Import & Export

Loading a route file

Load a route to begin searching for places along it. GPX is the most common, but it is not the only format PitStopper reads.

What you can load

• GPX - the usual exchange format, written by almost every planner and GPS device
• FIT - Garmin course and activity files, straight off the device
• GPZ - a zipped GPX, as Cruiser, Locus Map and GPX Viewer write it. If it carries icons, see Icons in a .gpz below
• KML and KMZ - Google Earth and Google My Maps
• PSP - a PitStopper project: the route, everything found along it, and your own edits (see Saving your work)

Uploading

• Drag the file onto the drop zone, or click it to browse
• The file is read in your browser - it is never uploaded to a server
• Load several route files at once and each becomes its own route (see Adding routes)
• The route is drawn on the map with start and finish flags and direction arrows

Multiple Tracks & Routes

If your GPX (or FIT) file contains more than one track - a multi-stage event, say, or a file holding several rides - PitStopper offers to import each track as its own route rather than merging them into one. Each becomes a separate route with its own name, colour and statistics. See Multi-Route Support for what you can then do with them.

Import Summary

When a file finishes loading, an Import Summary shows the route's distance, elevation gain and how many waypoints/POIs it contained. If the file has timing data, you can set its starting time right there (or later, in Starting time & average pace).

Imported Navigation Data (Turn-by-Turn, Viapoints, Surface)

Some GPX tracks carry more than a line. Tracks exported for turn-by-turn navigation - typically built by BRouter and read by Cruiser and Locus Map - tuck the navigation itself inside the trackpoints: which way to turn, your named stops, even whether the surface is paved or not. Most tools throw all of that away on import. PitStopper keeps it.

When you load a track like this, PitStopper sets the flattened line aside for its own charts and distances but also holds on to the original track in full. On export it writes that track back unchanged, so a round-tripped file is still a working navigation track - every turn cue, viapoint and surface note in place. Extensions hung off the file itself, the metadata, or individual waypoints are kept and re-emitted too, right down to tags PitStopper doesn't recognise. (The exported file also validates cleanly against the GPX 1.1 schema.)

Three kinds of data travel inside these tracks:

• Turn cues - left, right, keep left and so on, read in order down the track like a route sheet.
• Viapoints - the named stops you set when planning ("Staf", "Den ijzeren man"), plus silent shaping points that only nudge the router along a chosen road.
• Surface and speed - whether a segment is paved or unpaved, and its maximum speed.

Seeing what you carry. When a track has this data, the Import Summary leads with a note saying what was found. The named stops appear as map pins you can click for their name, distance along the route and surface. And under View → Navigation data (or the button that appears on the map) a tabbed panel shows it all: Turn-by-turn reads out the whole route sheet, Viapoints lists just the named stops, and Surface breaks the route into paved and unpaved sections - with a switch to paint the route line by surface (blue for paved, orange for unpaved, grey where the file doesn't say). Anything PitStopper keeps but doesn't draw (maximum speed, custom colours) is named in the panel and still re-exported.

The one trade-off - editing. These cues are pinned to specific original points, so reshaping the track in PitStopper (dragging, splitting or reversing it) would leave them meaningless. If you start editing a track that still carries navigation data, PitStopper asks first: editing drops the embedded cues. Say no and the track is left untouched; say yes and it becomes an ordinary track from then on. Nothing vanishes without you choosing it.

None of this changes what PitStopper is for. A navigation track knows the way; PitStopper finds the water, food, fuel and shelter along it - so the two complement each other rather than compete. The turns get you round the corners, the POIs decide where you stop, and they leave in the same file together. For the full story, see The Navigation Hidden in Your GPX.

Photos and attachments in a .gpz

A stop in a .gpz can have photos. Locus Map and Cruiser link them from the waypoint with a <link> to a file inside the archive, usually under files/, and keep the picture itself in the zip. Unlike a link to a photo on the web, it cannot disappear later. PitStopper keeps those photos all the way through, and the same goes for a photo a track or route links to, and for other files a link names (a PDF, a document, a sound, a video):

