Redline Athlete

Mountain bike ride & race planning

Your fitness, your trail, one plan. Train your way into it.

Every rider fades differently. Redline Athlete simulates your efforts on the actual route, climb by climb, and shows how fatigue compounds over the day for you: your fitness, your abilities and the way you ride it. Connect Strava and it builds a gap analysis from your training history against the goals you have planned, so you know what still needs riding before race day.

No card. No account needed to try it, and every new account starts with 30 days of Pro. The guest demo runs the full model on the Soldier Hollow trails in Utah, with a sample season of riding behind it.

Who it's for

Built for the rider with a date circled.

A race, a first big day, a comeback. If there is something on the calendar and you want to arrive ready for it, the plan is built around you: your fitness, your riding, and the route you will actually be on.

A pack of racers riding hard through a flooded section of wooded singletrack, spray coming off every wheel.
A rider dropping a front wheel off the edge of a large rock slab, committed and looking down the trail.
goal week8 weeks, by heart rate zone Getting back into shape

Back on the bike, with a goal

You picked a goal to get fit for, maybe the first in years. See how far off that day you are right now, what kind of riding closes the distance, and watch the gap shrink week by week on your own activities.

goal2h 00myou+13 minclimbs holding the gapcovered · near · gap Racing

Racers sharpening the plan

You already train. What you want is minutes. See which climbs and stretches hold the gap to your target time, where pacing costs you, and whether that target survives lap three.

40%60%80%100%1234lap 1lap 2lap 3lap 4anaerobic reserve High school league

NICA student athletes

A season of league races on courses you may only see at pre-ride. Load each venue, learn where the lap is decided, and pace short, punchy laps where your reserve above threshold runs out first. No power meter needed.

leg fatigue over 6 hfuel points Marathon and 100 milers

Your first big endurance day

A first 50 or 100 miler, a six hour marathon, the all-day linkup. How long you are out there, when the legs start to fade, and how much to eat and carry, placed where the route actually lets you eat.

you ridegoal asksspend it here5 h a week Time crunched and masters

Riders with limited hours

Work, family, five hours a week if it goes well. The gap analysis names the kind of riding the goal asks for that you are not doing yet, so the hours you have go to the ground that is actually costing you.

8,200 fthero dirtgradethin air costs power Travel races

New places, unfamiliar dirt

Racing somewhere you have never ridden, maybe at altitude. Ride the course before you ride the course: its climbs, its technical sections, the cost of thin air, and what recent rain has done to the trail.

Why the numbers hold up

Physics that knows it's dirt.

Most ride estimates treat every mile the same. Redline models the ground you're actually on, and the bike you're riding it on.

Pavement0.009Fire road0.011Two-track0.015Singletrack0.023Sand, loam0.040 Surface

The ground is priced section by section

The same bike can need twice the effort to roll on singletrack as on hardpack. Redline sets rolling resistance for every section of the route, matched from the map or set by you, and it moves your finish time more than switching bikes does.

watts alonespeed through the turnstight Corners

On twisty trail, handling sets your speed

Not watts. Redline reads the curvature of every turn and caps your speed where you would really brake, then carries the speed you leave one stretch with into the next, so a rise straight off a descent is ridden the way it really is.

1234reserve by climbtank shrinks as you tire Effort

The first climb costs the last one

Hard efforts drain a reserve that refills slowly, and the plan knows what each climb spends of it. A short race and a long day run out of different things, and the plan tracks both, so a hard lap gets a verdict built for a hard lap.

XC race bike2h 00mRigid, 32 lb+1:43Trail bike−0:08same plan, switch the bikethe plan You and your bikes

Each of your bikes is its own

Its weight and kind set how it rolls, and your own rides on it measure how you descend, so a rigid bike's numbers never follow you onto your full suspension one. One ride you know well also tunes how much of your power the model sees reach the trail.

Built on race files from real riders on real courses, with power meters on the bike. Paced from a 90 minute race, the model predicted the same rider's 5 hour race within 6%, and the other way round. See how the model works

How it works

Five steps from a date on the calendar to a plan on your bars.

Set yourself up once. After that, every ride you do and every goal you add feeds the same plan.

  1. 1Profile and Strava
  2. 2Import your routes
  3. 3Analyze the demands
  4. 4Find the advantages
  5. 5Plan the fueling
Step 1

Build your profile and connect Strava

Weight and FTP, set once. No power meter? Start from a recent hard hour and calibrate it against your own activities later. Connect Strava and your recent riding comes in on its own, cut by heart rate zone, with the ground you ride and the climbs you keep doing read straight off the files. Nothing to tag.

