Help & frequently asked questions

On the start page, click Upload GPX file and pick the file. Up to 5 MB, .gpx extension.

Bergradar then asks for the activity, start time, pace and point spacing. The activity starts on hiking — it is not guessed from the file, so change it if you are riding.

The pace, by contrast, is taken from the file when every point carries a timestamp. If even one is missing, the activity's default applies instead.

A weather forecast is about a place. Your route is not one.

Bergradar calculates for every kilometre of your route — with the estimated time you arrive at that particular point. Leaving at 09:00 means reaching the climb at km 40 around midday, and what counts there is the midday weather, not the morning weather at the start.

That produces sentences a single-point forecast cannot: when you ride into the rain, where the wind turns into your face, whether you finish before dark.

Four: hiking, trail running, road bike and MTB/gravel.

The choice changes three things:

• The default pace — 4.5 km/h hiking, 9 km/h trail running, 20 km/h on the road bike, 15 km/h on MTB/gravel.
• How a pace becomes an arrival time. On foot and running, Bergradar uses a gradient model; on a bike, a power model. Both turn your flat-ground pace into a slower time uphill — your number stays the anchor.
• Which warnings count. Wet roots are an MTB matter, rough cobbles a road-bike matter, the difficulty grade of a path a walking matter.

From your pace and the route's elevation profile.

A single pace for the whole tour would be wrong in the hills. So Bergradar works segment by segment, with the gradient: your number holds on the flat, uphill is slower, downhill faster again. When the analysis says gradient-adjusted, that is what it means.

The difference is not small — on a 108 km gravel loop it comes to nearly an hour, and that hour is the whole point when a warning says you meet the thunderstorm at the summit.

That the number is calculated, not reported.

Normally Bergradar reads cloud cover by altitude straight from the weather model — for nine pressure levels, roughly 150 to 4300 metres. That describes the column of air above the route and tells each point how much cloud sits at its own height.

When that profile is unavailable, Bergradar falls back to an estimate from temperature and dew point. It is labelled as an estimate and drawn hatched, because it can be a good hundred metres out.

Both are forecasts, not a look out of the window.

Because on some days no start time works — and then silence is more honest than a ranking.

Bergradar checks the start times daylight actually leaves. If every one of them meets a thunderstorm on the route, there is no winner. Crowning the least bad hour would be claiming it is a reasonable choice.

What you get instead is the arithmetic behind the refusal: when the front passes, how long the route takes, when the last start in daylight would have been. For instance: Thunderstorms from 14:00 to 16:59, the route takes 9 h 32 min — the last start in daylight would have been 11:05.

And if either of the next two days has a window, it is named alongside. Bergradar does not look further than that: a thunderstorm forecast that far out is not something to plan around.

From CAMS, the European air quality model, which Bergradar queries for the points along your route. That is a forecast on a grid of roughly 11 kilometres — not a reading from a pollen trap nearby.

Which is why the wording is soft: the pollen model expects …, never it is high.

The notice appears for ragweed from about 50 grains/m³. So that it does not blink on and off between model runs, it only disappears again below 40 — getting in costs more than staying in.

If this does not concern you, it can be switched off in the settings, under Display.

Because it is. A weather model blurs with every day of lead time, and Bergradar does not pretend otherwise.

In practice: for today and tomorrow, statements about particular hours and kilometres carry weight. For the day after, they describe the character of the day rather than its course.

So when a day has no window, Bergradar suggests another one at most two days ahead. The third would be a number still due to change — and advice that changes quietly is not advice.

In three places, and the most specific one wins:

1. On the tour itself — the pace in the analysis settings applies to that route only.
2. In your profile — under Settings, one pace per activity. It applies wherever a route has none of its own.
3. Defaults — used when you have saved neither.

The analysis states which of the three it used. Clearing the pace on a tour returns you to the profile value; that is what back to profile means there.

On the route card, open Check another day or time, set the date and time, recalculate.

The form stays open afterwards. Trying one start time usually means trying several, and having to reopen it each time would be one click too many.

If you would rather not guess, let it search: the start-time finder checks the hours the day allows and names the best one — or says there is none today.

Collections are your own folders for tours — by region, by season, by plan. They change nothing about a route's visibility.