• Reading the file - only files a waypoint, track or route links to are read; anything else in the archive is never even unpacked. A picture (JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, checked by its contents, not its name) becomes a photo; any other linked file is kept as an attachment, bytes untouched. Up to 10 MB each and 40 MB in all. If a file has more, PitStopper keeps what fits and tells you how many were left out.
• Kept as they are - the original bytes, not resized or recompressed, stored once in your browser even if several stops link the same picture. The stop keeps its link exactly as written.
• On the map - the stop's popup shows each photo as a small picture; click it to open it full size. An attachment is a row with its file name and size: a PDF opens in a new tab, anything else downloads. Nothing is ever shown or run inside PitStopper, so a web page you are sent downloads instead of opening. A track's photos and files are in Route settings, under Photos and files.
• Saving - photos travel with a saved project and a downloaded .psp, so they come back when you open it. The automatic draft only remembers which photo is which, so a large photo cannot crowd it out. Share Project and Send to Phone leave photos out (they would be too large for the transfer) and say so.
• Exporting - a .gpz export - the route export or Export POIs only - writes each photo and attachment back at its original path with the link (on the track for a track's), so Locus Map and Cruiser find it again. A plain .gpx cannot hold a picture, so links to files inside the archive are left out of it; links to web pages are always written.

A stop's own elevation and time come through the same way: a time from another app's file is written back as it was, ahead of any estimated time. To see what a particular file carries - every photo, its size and which stop links it - open it in the GPX inspector. The technical detail is in the appendix, Photos in a .gpz.

Icons in a .gpz

A .gpz can carry a picture for each waypoint symbol beside its GPX, and another app's file often does (Cruiser's own reference file has one icon for each of 83 symbols). When you open one, PitStopper asks how its stops should be drawn:

• Use the file's icons (the default) - each stop whose symbol has a picture is drawn with it, with no pin of ours behind it.
• Use PitStopper's icons - the stops keep ours.

The list shows each icon the file's stops use, how many stops use it, and which icon of ours that stop would otherwise get ("no match" when it matched no category). Pictures in the file that no stop uses are ignored. Either way, the icons the stops use go into your icon library, so you can give one to a category or a single stop later. Cancel keeps the route as it is, with our icons, and stores nothing.

You can switch back and forth afterwards: Route Settings has a Use the icons from the file box for any route whose stops arrived with icons. An icon you picked by hand for a stop is never switched off by it.

When you export a .gpz with icons, a stop that is wearing its file's icon keeps the file's own symbol name and its original picture, so a round trip through Cruiser or Locus loses nothing. A stop from another app that you have not changed keeps its own symbol name, in a plain .gpx too; stops of ours and stops you re-categorised or gave an icon get a Garmin name. A file that has only icons and no track (a waypoints-only GPX) opens in Location mode, centred on its stops; if routes are already loaded, its stops are added to them instead.

A .gpz that PitStopper itself wrote opens without a question: our own icons need nothing, and your custom icons come back assigned as they were exported. Very large archives are trimmed (about 256 KB per image, 8 MB and 1,000 images in all, stops' icons first) and you are told how many were left out.

Replace Route File

Swap a route's underlying GPX/FIT file while keeping its name, colour and settings - handy when you've re-exported or tweaked the route elsewhere. Choose File → Replace Route File, or the same button in a route's settings. Before you commit, the dialog previews the current and new tracks on a small map and compares their elevation profiles; once you accept, POI distances recalculate automatically against the new track.

Route tools

These sit in the Route menu:

More on the blog: Hazards & Obstacles and Surface Info.

• Reverse Route - Flip direction of travel
  • Recalculates all distances
  • Updates POI side (L/R)
  • Redraws the route with its flags and direction arrows the other way round
  • Can be undone
• Distance Markers - add markers at an interval you choose along the route, optionally labelled with an ETA once a start time is set in Starting time & average pace. The same panel removes them again.
• Hazards & Obstacles - Comprehensive detection of route hazards and obstacles
  • Tunnels - With length, lighting status, and time estimate (assumes 15mph cycling speed)
  • Bridges - Shows bridge type and layer information
  • Fords - Water crossings with depth information when available
  • Level Crossings - Railway crossings along your route
  • Other Hazards - Detects OSM hazard tags including:
    • Side winds, dangerous junctions, slippery surfaces
    • Washouts, road holes, contamination warnings
    • Barriers: cattle grids, toll booths, gates, cycle barriers, border control
  • Steep Sections - Analyzes route elevation to find steep grades (15% and above by default; adjustable from 5% to 30% in the panel's steep-section settings)
    • Shows climb or descent direction with max gradient
    • Displays elevation change and section length

  Features:

