-power-the-best-portable-charger-for-your-phone-and-gps). And if the whole navigation stack goes down somewhere without coverage, your plan should not depend on it at all, which is the argument for a satellite-based [way to call for help without cell signal](/posts/emergency-communication-no-cell-signal). A paper map and compass backup deserves its own conversation, and so does getting back on course after a wrong turn.

## What Gets Lost in Transfer

A file that loads is not the same as a file that works. Expect the following, and check for them before the ride rather than during it.

**Turn guidance, if the file never had it.** This is the big one, and Wahoo's documentation spells out the mechanics: cues survive only on certain sync paths, and where the device generates its own guidance there are documented distance limits.

**Waypoint names.** Long, descriptive names — the kind you use for mapping water and camp waypoints — commonly come across truncated or renamed on small-screen head units. We would keep names short and unambiguous rather than relying on the device to preserve them.

**Notes and cue sheets.** Free-text notes attached to a route in a planning app frequently do not survive export to a plain GPX at all. If a note matters, it belongs in your phone notes or on paper.

**Elevation figures.** Many devices recompute elevation and climb data from their own map or barometric data, so the total on the head unit may not match the number the planner showed you. That is normal, not a failed transfer.

<Warning title="Four ways this goes wrong on the road">
**The route loads but never prompts a turn.** Almost always a track rather than a cue-carrying route, or a sync path that stripped the cues. Check for prompts at home, not at the first junction.

**Storage full of two seasons of old routes.** Devices do have limits, and old courses accumulate silently. Clear them before a trip rather than discovering the ceiling in a motel car park — and check your device's documented limit rather than guessing.

**A track too dense for the unit.** Very long or very high-resolution files can be simplified or refused. Coros publishes recommended ceilings for DURA; if your brand does not, keep files to single days rather than one continent-sized line.

**The route only exists inside an app that wants you to log in.** No signal, no login, no route. Have the raw GPX somewhere retrievable — an email to yourself, or a copy already on the device.
</Warning>

<Tip title="The pre-trip drill, 20 minutes at the kitchen table">
Load **every day's file** before you leave, not just day one. Then put the head unit in airplane mode, open each route, and confirm it draws, names itself sensibly and prompts a turn if it is supposed to. Airplane mode is the point: it proves the route is genuinely on the device rather than being fetched live. Fold this into the same session as your [pre-trip bike inspection checklist](/posts/pre-trip-bike-inspection-checklist) so it actually happens.
</Tip>

<SectionDivider variant="ornamental" />

## Load Everything Before You Leave

The honest summary is that none of these three systems is bad, but only one of them documents an import path that is genuinely independent of a connection, and it is the one that asks for a cable. Garmin gives you a folder and a safe disconnect. Wahoo and Coros give you a phone and an account, which is more convenient nine days out of ten and useless on the tenth.

So build for the tenth day. Pick your transfer path deliberately, practise it at home on the device you are actually taking, and load every file before departure. If you are still choosing the hardware itself, our comparison of [the best cycling computers for bikepacking](/posts/best-cycling-computers-bikepacking) weighs battery life and map handling against exactly these transfer differences. And for everything that comes before the transfer — drawing the line, checking resupply, building the days — go back to [our route planning and navigation guide](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide).


How to Load a GPX Route onto a Garmin, Wahoo or Coros


## How to Make a GPX File for Bikepacking, and the One Thing That Trips People Up

A GPX file is a plain text document written in XML — you can open one in a text editor and read it. To make a GPX file for bikepacking you draw a line in a route planner, export it as GPX, and copy it to a bike computer or phone. Ten minutes of work. The expensive part is not knowing what kind of line you exported.

Almost every bikepacking route you download is a **track**: a dense breadcrumb of recorded points with no turn instructions attached. A **route** is a sparse list of points a device navigates between, deriving the turns itself. Both live inside a `.gpx` file and behave completely differently on a handlebar. That mismatch is why a file that looks perfect on the map gives no turn guidance on the road.

Splitting, merging, reversing, cleaning up somebody else's file — all of it gets easier once you can tell which of the two you are holding. Still deciding where to ride? Start with our guide to [planning a bikepacking route](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide).

<Highlight label="The short version">
**Draw it** in a bike GPX route planner and export GPX — the fastest path, and the one most likely to hand you turn directions for free. Then check what came out: a track is breadcrumbs, a route is turn points, and downloaded bikepacking routes are almost always tracks.

