About Route Refinery
Route Refinery is a curated library of motorcycle routes and scenic roads, built to help riders understand a route before they ride it.
Each published route has a map, its measured distance and elevation, an elevation profile, a description of the route's character and setting, and a GPX download for a GPS or riding app.
What a brief is built from
Every brief starts from the route file's own geometry. Distance and elevation are measured from the track — elevation from the file when it carries it, and from a public elevation service when it does not. Where supporting data is available for the corridor, a brief may also draw on the named roads the route travels on, the settlements it passes and the mile each falls at, and the region the route crosses.
The measurements come first and are computed, not written: the distances, elevation figures and high and low points shown on a route page are the route's own numbers. The prose is then written from those measurements and from the route's geography. Measurements stand on their own — a brief whose description could not be produced still shows what was measured.
Why every brief has the same shape
Each brief uses the same headings in the same order: an overview, the key segments and geographic transitions, seasonal and environmental context, logistics and services, and the considerations that genuinely apply. That structure is deliberate. A reader who has read one brief knows where to look in the next one, and two routes in different states can be compared section by section instead of read as two unrelated articles.
Published routes are reviewed
A route does not reach the published collection by being analyzed. Each published route is looked at by a person, who decides whether the brief is accurate and worth publishing, can correct the text, and sets the route's title and geography. The collection is curated for that reason: it is meant to be a set of roads described accurately, not a count of pages.
Analyze your own route
The route analyzer is also available for a route of your own. Upload a GPX or KML file and Route Refinery measures it first, then describes what it measured. The route you upload runs through the same framework the published collection was produced with — the same measurements, the same section structure, the same standards for what may be stated about a road.
What Route Refinery is not, and what it cannot know
Route Refinery is not a navigation system and does not provide turn-by-turn directions. A brief describes a route as its data represents it, which is not the same as the road on the day you ride or drive it: surfaces are resurfaced, roads close, and traffic and weather are not part of the analysis.
Source data is also uneven. Road names, elevation coverage and place data are better in some places than others, and for some corridors a given layer is simply unavailable. Where that happens a brief says less rather than filling the gap — a section that honestly reports that little applies is the intended outcome, not a failure. Verify conditions, closures, fuel and services before relying on them.
Questions
Corrections to a published route, and routes worth considering for the collection, are welcome — see Contact. How uploads, diagnostics and advertising are handled is described in Privacy.