  • Displays detected features as highlighted polylines on the map
  • Click any result to zoom to that location
  • Right-click obstacles on map for quick actions
  • Shows OSM descriptions when available
  • Add individual or all obstacles as Alert POI waypoints
  • Collapsible side panel stays accessible while exploring the map
• Famous Climbs - find legendary cycling climbs near your route with their stats; click one to locate it on the map. Detected climbs also appear as a badge in the GPX summary.
• Surface Info - a colour-coded overlay of the road surface (asphalt, gravel, unpaved…), cycling infrastructure (lanes, tracks) and lighting along your route, so you know what you'll be riding on.
• Bulk POI Editor (this one is on the POI menu) - a table view of every POI for quick management: edit names and notes inline, locate or delete entries, and filter or search. Multi-route projects group POIs by route.

Export Options

PitStopper's GPX files carry more than plain GPX - line colours, turn-by-turn instructions, POI icons and times. For exactly what goes where, see the appendix What's inside a PitStopper GPX file.

Export GPX

Save an enhanced GPX file containing your route plus all POI waypoints. Every waypoint carries its name, a description (category, plus opening hours, website and phone where OpenStreetMap has them), your own note, a link back to OpenStreetMap (and to its web site), and a matching Garmin symbol (Drinking Water, Restaurant, Lodging, Summit, Pharmacy…) instead of a generic dot. A stop imported from another app keeps that file's own description, comment and links.

Open it with Export → Export a file. It is one dialog for every file type: pick one of the four cards at the top, and the rest of the dialog follows your choice. The same dialog opens for Send to Phone, so a file sent to your phone has every option you set here.

On the front of the dialog:

• File type - four cards, each with its extension in the corner:
  • GPX (.gpx) suits most apps and devices. When the route carries turn-by-turn navigation cues, a note reminds you that only some apps (Cruiser, Locus Map) read them.
  • GPX + icons & photos (.gpz) is the same GPX zipped, usually about a seventh of the size, with each stop's icon and your photos inside. Cruiser, Locus Map and GPX Viewer open it directly. It is the only file that can carry your own POI icons, because a plain .gpx cannot carry pictures. The strip under the cards says what goes in; Change opens the icon settings.
  • FIT (.fit) suits Garmin, Wahoo and Hammerhead. The strip under the cards holds its Activity.
  • KML (.kml) suits Google Earth and Google My Maps.
• Routes to export - with more than one route loaded, tick the ones to include.
• Filename and count - the name the file will get, with the extension of the type you picked, and how many POIs will go in it. See Naming the file. For a GPX, Preview GPX under it shows the file these settings would export.

Everything else is under Advanced options, in groups. A group that does not apply to the type you picked is left out, and the ⓘ beside an option explains it.

• Which POIs:
  • Starred only / Flagged only - export just your starred or flagged POIs.
  • A waypoint for each pass - GPX only, for a POI the route passes more than once, such as on an out-and-back. Ticked, each pass gets its own waypoint with its own side and planned time, in the order you reach them, just as the FIT export writes course points. Unticked, the place is one waypoint, named from the first pass, with every pass listed in its comment. Both waypoints sit on the same spot, so a map app shows them as two pins in one place.
• Names:
  • Use full POI names - or leave it unticked for short names suited to bike computers: about 15 characters, including any direction or time added below.
  • Add direction to name - the POI's side and distance from the track, before or after the name: "L20m Cafe" or "Cafe L20m". Suffix is the default; prefix survives name truncation on some devices.
  • Add planned time to name - the time you should reach each POI, before or after the name: "15:15 Cafe" or "Cafe 15:15". Off by default. See Times in the file.
  • Add planned time to distance markers - the same for your distance markers: "50 km 11:40". Shown when the route has distance markers.
  • On the device - the first POI as these settings will name it, so you can see the result before you export.
• Times - Include estimated times on the track and waypoints, off by default, because a timed track looks like a ride you have already done and sites such as Strava may import it as a completed activity. An estimate needs a start time; see Times in the file.
• Course points - FIT only: your distance markers as course points; see Export FIT.
• Routes - with several routes ticked, one combined file or separate files in a zip archive.
• Icons in the .gpz - .gpz only. Which icon files go in (PNG and SVG, or one of them, or none), whether they are drawn for light or dark maps, and whether the other SVG set rides along in a folder of its own.
• Colours - GPX and .gpz:
  • Starred & flagged waypoints - a colour and a marker shape for the POIs you have starred or flagged. OsmAnd, Organic Maps and Cruiser read the colour; the shape is the marker OsmAnd draws behind each icon, so marked stops stand out there. Garmin has no waypoint colour and draws each stop by its icon. (Shown when the route has marked POIs.)
  • Include POI category colours - embeds each POI's map colour (including your custom colours) in the waypoint, so markers match what you see in PitStopper. See Colours for other map apps below.
  • Include the route line colour and width - on by default. Writes the route's colour and width into the track, so apps that read it draw your route in its own colour; details below.
• Filename - which details go into the file's name; see Naming the file.
• Source file - Preserve original creator, GPX only. When your route came from another app, keep its "creator" tag instead of PitStopper's. Garmin trusts some sources and re-smooths data it thinks came from elsewhere, which can subtly alter your route - leave this on to avoid that. (Shown only when the imported file had a creator.)