**Split it into days** before you leave, cut where you will actually sleep, named `day-1-of-4.gpx`.

**Merge** only for one genuinely continuous file, and **reverse** in a planner that rebuilds the directions rather than a text editor that flips point order.

**Check your device's documented point limit** before loading anything long, then look at the line zoomed out.
</Highlight>

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## Track vs Route vs Waypoint: The Distinction Nobody Explains

GPX is an XML file format for storing coordinate data, and it holds waypoints, tracks and routes, per the [OpenStreetMap wiki](https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/GPX). Three containers, one file extension — the root of the confusion.

The [GPX 1.1 schema documentation](https://www.topografix.com/gpx/1/1/) is precise about it. A route (`rte`) is "an ordered list of waypoints representing a series of turn points leading to a destination." A track (`trk`) is "an ordered list of points describing a path," subdivided into track segments (`trkseg`) that each hold "a list of Track Points which are logically connected in order." A waypoint (`wpt`) "represents a waypoint, point of interest, or named feature on a map."

Here is a track, trimmed to three points, with illustrative coordinates:

```xml
<trk>
  <name>day-1-of-4</name>
  <trkseg>
    <trkpt lat="44.100000" lon="-121.500000"><ele>1210.4</ele></trkpt>
    <trkpt lat="44.100120" lon="-121.499710"><ele>1211.9</ele></trkpt>
    <trkpt lat="44.100260" lon="-121.499380"><ele>1213.1</ele></trkpt>
  </trkseg>
</trk>
```

Three points, and you have moved about the length of a driveway. A multi-day route holds tens of thousands of them. A route element does the same job with a fraction of the data:

```xml
<rte>
  <name>example-route</name>
  <rtept lat="44.100000" lon="-121.500000"><name>Trailhead</name></rtept>
  <rtept lat="44.140000" lon="-121.430000"><name>Forest road junction</name></rtept>
</rte>
```

From the same schema: `ele` and `time` are optional, carrying `minOccurs="0"`. A perfectly valid GPX can arrive with no elevation and no timestamps — remember that next time a planner says your ride has zero climbing.

### Why your bike computer cares

On a Garmin Edge, the thing you follow is a **course**, and with a plain GPX track the device generates turn prompts from the line itself rather than reading them out of your file. Riders on the [Garmin Edge 1040 forum](https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-1040-series/332907/differences-between-a-course-and-a-route) put it plainly: a course is a track you navigate along, a route is a path the device calculates itself. An [Edge 530 thread](https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-530/170372/turning-of-turn-by-turn-navigation-on-a-course) adds a detail worth knowing at a trailhead: turn-by-turn has to be set before you start the course, not once you are rolling.

Wahoo puts the same behaviour in writing. [Wahoo's support documentation for ELEMNT routes](https://support.wahoofitness.com/hc/en-us/articles/21692905750290-Routes-for-ELEMNT-computers) states that ROAM and BOLT v2 units auto-generate turn-by-turn cues for route files that do not contain them, up to 200 km, and that routes imported from Strava contain no cues at all — with the original ELEMNT and BOLT v1 unable to generate them.

So: **a downloaded GPX track gives you a line, and any turn instructions are your device's invention.** Fine on a forest road at 9 mph, irritating in a town with five-way junctions. Our rundown of [GPS navigation devices for bikepacking](/posts/gps-navigation-devices-bikepacking) covers which units guess well.

<PullQuote>
A track is a picture of where somebody went. A route is a set of instructions. Your device treats them differently, and so should you.
</PullQuote>

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## Three Ways to Create a Bike Route, and Which One Most People Should Use

### Draw it in a planner

A bike GPX route planner puts routable map data under your clicks, snaps the line to real roads and trails, and builds a cue sheet as it goes. That last part is the reason to prefer it: the directions come from map data rather than geometry guessed later.

The tradeoff is that a routing engine believes the map. It does not know a forest road is gated in April, that a "track" is 4 inches of sand, or that a bridge washed out. We compared the planners in [the best bikepacking navigation apps](/posts/best-bikepacking-navigation-apps).

### Record it from a ride

Turn on a computer, ride, export the track. The only method that proves the surface exists, because you were on it. The cost is cleanup: a raw recording is point-dense, includes both wrong turns, and contains the eleven minutes you stood outside a gas station. It carries no directions at all — the purest example of a track.

### Download it and adapt it

What most people should do. Route curators have already found the gravel, the water, and the legal camping.