  • Eight weeks of riding, one bar a week
  • Your terrain, your climbs, your usual efforts
The training dashboard on glass panels: eight weekly bars each split into heart rate zones in the Redline colors, a dashed four week average line across them, and one week opened into a day by day list of activities with rest days shown.
What you have been doing, read from your activities. Press a week to open its days.
Step 2

Import your upcoming routes

Drop in a GPX from a race listing, Trailforks, RideWithGPS, Strava or your head unit, or stitch several into one route. Make it a goal with a date and a target: finish it, hit a time, or beat last year. The routes you train on can be saved too, so training rides get zone pacing and race day gets race pace.

  • Goals by date, training routes flagged as training
  • Your target printed next to every number
The trail map in 3D, the route line colored by technical difficulty from flowy through rolling and tight to technical.
The route, read point by point. Here colored by how technical each stretch rides.
Step 3

Analyze the demands

Every climb, corner and stretch of loose ground, priced by what it costs you at the moment you get there, not averaged flat. One slider sets how hard you ride. Three bars show which runs out first: your reserve above threshold, your legs, or your fuel.

  • An honest finish time for you, on this route
  • Where fatigue compounds, climb by climb
The Ride Plan Cockpit: an intensity slider from 54% to 98% of FTP with three bars beneath it, anaerobic reserve, leg fatigue and fuel, each running green then amber as the effort rises, above tiles for finish time, average watts, leg fatigue at the finish, lowest anaerobic reserve and calories covered.
One slider, three ways a day comes apart. Move it and watch which one runs out first.
Step 4

Look for the advantages

At every point on the route the model knows what set your speed: your legs, the corners, or the brakes. Every stretch where it was not your legs becomes a play, with what it throws away, what to do there, and where your reserve comes back. That is free time most riders leave on the trail.

  • Where to push, where to recover, where to carry speed
  • Six plays on a 19 mile lap, in the guest demo
Play by Play: an overhead of the route with six numbered plays marked, each listed alongside with its distance range, what sets the pace there, the energy it costs and what to do about it.
Where the route, not your fitness, is setting the pace, and what to do about it.
Step 5 For long days

Understand your fueling needs

On a marathon or a 100 miler the day is decided by food as often as legs. Set carbs per hour and see what it saves in glycogen against what your gut will actually take, with feeds placed where the route lets you eat rather than on a timer.

  • Grams per hour, and what is left in the tank at the line
  • Feed points on the route, not on the clock
The fuel plan: an intake per hour slider showing grams on the bike, percent of tank left at the line and gut risk, plotted as glycogen saved against gut distress risk.
What fueling saves against what your gut will take.

What you get, part one

A training gap analysis. Pro

Not a fitness score. A clock. Your best comparable riding of the last eight weeks, solved over this exact route, against what your target asks, and the minutes between them. Then the two ways to close it, in the order the numbers pick: train the ground that holds the gap, or move the target.

The verdict on a goal card: a predicted finish from the rider's best comparable effort beside the time the target asks, the minutes between them, and two levers underneath, one for training the gap and one for moving the target, the same clock week by week, then four readiness lights for weekly volume, longest ride, goal terrain and goal effort, and one instruction for this week.
Your best day against your target, then four lights and the one thing to do this week.
The route profile shaded by coverage: each demand colored by whether the last eight weeks of riding covers it, with a whole day bar comparing the rider's longest ride against the route.
The route, covered or not. Every demand on the profile, colored by how much of it your last eight weeks already rides. Under it, your longest day against the route's.
The ground this route is made of, against the ground you ride: two stacked bars splitting the route and the rider's last eight weeks into descending, rolling, climbing and steep, above a table giving what the route asks and what the rider does per week for each band.
The ground. The route's terrain against yours, by distance.
The aerobic half: the ride predicted at one hour forty-seven at tempo or above against a typical ride of forty-four minutes, a time-in-zone chart comparing the ride on one day with an ordinary week, and the rider's heart rate at the plan's power.
The engine. Race day's intensity on one line, your ordinary week on the other.
What to do about it: the places ridden in the last eight weeks with the demands each covers, and three target paces with what each asks against what the rider can hold for that long.
What to do about it. Rides you already do that stand in for the gaps, and what each target pace asks of you.

What you get, part two

Waypoints that ride with you.

Name the stretches that decide your day and each one carries the plan's own numbers. Pick what each one shows: average speed or watts, the fatigue or reserve you arrive with, or how technical it gets. Export the route and they show up on your head unit as you reach them. Change the plan and they change with it.