The name, direction and planned time options apply to GPX, FIT and KML alike. Your distance markers go into a GPX or KML file as waypoints whenever the route has them.

Times in the file

There are two kinds of time an export can carry: times on the track and its waypoints, and times in the names. Both are estimates counted from the start time you give the route, in the route planner or in Starting time & average pace. Without a start time they are left out, rather than written with a made-up date. When one of these options is on, the dialog says when the times start, or that they will be left out, and its Set start time button opens Starting time & average pace without leaving the export. The dialog updates as soon as you save it.

Estimated times on the track give every trackpoint a <time>, spread along the route from your average speed and the terrain. Map apps use them: Locus Map, for example, shows the ride's date, average speed and arrival time after import, and adjusts them if you set off later. It works for planned turn-by-turn routes too; the times go into the track and the turn instructions are left exactly as they are.

The waypoints get times too, from the same option. Each POI and distance marker takes the track's time at its point, so an app that sorts waypoints by time, as Locus Map can, lists them in the order you reach them, and an app that pairs a waypoint with the trackpoint of the same time finds them agreeing to the second. A waypoint for a place you pass twice gets no time, because it stands for two moments; tick A waypoint for each pass and each pass gets its own.

A route that arrived with times of its own keeps them, and its waypoints take theirs from the same points. That covers a ride you recorded, and also a route planned somewhere that writes times, such as Komoot. Those times are yours already, worked out from the speed and the activity you set in that planner, so we leave them alone rather than replacing them with our own estimate. A start time set here does not move them; it is what the planned times in names below count from, so a name can read "Cafe 09:40" while the waypoint's own timestamp keeps the day the file was planned for. The POIs-only export writes no waypoint times at all, having no track for them to match.

Re-timing a track that has its own times. You can still change them: set a speed in Starting time & average pace, and the route gets adjusted times while the file's own are kept alongside. The export then offers Times for a re-timed track: your adjusted times, chosen by default because you changed them for a reason, or the file's own. It says how long each takes, and remembers your choice. This works for a turn-by-turn track too: the times inside it are replaced and the turn instructions are left exactly as they are. FIT courses follow the same choice, their lap and course points included. One exception: a FIT course you imported and are exporting again keeps its original record times either way.

Planned times in names put the time you should reach each POI into its name, so a bike computer shows it as you ride: "Water 15:15". This helps on an event with a fixed start, and next to a cafe it answers "will it still be open?" at a glance.

• 24-hour, rounded to 5 minutes - "07:00", "15:15". The estimate is not accurate to the minute, so the name does not pretend to be.
• Later days - a time on a later day than the start gets a day tag, "D2 09:10", so day two's morning does not read as earlier than day one's evening.
• Places you pass twice - a GPX or KML waypoint stands for one place, so it shows both times: "Cafe 10:30/14:05". A FIT course point stands for one pass, so each pass has its own time, and so does a GPX waypoint with A waypoint for each pass ticked: "Cafe L20m 10:30" and "Cafe R20m 14:05".
• Beside the direction - the time goes outside the direction label: "Cafe L20m 15:15" or "15:15 L20m Cafe". With short names, both labels leave little room for the name itself, especially for a place you pass twice; use full names if that matters.
• Distance markers - "50 km 11:40". If your markers already show their ETA on the map ("50 km [11:38]"), the planned time replaces it rather than adding a second one.
• Each route its own start - with several routes, each POI takes its time from its own route.
• A plan, not a live ETA - the times are fixed into the file. Set off 40 minutes late and every name is 40 minutes out; your device's own arrival estimate is the live one.

