Guide

How to make a printable cue sheet from a GPX

For riders who would rather glance down than wake a screen.

A cue sheet is the short list of decisions for one day, in order, with the distance to each one. It is not a turn-by-turn transcript of the file. Riders use one for three reasons: the computer battery has to last the week, the junction is ambiguous and a second opinion helps, and the list on paper still works when the screen is wet or dark.

Decide how many cues a day needs

Most gravel and bikepacking days need between eight and twenty. A 90 km day on farm roads can need six. A day through a city, a forest network or a valley full of parallel lanes can need thirty.

The test for each line: if you missed this turn, would you notice within a kilometre? If yes, it belongs. If the road carries on in the same direction for the next 20 km, it does not.

Use cumulative distance

Write the distance from the start of the day, not the distance to the next cue. "42.3 km, left onto the bridge" is read once and understood. "In 3.1 km, left" needs you to remember what your computer said thirty seconds ago.

If you ride with a group, the same numbers let you compare notes at a stop without adding anything up.

Take the cues from your own file

Export the day as a GPX, then read the cues out of it rather than from memory the night before. Three problems show up in almost every automatic list:

• Roundabouts. An automatic list writes "turn right" at the entry or at the exit. Write the exit road instead: "second exit, signed D22".
• Parallel roads. Service roads and cycle paths next to a main road produce a cue for every merge. Keep one and delete the rest.
• Fork junctions. A gentle fork is often recorded as a sharp turn. Check the angle on the map and write what what you will see: "keep left at the fork, the tarmac goes right".

Do this per day, after the split. A cue list built from the whole route numbers everything from kilometre zero of the trip, which is the wrong reference once you are on day four.

Format it to be read at speed

• One line per cue. Distance first, then the instruction, then the confirmation to look for.
• Type at least 9 points. Smaller type looks tidy on a screen and fails in the rain.
• Black on white. Colour costs ink and fades in sun.
• Group by 25 or 50 km so your eye can find the current block without reading from the top.
• Add the day total, the climbing and the finish town at the top. That line is what you check when you stop.

Fold and carry it

Fold A4 in half twice and you have a sheet the size of a phone. Put it in a clear plastic sleeve or a resealable bag, then under the top tube or in the frame bag's lid pocket. Tape the bag, not the paper, and test the tape on an old frame first.

Write on the back before you leave: the next water, the last shop, the nearest station to the middle of the day, and one phone number. Those four lines get used more often than the cue list.

What to leave off

Every bend, street names that the sign will give you anyway, elevation profiles smaller than a postage stamp, and any line you cannot read while moving. The cue sheet answers one question: where do I go next, and how far is it.