CLIMB 6.8 mph FATIGUE 42% RESERVE 58%
Illustration. Your markers, on your wrist, with the numbers the plan predicts for each one.
Three named markers on a plan, each with its distance range, a chosen metric and the predicted value, above a line of detail covering power, fatigue, reserve, elevation gain and switchback count.
Where they come from: markers you name, carrying what the plan predicts you will average there.
Garmin

Export the TCX. Markers go in as real course points, so an Edge announces each one as you reach it.

Wahoo

ELEMNT ACE, BOLT 3 and ROAM 3 show them on the map from either file. Earlier BOLT and ROAM units list them in the cue sheet.

Everything else

Hammerhead Karoo takes the route through Ride with GPS. Suunto and Amazfit take the route and keep points in their own apps.

What you get, part three

Your goal, on the trainer. Pro

The plan does not stay on the page. Every goal on Progression hands you workouts built from its own numbers, for the trainer app you already use. On the sample goal, four laps of Soldier Hollow with a two hour target, that is:

Race simulation

The whole two hours at the goal’s 215 W average, each stretch at the power the plan predicts for it, in 30 steps. Warm-up and cool-down added.

Demand intervals

The three demands that decide the day, as repeats at the watts each one asks at goal pace, with easy riding between. An hour and forty minutes.

Indoor course

The route itself as a FIT course, for a trainer that simulates the grade: a Garmin Edge on a smart trainer, Rouvy or FulGaz.

Workouts come as a Zwift file, an ERG file for TrainerRoad and most other trainer apps, a percent-of-FTP file, or a Garmin FIT workout. Numbers from the app’s own sample goal.

Pricing

Free is your ride. Pro is your season.

The demo route isn't a watermarked teaser. You can run the full model on it and print the real sheet without an account.

Guest
Free
no account
  • Full pacing & fatigue model
  • Soldier Hollow demo route loaded
  • Print the demo plan sheet
  • 2 custom fuel points and 2 markers
  • Color the map and profile by surface
Look around
Free account
Free
sign in with Google
  • Everything in Guest
  • Your own GPX, saved. Swap it whenever
  • Save your ride plans against it
  • Send the route and markers to your head unit (GPX or TCX)
  • 3 AI ride reads per 30 days
Create an account

Start free, in about a minute

Upload the GPX for your next goal. See what it costs, how to pace it and what to eat, then keep it saved for when you come back to it. Sign in with Google, no card, and your first 30 days are Pro.

Questions

Before you upload anything.

Is this only for racing?

No. Racing is where the model came from, but the same question sits behind any big day: how long will this take me, how hard can I ride it, and how much food do I need on board? Riders use it to size up a first 50-miler, an all-day linkup or an unfamiliar route just as often as a start line.

Do I need a power meter?

It helps, but no. The model works from your FTP and weight, and reports effort as watts per pound alongside the duration, so you can ride to feel and still trust the fueling plan. If you don't know your FTP, start from a recent hard hour and adjust.

How is this different from Best Bike Split or a road pacing calculator?

Those model a rider holding a target on predictable surfaces. This one starts from the assumption that you can't. Technical terrain caps what's usable, and sustainable power decays across a long day. The fueling plan is scheduled against where the route lets you eat, which a road tool has no reason to consider.

Where do I get a GPX file?

Most race listings publish one. For a ride, export from Trailforks, RideWithGPS, Komoot or a Strava route, or pull it off your head unit if you've ridden part of it before.

Can I send the plan to my head unit?

Yes. Export the route with your markers as a GPX or a TCX course file. Use the TCX for a Garmin, because it writes the markers as real course points, which is what an Edge announces as you reach one, and the timings come from the ride the model predicts for you. A Wahoo ELEMNT ACE, BOLT 3 or ROAM 3 shows them on the map from either file, and earlier BOLT and ROAM units list them in the cue sheet. A Hammerhead Karoo takes the route but drops the markers, so route that one through Ride with GPS. Suunto and Amazfit take the route and keep points of interest in their own apps.

Can I ride my goal on a trainer?

Yes, with Pro. Open the goal on Progression and press Training files. You get a race simulation of the whole goal at goal pace, its hardest demands as intervals, and the route as a FIT course for a trainer that simulates the grade. Workouts come as a Zwift file, an ERG file for TrainerRoad and most other trainer apps, a percent-of-FTP file, or a Garmin FIT workout.

Can I try it without making an account?

Yes. The guest demo runs the full calculator on a loaded route with no sign-in. Uploading your own GPX and saving a profile are the parts that need an account.

Stop guessing at hour three.

Race day or the biggest ride you've attempted: run the model on a loaded route right now. No account, no card.