Importing a file PitStopper exported removes these times from the names again, so exporting it a second time does not stack them up. The POIs-only export has no time options; it always writes plain names.

Naming the file

A .gpx extension tells you nothing about what is inside, which is why people end up renaming files by hand. The dialog builds the name for you instead, and shows it before you commit to it. Each option shows exactly what it would add to this route's name; anything with nothing to contribute - no turns on a plain track, no source app on a file that never declared one - says so and is greyed out. Tick what you want carried:

• What's inside - short markers in the order the GPX standard lists its elements: _wpt for waypoints, then _trk for a plain track or _navtrk for one carrying turn-by-turn cues. So Ride_wpt_navtrk.gpx. There is no rte marker because PitStopper never writes a <rte> element - the markers only ever claim what is really in the file
• Number of POIs - _12poi, counted after the Starred-only and Flagged-only filters, so it matches the file
• Distance and Total climb - _144km and _up1250m, in your own units. The climb is prefixed so it cannot be misread as a second distance
• Date of the ride - the start date you set for the ride if there is one, otherwise a recording's own first timestamp, otherwise today. Exporting a Sunday ride on Friday should not file it under Friday. A planned route without a start date takes today, not the date of its estimated times
• Loop or A to B - _loop or _a2b
• Number of turns - _37turns, which tells you at a glance whether the navigation cues survived a trip through another app
• Where it came from - _komoot, _strava, taken from the file's own creator tag
• Mark a timed track - adds _timed when you have included estimated times, since that is what makes some sites treat the file as a completed ride

Your choices are remembered, so the next export is named the same way. Everything at once gives you something like Sunday_ride_2026-05-17_144km_up520m_12poi_37turns_loop_komoot_timed_wpt_navtrk.gpx - which is more than most people want, so pick the two or three that matter to you. The route name is shortened if it is very long, so the markers at the end survive on devices that truncate filenames.

Single-route GPX, KML and FIT exports all use the name you see previewed. Combined and separate-file exports keep their own names, because these parts describe one route's contents and distance rather than a merged file's.

On routes over 200 miles the dialog adds a warning: Garmin Connect imports GPX course points on routes that long at 0 km from the start. It offers a button to switch to the FIT export, whose course points land in the right places.

Colours for other map apps

GPX describes where your route and points are, but the standard has no way to say what colour to draw them. Map apps fill that gap with optional <extensions>, and PitStopper writes the ones they read. Apps that don't recognise them skip them, so the file stays valid everywhere.

• Include the route line colour and width (on by default) - each track carries its route's colour and width, written three ways because each app family reads a different one: Garmin's own (the nearest of its 16 colours), gpx_style (gpx.studio, Locus Map) and xsi:gpx (Cruiser, Locus Map, OsmAnd, Organic Maps, GPX Viewer). With several routes in one file, each keeps its own colour.
• Include POI category colours (off by default) - each POI waypoint carries its PitStopper map colour, including any custom colours you've set. Read by Cruiser, OsmAnd and Organic Maps.

Exactly what goes where - these colours, turn-by-turn instructions, POI icons and the rest - is listed in the appendix What's inside a PitStopper GPX file.

Export FIT (Garmin Course)

Export a Garmin FIT course - the format modern bike computers use for richer, better-timed navigation. Unlike plain GPX waypoints, FIT course points are tied to your distance along the route, so your device can announce "Water ahead" or "Summit ahead" at the right moment and handle a spot you pass more than once. See GPX Waypoints vs FIT Course Points for the full picture.

More on the blog: Garmin FIT File Support - Import, Plan & Export.

• Typed course points - each POI maps to the correct FIT type (water, food, store, shelter, first aid, summit, overlook, toilet, rest area, service…). Added hazards export as their real type - tunnel, bridge, steep incline, crossing.
• Correctly placed & ordered - every course point is projected onto the nearest point of the route and ordered by distance, so points don't drift or silently vanish on the device.
• Activity - in the strip under the cards, choose Cycling, Walking or Hiking; this sets the course's sport so your device picks the right data screens and climb features (when building a course from a GPX).
• Add distance markers as course points - optionally include your distance markers for on-device pacing (offered when the source course doesn't already have them). With Add planned time to distance markers ticked as well, each one is named with the time you should reach it.
• Names - course point names follow the same full-name, direction and planned-time options as GPX. A place you pass twice is two course points, each at its own distance along the course and with its own pass's time.
• Round-trip safe - re-exporting a FIT you imported preserves the original course data (turns, mile markers and the like); PitStopper only adds your POIs.
• Multiple routes - with more than one route loaded, choose which to include and whether to write them as one combined course or as separate .fit files in a zip archive.

