Frequently asked questions

INVIA is the one tool that handles a ride from end to end. Build routes on real off-road data, edit any ride or track you own, send them to your GPS over the cable and pull the rides you recorded back the same way. Build custom map files and load those onto the device. Explore what other riders have ridden and pull any of it into your library. Then store, tag and catalogue all of it in one place.

A free account includes route building, storage and a connected device, which is enough to plan a ride and load it onto your GPS. Every account opens with 14 days of Pro and no card is required. Pro is $9.99 a month or $59.99 a year and adds single track and ATV trail, the unpublished Forest Service roads, the Garmin map builder, the device and library tools, and no limits. An Organizer plan is $79.99 a year and includes all of Pro plus the event toolkit.

No. The 14 days of Pro that come with a new account do not ask for a card. When the trial ends the account continues as a free account and nothing you built goes anywhere.

Garmin Zumo, Tread, Montana, GPSMAP, eTrex and Oregon over the cable. Any other GPS that reads GPX files can take a route by export, including the Trail Tech Voyager: put the GPX on the unit's memory card and open it there. Routes go to the device from the browser, and recorded tracks come back. Standard GPX export covers anything else that reads GPX.

Yes. Connect the Garmin on the Device page and send. INVIA is the only web application outside Garmin that sends files to a Garmin over the media transfer protocol, straight from a browser tab, which is how the newer units that never appear as a drive are supported.

Those are the only browsers that let a web page communicate with a USB device or open a drive. Everything else on INVIA works in any browser. Only the cable needs Chrome or Edge.

Forest Service motor vehicle use maps, Forest Service system roads that the use maps never showed, BLM roads and trails, National Park backcountry roads, state OHV systems for California, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado and Utah, and named trails from OpenStreetMap. What is mapped runs to 340,000 miles of dirt road and trail, mapped from Forest Service, BLM and state land. What has been gone through by hand is a smaller and different thing: 190 riding areas across 17 states have been gone through by hand, with 413 named single track trails so far.

Yes. Every road is drawn by class: single track, ATV and narrow OHV at 50 inches or less, open to all vehicles, street-legal only, four-wheel-drive high-clearance, and four-wheel-drive where plates are required or the designation needs checking locally. Tap any road for its number, surface, difficulty, season and managing agency.

Tap a road. Forest Service routes show the dates they are open where the use map records them, and park and state routes point you to the agency for seasonal restrictions. Wilderness and military boundaries are drawn and explained, so the map tells you why a line stops.

Yes. Import GPX, KML and FIT files by button or by dropping them on the map, or pull them off a connected Garmin. A file with several tracks is kept together as one collection rather than scattered into loose items, and duplicates are caught before they are saved.

Only you, unless you choose otherwise. Every route and ride is private, friends-only or public, decided one item at a time. A shared link shows the map and the numbers, and whether someone can download the file is a separate switch that is off by default.

On the web, Pro includes the Garmin map builder, which turns your routes into a custom map file and loads it onto the device, so the unit shows your trails whether or not you have signal.

INVIA runs in the browser today. Phone apps are in development and there is nothing to download yet.

Yes. A meet-up is one screen and a link, free, and friends join with one tap and get the routes. Larger events get registration, a roster with check-in, routes grouped by day, documents and updates that reach everyone signed up, and a live map of trackers on course. Rider information reaches the people on the roster and nobody else.

No. Registration and pricing stay on the organizer's own site. The INVIA event page shows a register button that sends riders there, and a separate button for riders who have already registered to collect the routes.

INVIA is Latin: in- meaning without, and via meaning way. It means pathless, the places a road will not reach.

Plug the Garmin in, connect it on the Device page, and press send. INVIA writes the file to the folder your model actually reads, and the Refresh button reads the device back so you can confirm it arrived. It works with the older Garmins that mount as a USB drive and with the newer ones that connect like a phone and never appear as a drive. On a Mac nothing else is needed; on Windows you install INVIA Bridge once, a small free background application.

It depends on the model. Automotive units like the Zumo XT and the Tread read them from a GPX folder in internal storage, while handhelds like the Montana, GPSMAP, eTrex and Oregon read them from a GPX folder inside the Garmin folder. Older automotive Zumos use a different path again. INVIA puts the file in the right place for your model without asking you.

That is normal for newer Garmins. They use the media transfer protocol, so they connect like a phone and never mount as a drive. Nothing is broken. Choose the file transfer option rather than the USB drive option, and the device connects.

Yes. Export the route as a standard GPX file and share it to the Garmin Tread app or the Garmin Explore app on your phone; both accept GPX and push it to the device.

