ROUVY route creator: How to use the virtual reality cycling app to ride your favourite routes all year round

ROUVY is the indoor cycling platform which allows you to ride real routes from all around the world. From bucket list climbs to iconic cycling routes, to roads less ridden in far flung places. If you want to turn your indoor cycling training into a daily dose of escapism – ROUVY is the place to do that.

But a new feature, initially launched at the end of 2024, also means you can use ROUVY to film, upload and create an augmented reality version of your own favourite routes. Ever been away on a summer cycling trip and wish you could bottle up the routes to ride again once you’re back home? Or maybe you’re organising a sportive and you want to share the route with other riders ahead of time, in a far more engaging format? With the new ROUVY route creator, riding your favourite routes all year round just got easier.

What is the ROUVY route creator?

ROUVY already has a huge library of routes to pick from. And prior to the launch of the new route creator feature, users could film and upload a video of their favourite route and ride it on the platform with a first person view. But it was just that – a video. No immersive features or interactivity. The new route creator takes this to the next level, using AI technology to create a rideable 3D world from your video with shade, depth and accurate gradients along with reactivity to other riders/traffic. And you don’t need any sort of tech or graphic design skills to get going.

Once your video is uploaded and a 3D augmented reality version is generated, you can adjust everything from shadow positioning and where your avatar rides on the road. Through to adding banners and roadside fans to make your local loop feel like a grand tour stage. You can also add a start/finish line and set up splits or segments.

What are the benefits of the ROUVY route creator?

For some, the whole point of ROUVY is the escapism of being able to ride completely different roads and routes to the ones you’ve got on your own doorstep. But for others, the route creator could be a really handy tool.

If you’ve got a specific event or ride you’re training for and you’ve got the opportunity to recce it once in real life. Record it while you’re there, and then you can train on the route as much as you like once you get back home. Equally, if you head off on a summer adventure and ride a route you wish you could experience whenever, wherever you like. Record it on ROUVY and you’re basically bringing the route home with you!

Event organisers could also use the route creator as a far more accessible way to actually offer group recon rides of the courses – giving entrants to sportives and gran fondos the opportunity to recce the route on an organised virtual group ride ahead of the IRL event.

What’s also nice is that the route creator will mean the ROUVY community can share the very best of their own back yard. If people choose to make their uploads publicly available, you’ll be able to experience routes in all sorts of places that you wouldn’t know about. Local knowledge, goes global.

How to make your own routes on ROUVY

Sounds pretty cool, right? And the good news is, creating your own ROUVY routes is actually pretty straight forward. Here’s how to do it.

What you’ll need:

• GoPro camera with GPS
• Mount to position your camera on your bike handlebars – or to keep it steady on a motorbike or in a car
• Laptop/computer to use the ROUVY route creator app

Step by step instructions

Step 1: Record your route in real life. Currently a GoPro with GPS is the only compatible device for this, but ROUVY say compatibility with other devices is in the works. Make sure your GoPro is mounted to your handlebars (you can also record from a car or motorbike with the camera mounted) to get a smooth video.

Step 2: Download the ROUVY route creator app. The open beta version of the route creator is now available for anyone with an active or paused ROUVY subscription.

Step 3: Upload your recording into the app. Once the recording has uploaded, you can go ahead and smooth out any stops or interruptions that happened while you were filming (for example traffic lights or junctions). This will ensure you don’t have to relive the interruption every time you ride your route on ROUVY. Once you’re happy, you submit the route for processing. ROUVY takes your upload and turns it into a customisable 3D model

Step 4: Get creative and bring your route to life. It typically takes around 24hrs for processing to be completed. After that, you can open your route up in the creator app and start customising it. Adjust the shadows and lighting, add road furniture, change rider position. With the easy-to-use interface, you can have fun making your custom route just as engaging and immersive as ROUVY’s pre-loaded routes.

Step 5: Save and choose your privacy setting. Once you’ve finished tinkering, you can save your masterpiece and it gets uploaded to the ROUVY servers. You can choose whether to keep the route to yourself, or share it publicly so other ROUVY riders can join you.

And it’s as simple as that! With the summer starting to wind down, now is the perfect time to get out there, ride your favourite routes and record them for ROUVY so you can keep the good times rolling once the winter sets in.