Export KML (Google Earth & Friends)

Export your route and POIs as a KML file - the format Google Earth, Google My Maps, Organic Maps and OsmAnd open natively. Where GPX needs extensions for styling, KML supports it first-class, so this is the best-looking way to share your plan with someone who isn't on a bike computer (a support crew, an event organiser, family following along).

• Your colours come through - every POI is styled with its PitStopper map colour, including any custom category or group colours you've set. No options needed; it's standard KML.
• Organised in folders - POIs are grouped into folders by category group (Water, Food & Drink, ...), so viewers can toggle whole groups on and off. Distance markers get their own folder.
• Rich descriptions - opening hours, website, phone, your notes and an OpenStreetMap link appear in each placemark's balloon.
• Same options as GPX - starred/flagged only, full or short names, direction and planned time in names, distance marker times, and multi-route selection with combined or separate (zip) output.

Find it under Export → Export a file, then choose KML. Note: KML is for viewing and sharing - bike computers want the GPX or FIT export instead.

Send to Phone Beta

Get the route off the computer you planned it on and onto the phone you are taking with you, without a cable, an email to yourself or a cloud drive. Export → Send to Phone puts a QR code on screen; scan it with your phone's camera and the route saves onto the phone, ready to open in whatever map app you use.

• GPX or FIT - pick a card in the dialog. GPX suits map apps; FIT suits Garmin. The .gpz and KML cards are not offered, because Send to Phone hands over a single file the phone's apps open. Every other export option applies too: the filename, and everything under Advanced options, starred or flagged POIs only included. The file that reaches your phone is byte for byte the file that would have gone to your Downloads folder.
• It reaches any app, not a fixed list - the page the QR opens saves the file, and your phone's own "open with" chooser offers whatever can take it. That covers the apps that open a route (Cruiser, Locus Map, OsmAnd, Organic Maps, CoMaps) and the ones that only accept a share (Komoot, Garmin Connect). On an iPhone, save it first and then share it from Files.
• It tells you when it has arrived - the dialog watches for your phone collecting the file and says so, then replaces the code with a tick. No wondering whether the scan worked.
• One-time and short-lived - the link works once and expires about ten minutes after it is made. Once your phone has it, the copy on the relay is gone. Use Send another if a code goes unscanned.
• End-to-end encrypted - the route is encrypted in your browser before it leaves your computer, and the key that unlocks it travels in the part of the link after the #, which browsers never send to a server. The relay only ever holds bytes it cannot read. Because the key is in the code, treat a live QR like a password - do not share it or project it.
• No phone, no problem - Copy link gives you the same one-time link to paste wherever suits.
• Needs a route - there has to be something loaded to send.

Only the stops rather than the whole route? Export POIs only sends those as their own layer. Loading a route onto a bike computer instead? Use the GPX or FIT download - most head units want a file over USB or through their own app. For a full walk-through with screenshots, see the blog post Send a Route to Your Phone.

Send to PitStopper On-the-go Beta

Move a whole project - route, points of interest and any notes - straight to the PitStopper On-the-go phone app, with no files to save, email or cable across. It is the quickest way to get a plan you made on the website onto your phone for a ride.

PitStopper On-the-go is in beta on Android. Install it from Google Play first: how to join the beta.

