Split a (huge) GPX Route - any free simple tools?

Equipment
1

I’m doing a set-course ultra starting this weekend and they’ve given us a single GPX file for the whole route.

I want to split it into smaller chunks for various reasons, but I can’t find a straightforward way to do that. The route has been given to us in RideWithGPS which I think can do it if you pay for premium but I only use the free version (and it’s not my preferred planner anyway). I think I’m going to resort to doing a 7-day free trial of the premium edition since it seems like it has that functionality, but I wondered if there are any other simple/obvious/free ways people have found to do this?

Here’s what I’ve tried:

  • Strava (paid version) - route uploads, don’t see any way to split it (unless it’s an activity instead of a route).
  • Komoot (free version) - file too large to upload - this is the one I want most!
  • Wahoo - file uploads, too large to calculate turn-by-turn. Can’t find a way to split.
  • Garmin - file uploads, can’t find a way to split. (This is the app I’m least familiar with)
  • Google maps - file too large to upload

I also tried downloading it in every file format available (RWGPS seems to do all of them) and I can’t remember the specifics but changing file type didn’t fix the problem when uploading to sites that wouldn’t accept the GPX.

Is it straightforward to split a GPX file in a text editor or with Fitfiletools or something like that? Obviously that would be really imprecise without any kind of GUI, but even if I could split it into random chunks to begin with then I’m sure I could stitch it all back together with my ideal start and end points in Komoot or similar.

Sorry I know there are probably more tech-centric forums to ask this, but you’re my people so I trust you most to understand what I’m trying to accomplish here! :slightly_smiling_face:

Any help appreciated, thanks!

3

In RWGPS, can you not save multiple copies of the route and then crop/edit the start and end of each copy to the section you want? Instead of looking for a way to "split’ it.

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4

I always use garmin basecamp to do this, you can then export the individual GPX stages or one file with all of them in (not sure how this works tbh but when uploading to certain sites it shows as different colours for each one)

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5

Thanks all - I think any of these three options would have worked perfectly. Exactly the kind of solutions I was looking for - really appreciate you easing my last minute underprepared panic!

Thankfully I discovered I didn’t need to be nearly as creative as I originally thought - I was able to upload the exact same GPX file to the Komoot iOS app with no issues. Literally just located the exact same folder via iOS Dropbox app, chose ‘export a copy’ and selected the Komoot app from the list of app options. Same exact file copy that Komoot rejected from their desktop browser platform for being too large. Weird. :man_shrugging:

From there I basically did what @splash suggested but via Komoot on desktop as is my preference and my original plan.

I think maybe the reason I didn’t initially attempt that in RWGPS is that ‘crop’ is a premium feature so I’d have had to make my duplicates and then delete all the individual waypoints I didn’t need in each particular copy. That’s a lot on a route of this length!

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