[BIKEPACKING.com's guide to using routes](https://bikepacking.com/plan/using-routes/) explains that you download the GPX from the box below the map, and that the file includes the points of interest shown on the embedded map, saved as waypoints. Those waypoints are the most valuable thing in the download — somebody's field knowledge about water and resupply, which is exactly what our [bikepacking resupply guide](/posts/bikepacking-resupply-guide) tells you to plan around. Starting from zero, our list of [beginner bikepacking routes in the US](/posts/best-beginner-bikepacking-routes-us) will get you a file worth adapting.

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## How to Split a GPX Route Into Day-Sized Files

The highest-value edit you will make, and the one most riders skip. Four reasons to split a GPX route:

1. **Device handling.** Long files load slower, redraw slower, and are likelier to hit a limit.
2. **Clarity.** A screen showing today's 58 miles is legible. A screen showing all 340 is decoration.
3. **Battery.** A device redrawing a shorter line does less work, and battery is the real constraint on a multi-day trip — see our notes on [charging a phone and GPS on the road](/posts/navigating-with-power-the-best-portable-charger-for-your-phone-and-gps).
4. **Resumability.** Bail at lunch and you want to load day 3 tomorrow, not scrub a 340-mile file.

Ride with GPS builds this in. Its [help article on splitting, combining and changing routes](https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4419016103835-Split-Combine-or-Change-an-Existing-Route) describes a split tool that breaks a long route into as many smaller routes as you want without altering the original, recommends it specifically for multi-day tours and bikepacking, and notes the new routes carry over points of interest within 3 miles of the track line. Ride with GPS's [advanced route planning documentation](https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4415470200859-Advanced-Route-Planning) adds that deleting a section from the middle of a route splits it into two — a legitimate way to cut a segment out. Those advanced planning tools are unlocked with a Premium membership.

### Split at a place, not at a mileage

Cut the file where you will actually stop: a campground, a motel, a town with a store. Splitting at "mile 60" ends a file mid-climb and starts tomorrow at a point you must navigate to first. If the overnight is a dispersed site half a mile off the line, split at the junction, not the camp.

<Tip title="Name the files so you can find them in the dark">
Use `day-1-of-4.gpx`, `day-2-of-4.gpx`, and so on. The "of 4" matters — it tells you at a glance whether the list on your device is complete before you leave cell service. Add nothing else. A file called `Big_Sky_Loop_FINAL_v3_edited(2).gpx` is unreadable on a 2.6-inch screen. The same day-by-day discipline runs through our [weekend bikepacking checklist](/posts/weekend-bikepacking-two-day-essentials).
</Tip>

<SectionDivider variant="ornamental" />

## How to Merge GPX Segments, and When to Leave Them Split

The same Ride with GPS article covers combining routes alongside splitting them. Merge when the split is an artifact rather than a decision: you planned one day in two halves because the planner struggled with the middle, or you stitched a curated route to a homemade approach from the train station. One riding day, one file. Do not merge across a rest day, a ferry, a shuttle, or a section you plan to skip — those boundaries are information.

**The failure mode is the gap.** If the last point of segment A is not the same place as the first point of segment B, most tools join them anyway, with a straight line through whatever is in between. Zoom out after every merge — that line is obvious at low zoom and invisible at high zoom, which is exactly the wrong way round.

## Reversing a Route Is Not Just Playing the File Backwards

For a bare track with no directions, reversing is trivial: flip the order of the points and ride. For anything with cues attached it is not, for two reasons — turn instructions describe turns in one direction, and one-way segments stay one-way.

Ride with GPS handles this by rebuilding rather than flipping. Its [advanced route planning documentation](https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4415470200859-Advanced-Route-Planning) describes a Reverse Route function that rebuilds the route in reverse order using the existing control points while allowing for one-way streets, and warns the result may change slightly where the original uses one-way streets. The cue sheet keeps up: [Route Planning 101](https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4415462488475-Route-Planning-101) notes that when you change a route, the cues update automatically.

That is why we would reverse in a planner, not a file editor: a text-level reverse gives you the correct line and directions for a ride you are not doing. For an out-and-back, export the return leg as its own file and check it on the device first.

<SectionDivider variant="trail" />

## How to Edit and Clean Up a GPX File Somebody Else Drew

None of this needs a subscription. The [gpx.studio app listing](https://workspace.google.com/marketplace/app/gpxstudio_the_online_gpx_editor/666808960580) describes a free browser-based editor that adds, moves and deletes track points, reverses traces, merges traces, extracts segments, reduces track point count, and adds elevation data to traces missing it.