• How it works - choose Export → Send to PitStopper On-the-go (it is also on the Save Project dialog) and a QR code appears. On the phone, open PitStopper On-the-go, tap Get my route from pitstopper.net (or Receive from computer once a route is loaded) and scan it - or just scan the code with your phone's normal camera or any QR app, and it opens the transfer for you. The project lands ready to use, and its offline POIs come across too.
• Private by design - the file is encrypted in your browser before it leaves your device, so the relay that carries it only ever holds an unreadable copy. The key that unlocks it travels inside the QR code itself and is never sent to the server, so neither we nor the relay can see your route. This is end-to-end (zero-knowledge) encryption.
• One-time and short-lived - the encrypted copy is deleted the moment your phone collects it, and it expires automatically after about ten minutes if it is never scanned. Because the key is in the QR code, treat that code like a password - do not share it or post it publicly while the transfer is live.
• What you can send with it - before the QR code appears, the dialog offers to pack more into the file so the phone has it offline: POIs in your pocket (fetch POIs from a wider corridor either side of the route, 2 to 25 km or miles), Emergency POIs (hospitals, defibrillators, pharmacies and the like within 35 km, on by default) and offline map tiles (a real vector map around the route, with a size estimate before you commit, and an option to widen it to the same 35 km). Each is only offered when it makes sense for what you have loaded.
• Needs a route - the phone app follows a route, so a location-mode search cannot be sent to it. PitStopper points you at Share Project instead.
• If the relay is out of reach - your project is encrypted on your own computer before the relay is ever contacted, so if it cannot be reached (or the file is too big for it) the dialog offers a Download file button instead. Copy that .psp to your phone over USB, or open it from Downloads in PitStopper On-the-go.

You will see a little animation track the file from the computer, through the relay, to your phone. For the full data-flow, see the Privacy Policy. Send to PitStopper On-the-go is for our own phone app (offline route awareness on a ride). To get a route into Cruiser, Locus Map, OsmAnd, Organic Maps or CoMaps, use Send to Phone; to load one onto a bike computer, use the GPX or FIT export.

Share Project Beta

Create a link (and QR code) that anyone can open to view a copy of your project - the route, its points of interest, and any notes - on pitstopper.net. Unlike Send to PitStopper On-the-go, which targets one device and expires in about ten minutes, a Share Project link is persistent: it stays live and can be opened as many times as you like, by anyone who has it, until it expires or you revoke it.

• How it works - choose Export → Share Project (or the "Want a link anyone can view instead?" prompt inside the Send to PitStopper On-the-go dialog), then pick how long the link should stay live: 1 day, 3 days, 1 week (the default), 2 weeks, 1 month, or 2 months. Share the link or QR code however suits - message, email, or printed on a route sheet.
• Same zero-knowledge encryption as Send to PitStopper On-the-go - your project is encrypted in your browser before it uploads, and the decryption key lives only in the link itself, never on the server. See the Privacy Policy for the full data-flow.
• A normal, editable copy - not read-only - anyone who opens the link gets a fully editable copy loaded into their own browser. Nothing they change affects your original project, and a one-time info card explains this with a Save a copy button if they want to keep it.
• Add a note - write an optional message when you share ("Added a water stop at 40km!") and it appears on the info card when the link is opened, so whoever you're sharing with knows what's changed or why you sent it.
• Sharing the same project again updates the link - if you re-share a project you've already shared, PitStopper updates the existing link with your latest changes instead of creating a new one, so a link you've already sent out keeps working and shows the newest version. The dialog tells you when this is happening.
• Manage what you've shared - open Manage my shared links for a list of your shares with their QR codes: see how many times each has been opened, open it straight back into PitStopper (handy for picking your own plan up on another computer), copy its link, or revoke it so it stops working before its expiry. The list lives in this browser only, so revoking is only possible where the link was created.
• Expired links stay visible - once a share passes its expiry the row is greyed out and marked "Expired" rather than vanishing, and its copy and open buttons are disabled. Dead rows are cleared out on their own after a while. Opening an expired or revoked link tells you it has expired or was removed rather than failing silently.
• If the relay is out of reach - as with Send to PitStopper On-the-go, the project is encrypted on your computer first, so a relay problem leaves you a Download file button and you can send the .psp yourself.

Export POIs Only (GPX or Mapsforge .poi)

Sometimes you want just the stops, not the route - a file of points of interest you can load as a layer in a map app. Export → Export POIs only saves your POIs on their own (no track), with a choice of two formats:

• GPX (waypoints) - a plain GPX containing only waypoints, no track. It opens almost everywhere, including Cruiser, Locus Map, Garmin, Komoot and Google Earth. Best for maximum compatibility. Tick Compress it (.gpz) to save it as a .gpz instead: the stops' linked photos and icons then travel inside the archive, as in a route export (see Photos in a .gpz and Icons in a .gpz), so a places-only file from Locus Map or Cruiser comes back out complete. A plain .gpx cannot hold pictures.
• Mapsforge .poi - a native Mapsforge POI database (format version 3). Cruiser and Locus Map read this as a proper, searchable POI layer, grouped into the same categories you use in PitStopper (Water, Food & Drink, Accommodation, and so on). In those apps you get a Points of interest panel listing your categories - tick one on or off to show or hide its markers, or use the search box to find a POI by name. It is more compact and far better organised than GPX inside those apps, but understood only by tools built on Mapsforge.