Visibility is a property of the tour itself. Newly uploaded routes are private: only you see them. Under My tours, a route can be made public from its menu — it then gets a permanent, readable address and appears in the catalogue.

Photos do not follow. Making a tour public makes no photo public; each one is submitted separately afterwards.

As little as the analysis needs:

• Account — name, e-mail, password as a hash, your settings (language, pace, display).
• Routes — the uploaded track, its analyses, your collections and favourites.
• Photos, if you attach any to a tour. Only the GPS location is read from them, to pin them to a kilometre; the original file is deleted after conversion.

Weather, air quality and map data come from external services and are cached, not tied to you.

The full version, with legal bases and recipients, is in the privacy policy.

Under Settings, at the bottom. Your current password is required — an unattended session alone should not be able to delete an account for good.

What then happens:

• Account, settings, collections and favourites are deleted.
• Private tours are deleted with them.
• Public tours remain, with no link to you. They were already visible to anyone; what is removed is the connection to your account. If you would rather not, set them to private first.

In the backups, the data disappears as those expire — within eight weeks at the latest.

Under Settings → Download my data. You get a JSON file with everything stored against your account: profile and settings, your tours, collections and favourites.

Weather and map data are not included — they come from external services and are not yours; they are queried for your route.

On Wednesday the forecast for Saturday is still uncertain, and it changes several times before you set off. Instead of checking every day, Bergradar gets in touch when something matters for your tour and your start time: a thunderstorm, gusts, ice in the morning – or a different best start time. You plan in peace and miss nothing that decides the day.

You get an e-mail when the weather for your start time changes noticeably: the state moves between Good, Caution and Critical, a thunderstorm, gusts, ice or rain appears, or the best start time shifts by an hour or more. On the evening before, at 7 pm, a reminder arrives – and, if you like, one on the morning of the start. Watching ends on its own two days after the start.

At most one change e-mail a day – unless it turns Critical: a warning is never held back. At night (10 pm to 6 am, the tour’s local time) no e-mails go out; whatever changes overnight arrives at 6 am. Only when it turns critical and your start is so early that 6 am would be too late does the warning come two hours before the start, never before 5 am.

With Stop watching in any of the e-mails, or in My Tours under Watching with Stop. Up to 10 watches can be active per account; an event counts as one. E-mails only go to a confirmed e-mail address.

Whoever organises a group tour otherwise answers the same questions in every chat: when do we start, what will the weather do, is it worth it? An event puts it all in one place: the route, the start time, the group’s pace and the forecast for exactly that day and hour. Everyone sees the same thing, and you see who is in.

In My Tours, choose Create event in a tour’s ⋮ menu: date, start time, the group’s pace and a description. Without a pace of its own, yours for that activity applies. A multi-day event is made from a collection with several stages – via Create event in the collection’s menu.

Share the invitation link – by WhatsApp, e-mail or on your website. Events are private: they are not listed anywhere in Bergradar and can only be seen through that link.

Yes, with Edit. If the date or the start time changes, everyone sees a notice with the new start on the event page – no e-mail goes out for it. The link stays the same.

Optional, for information: a price and a link to book with the organiser. Bergradar takes no payments.

One click and you are in, and Bergradar keeps an eye on the weather for you: a reminder on the evening before and a message when something important changes – without searching the group chat.

With I’m in on the event page. Without an account you sign in or register first; within 24 hours you are then in automatically, without clicking again.

The event is watched automatically – one click turns it off, on the event page or in the e-mail. A confirmation e-mail follows – straight away, or as soon as you have confirmed your e-mail address. If you already have 10 watches, you are still in, just without watching.

Only the organiser: they see your name and when you signed up. Other participants only see how many are in. Nobody sees your e-mail address.

One tap instead of hunting for a bookmark, full screen without the address bar – more room for the map and the profile on the way.

Yes, without an app store: Bergradar can be put on your home screen straight from the browser and then opens full screen. iPhone/iPad (Safari): Share → Add to Home Screen. Android (Chrome): menu → Install app. Computer (Chrome, Edge): the install icon in the address bar. Updates arrive on their own. If the icon looks wrong, remove it and add Bergradar again.