### Fix, or ignore, the elevation

Elevation is a commonly broken field in a downloaded GPX and, on the road, one of the least important — your legs do not read the file. Some phones and GPS units do not record it accurately, which is why [Ride with GPS offers a Replace Elevation Data function](https://support.ridewithgps.com/hc/en-us/articles/4444266900763-Replace-Elevation) that swaps every elevation value in a ride for a worldwide dataset.

Note the caveat [cycle.travel raises about modelled elevation](https://cycle.travel/help/route_planning/elevation): the numbers come from a worldwide grid that is looked up point by point, it "doesn't take any account of tunnels or bridges, where you're not riding at ground level," and in a steep-sided valley the road can appear further up the hill than it actually is. You get a smoother profile, not a truer one.

### Thin a point-dense track

[GPSBabel's simplify filter](https://www.gpsbabel.org/htmldoc-1.10.0/filter_simplify.html) exists for this exact job — its documentation describes it as a way to simplify routes and tracks for use with formats that limit the number of points they can contain, and its crosstrack method discards points that sit close enough to the line between their neighbours that the shape barely moves. You cap the output by count — GPSBabel's example `count=50` leaves 50 points or fewer — or by a maximum allowable deviation.

Point limits are the highest-risk number here, and device-specific enough that you should look yours up rather than trust a blog. The shape of the problem: a [Garmin fēnix forum thread](https://forums.garmin.com/outdoor-recreation/outdoor-recreation-archive/f/fenix-5-plus-series/163730/200-course-point-max-exceeded-final-79-points-will-not-be-shown) quotes the on-device message "200 course point max. exceeded, final 79 points will not be shown," and an [Edge 530 thread](https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fitness/cycling/f/edge-530/365195/why-is-there-a-200-point-limit-on-courses-and-routes) asks why the same ceiling covers courses and routes. Course points are a FIT and TCX concept rather than a GPX one, so that is not a track-point limit — but every device has a documented ceiling, and finding it at home is cheaper. Still choosing a unit? Start with [the best cycling computers for bikepacking](/posts/best-cycling-computers-bikepacking).

### Trim the ends and check the waypoints

Recorded tracks often open with a stray point where the device got its first fix in a parking lot three blocks away. Delete it — it is one point, and it is the point your device navigates you to first.

Then check the waypoints. If the download included water, camp and resupply markers, confirm they survived the export and the split — they are the part you would most regret losing.

<Warning title="Three ways a GPX ruins a morning">
**Too many points.** A raw recording of a multi-day route can carry tens of thousands of track points. Thin it, split it, check it against your device's documented limit.

**The wrong file for the device.** A track has no turn instructions in it. If your unit does not generate its own — Wahoo documents that the original ELEMNT and BOLT v1 do not — you get a line and nothing else. Confirm that at home, on a short local file.

**An unclosed edit.** Delete a section badly and you get one file with a straight line across a valley or a mountain range. Ride with GPS documents that deleting a mid-route section produces two routes, which is the right answer. Whatever tool you use, zoom all the way out before exporting.
</Warning>

<SectionDivider variant="rule" />

## What to Do Before You Leave

Five minutes at a laptop buys real goodwill on day three.

1. **Confirm what the file is.** Open it in a text editor and look for `trkpt` or `rtept`. That is the whole test.
2. **Split it into days**, cut where you will actually sleep, named `day-1-of-4.gpx` through `day-4-of-4.gpx`.
3. **Thin it if it is dense**, and check the count against your device's documented limit.
4. **Look at it on the device**, not the laptop you built it on.
5. **Carry a backup** — a second device, offline maps, or paper. A file is not a plan.

Loading those files onto a Garmin, Wahoo or Coros is its own small ordeal, and we will cover it separately — along with finding real gravel and mapping water and camp spots.

The file is not sacred. It is text, you can read it, and a stranger's route becomes yours the moment you cut it into your days and put your own overnight points in it. For the rest of the picture — choosing the app, the device, and what to do when the screen goes dark — see our guide to [route planning and navigation for bikepacking](/posts/bikepacking-route-planning-navigation-guide).


gpx

Mapping Water, Resupply and Camp Spots onto Your Route

How to Load a GPX Route onto a Garmin, Wahoo or Coros

How to Build a GPX Route for Bikepacking: Create, Edit, Split and Merge