Which one? If you use Cruiser or Locus Map, pick .poi for the named categories, filtering and search. Anywhere else - or if you are not sure - pick GPX; it opens in everything, just without the category niceties.

Both use each POI's full name (unlike the route export, which trims names to survive Garmin's short-waypoint limit), and both honour the Starred only and Flagged only filters, so you can export just your shortlist. Every found POI is included, whichever route it belongs to. The .poi option builds the little database in your browser - nothing is uploaded - and the first time you use it a small support file is fetched, so give it a moment. Prefer a table or a printout instead? The same menu also offers Export POIs as CSV and a printable POI report.

For a walk-through with screenshots of a PitStopper .poi in Cruiser, see the blog post Take Your Stops With You.

Garmin Proximity Check (Off-Track Waypoints)

Garmin Connect (and similar tools) silently discard route waypoints that sit more than about 40 m from the track - so a café or water stop you placed just off the line can vanish when you copy the file to your bike computer. Before a GPX or FIT export, PitStopper checks the POIs you're about to export and, if any are further than roughly 35 m from their route, shows a warning that lists them with their distances.

You choose what happens:

• Move them onto the track (default) - snaps each waypoint to the nearest point on the route so your device keeps them. A "^" prefix is added to the moved names so you can spot which ones were adjusted; untick that if you would rather it wasn't.
• Export anyway - keeps the original positions (accepting that some may be dropped by Garmin).

The adjustment is applied only to the exported file - the POIs on your map are never moved. Location-mode exports (no route) skip this check. For the background, see Why Garmin Connect Deletes Your Waypoints.

Print Report

Generate a comprehensive print-friendly report perfect for offline reference during your trip.

Accessing Print Report

• Click Export → Print POI Report in the menu bar
• Customize report sections and columns
• Preview before printing or saving as PDF

Report Customization

• Custom report title
• Which routes to include (shown when more than one is loaded)
• Choose what goes in:
  • Original POIs from GPX
  • Looked up POIs
  • Custom Alert/Danger/Warning POIs
  • Event markers
  • Distance markers
  • Exclude non-starred and/or exclude non-flagged, to cut the report down to your shortlist
• Report sections: the summary with route statistics, and the elevation chart
• Choose table columns (name and distance are always included):
  • POI number, and the category icon before the name
  • Category
  • Elevation (route mode only)
  • Distance from track/centre
  • Side (L/R) and compass direction (route mode only)
  • Estimated time from start (route mode only)
  • Opening hours, website, phone
  • Notes
  • Route name (multi-route projects)
  • Starred and flagged indication

Daylight information is added automatically when your clock time settings include a date - there is no checkbox for it.

Daylight Information in Reports

When clock time settings include a date, print reports automatically include comprehensive daylight information:

• Sunrise Time - When the sun rises, worked out for the midpoint of your route
• Sunset Time - When the sun sets there
• Gets Dark Time - Civil twilight end (30-40 min after sunset)
• Day Length - Total hours of daylight available

CSV Export

Export your POIs as a CSV file for use in spreadsheets, databases, or other applications. Access via Export → Export POIs as CSV in the menu bar.

Event Sticker Generator

Create a printable, frame-mounted route guide - a tall sticker showing the route's elevation profile with your key POIs marked along it in order of distance. Open it from Export → Print Event Sticker; it opens in a new tab ready to print.

In the options dialog you can:

• Set the event name (and pick which route in multi-route projects)
• Choose exactly which POIs to include, each shown with a live count:
  • Event Sticker POIs - POIs you marked with the Event Sticker type
  • Alert, Danger, Warning and Info POIs
  • Starred (★) and Flagged (⚑) POIs
• Optionally capitalise all POI text

You don't need any Event Sticker POIs to make a sticker - you can build one from just your starred and/or flagged POIs. When a project has no Event Sticker POIs, Starred and Flagged are pre-selected for you. A POI that matches more than one option (for example an Alert you've also starred) is only listed once.