Example routes
What a planned route actually looks like.
Three routes built the way you'd build one: click a few points, look at what the shade does through the evening, check where the crossings are, then send it to the watch. The figures under each are what the app reports.
Greenway out-and-back
6.2 mi↑98 ft81% shade at 5 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
The easy case, and the reason people look for greenways in July: mature canopy on both sides means it barely matters what time you go. The only exposed stretch is the road you take to get there.
Downtown grid loop
3.4 mi↑142 ft29% shade at 5 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
The case where the crossings layer earns its keep: two of the three big roads have signals, and routing through those instead of the mid-block gap is the whole difference. Read the shade here with the building caveat in mind — it's better than it looks.
Riverfront evening loop
4.8 mi↑212 ft55% shade at 6 pm
Shade along the route, start to finish
The route the homepage slider is built on. At one in the afternoon it's 7% shaded and genuinely unpleasant; by half five the street trees on the west side have thrown their shadows right across the road and it's a different run.
Reading the shade strip.
The bar under each route is the same one the app draws beneath the elevation profile, on the same distance axis. Left is the start, right is the finish, and the colour is how much shade falls on that part of the road at the time shown.
These three are illustrative. They're built from the same model the app runs, on real street layouts, but they're here to show what the output looks like rather than to be routes you should go and run. Draw your own — it takes about a minute.