On a Mac, no: Chrome or Edge talks to the device directly. On Windows you install INVIA Bridge once, a small free background application that runs quietly in the system tray and lets the browser reach the device. You never need Garmin Express or BaseCamp for this.

INVIA is the one tool that handles a ride from end to end. Build routes on real off-road data, edit any ride or track you own, send them to your GPS over the cable and pull the rides you recorded back the same way. Build custom map files and load those onto the device. Explore what other riders have ridden and pull any of it into your library. Then store, tag and catalogue all of it in one place.

A free account includes route building, storage and a connected device. Every account opens with 14 days of Pro, no card required. Pro adds singletrack and ATV trail, unpublished Forest Service roads, the Garmin map builder and the library and device power tools, and removes the limits. An Organizer tier adds the event toolkit. See Free, Pro and Organizer.

Garmin Zumo, Tread, Montana, GPSMAP, eTrex and Oregon over the cable. Any other GPS that reads GPX files can take a route by export, including the Trail Tech Voyager: put the GPX on the unit's memory card and open it there. Routes go out to the device from the browser (Chrome or Edge), and recorded tracks come back. Standard GPX export covers everything else.

On the web, Pro includes the Garmin map builder: build a map file of a riding area and load it onto the device, so the unit shows your trails whether or not you have signal.

INVIA runs in the browser today. Phone apps are in development and there is nothing to download yet.

Forest Service, BLM, National Park and state sources, unified and drawn so each road shows what it is, from single track up to pavement. Tap a road for what the agency that manages it recorded. What is mapped runs to 340,000 miles of dirt road and trail, mapped from Forest Service, BLM and state land. What has been checked by hand is a smaller and different thing: 190 riding areas across 17 states have been gone through by hand, with 413 named single track trails so far.

Thousands of routes and rides uploaded by other riders, drawn from actual rides and planned routes, so you can see where the riding really is. Riders have built more than 2,700 routes on INVIA, with more than 1,200 shared to the community map.

Yes. Organize a meet-up, send out the link, and people join for free. Event organizers hand out GPS tracks, send updates and documents to everyone registered, and run a live tracking map. Rider data stays private.

You do. You share only the routes you choose, and that decision is made route by route, never once for your whole account.

It is Latin: in- (without) + via (way). It means pathless, the places a road will not reach.

No. Sign in with Apple, Google, or a six-digit code emailed to you. Passwords remain only for older accounts. See Signing in.

A route is a plan, an editable line to ride. A ride is a record, a track your GPS wrote with a timestamp on every point. INVIA classifies imported files automatically: route-only files are routes, timestamped tracks are rides, and recording-app names count as rides even without timestamps. You can override it on import, and convert rides that are really routes. See Formats and packaging.

Only you, unless you set an item to Friends or Public. Sharing is decided route by route. A shared link shows the map and stats; downloading the file is off unless you switch on Allow downloads for that item. See Share links and Allow downloads.

No. Export is for content you built or imported yourself; the file belongs to the rider who shared it. You can send it to your device, which always works. See Export rules.

Home is the library. Routes and Rides are sections of the Home sidebar; clicking one filters the grid. See Sidebar sections.

A stowed collection keeps its routes inside it and off your Routes, Rides and Home lists, so a big route pack does not flood the grid. Listed shows them everywhere. New collections are stowed; changing it is Pro. See Collections overview.

Only if you allow it. A shared collection can always be viewed, copied into a library and sent to a device. Downloading it as a file needs Allow downloads on, is only possible when every route in it is your own, and the permission lives in a special link you can revoke.

INVIA sends one track file with every route in order, plus one saved-places file holding every waypoint from all the routes and the collection itself, de-duplicated. A soft limit of 500 waypoints applies and anything left off is named.

In Auto mode each segment tries the road network first, then the trail network. If neither has anything within the snap tolerance for your zoom level, the segment is drawn straight and marked off-road with an orange anchor. Road, Trail and OFF-Track modes force one behavior. Switching modes only affects the next segments you draw. See Routing rules and off-road anchors.

Not the road part. To move a section, use Detour: click the start and end of the section on the line, then click anywhere to route through that point. Orange off-road anchors, named waypoint markers, off-route pins and the green start pin can all be dragged. See Toolbox: Edit.

No. Difficulty (Easy, Moderate, Hard) and Surface (Paved, Mixed, Dirt) are your own ratings, set when you save or on the route page. INVIA does compute distance, a ride-time estimate for your discipline, and the elevation profile with gain, loss and maximum grade.

Press Split and click the line, or right-click the line and choose Split here. Sections get their own names and colors, can be saved separately or together, and Rejoin Route puts them back into one route. Add Route starts a second route on the same map; up to five can be open at once.

Create a casual meet-up: name, when, where, who can come, and your routes. Share the link; friends RSVP with one tap and get the routes to send to their devices. Meet-ups are free for up to 25 people. Larger rides use organized events with a roster, check-in and live tracking. See Meet-ups.

No. Registration and pricing stay on the organizer's own site; the INVIA event page shows a Register button that sends riders there, and a separate Get the routes button for riders who have registered.

Organizers turn tracking on for the event and see riders on a live map, one dot per rider with a trail, problem flags and SOS messages. Positions come from satellite trackers (SPOT, Garmin inReach) that riders attach themselves or that the organizer hands out. By default only organizers and staff see locations. See Live tracking and the public page.

The in-app Events surface is in beta and appears for accounts with the beta grant. The public event page at a shared link is open to everyone.

A Pro tool that turns your routes into a custom Garmin .img map, one layer per map file, in Garmin-native colors with optional arrows and pins, and sends it to the device from the browser with verification that it landed. See Builder: layers and inputs.

Building runs on INVIA's map service. When the page cannot reach it, the card says so and offers Retry. Your saved map designs are untouched. See Builder: outputs and limits.

Yes, directly from the browser in Chrome or Edge. Connect the Garmin on the Device page, then press Send to Garmin in the builder, use Send to Device on any saved route, or use From INVIA on the Device page. It works with USB-drive Garmins and with MTP-only models such as the Zumo XT, Tread, GPSMAP 67 and eTrex SE. No Garmin Express or BaseCamp needed. See Sending.

Yes. INVIA is the only web application outside Garmin that sends files to a Garmin over MTP, straight from a browser tab. The Garmin connects like a phone, keeps running normally, and never appears as a drive. See Connecting.

No. INVIA sends routes to the device and imports recorded tracks from it directly in the browser.

Chrome and Edge are the only browsers that let a web page communicate with a USB device or open a drive. Everything else on INVIA works in any browser; only the cable connection needs Chrome or Edge.

A small, free background application for Windows 10 and 11 that lets Chrome reach your Garmin. It installs once and runs quietly in the system tray. Windows needs it whether your Garmin connects by file transfer or as a drive. A Mac does not need it at all.

Yes. Connect the device and INVIA lists every track and recorded activity on it, drawn on a map. Save all of them or select the ones you want. Nothing is cleared from the device until the import is verified and you choose to. See Importing tracks and activities.

Yes. The Garmin map builder (Pro) builds a .img map from your tracks, and the Device page uploads it to the Garmin from the browser. The Maps panel also lists and removes installed maps (Pro). See IMG maps and the file browser.

Automotive units like the Zumo XT and Tread use Internal Storage/GPX. Handhelds like the Montana, GPSMAP, eTrex and Oregon use Garmin/GPX. INVIA puts the file in the right folder for each model automatically.

Yes. Garmin reads route color from the GPX DisplayColor extension, one of its named colors. INVIA writes the extension and matches your color by hue, verified on the Montana 700-series.

Yes. On the Device page choose From INVIA and pick the collection, or press Send to Device on the collection. INVIA draws it on the device map, then sends one multi-track file for the routes plus one saved-places file with every waypoint, de-duplicated across the whole package.

Roads are drawn in six classes, from single track up to pavement: Single Track, ATV / Narrow OHV (50 inches or less), Open to all vehicles, Street-legal only, 4WD High-clearance, and 4WD Plates / verify. Each class is a switch in Layers. See Base map and road classes.

USFS Motor Vehicle Use Maps, Forest Service system roads the MVUM never mapped, BLM roads and trails, National Park backcountry roads, state OHV systems for California, Michigan, Minnesota, Oregon, Colorado and Utah, named trails from OpenStreetMap, and land boundaries. Tap any road for its number, class, season and managing agency.

Tap a road. Forest Service routes show the dates they are open where the MVUM records them; park and state routes point you to the agency for seasonal restrictions. Wilderness and military boundaries are drawn and explained. See Tap to identify and pins.

Yes. A route's named waypoints go as saved places alongside the track. A collection sends one file for the lines plus one saved-places file named after the package holding every waypoint, de-duplicated across the package. Before a single-route send INVIA also offers your saved waypoints within 750 meters of the line. See How waypoints travel.

A waypoint is a named stop the route passes through. A pin is a named place beside the route that the route does not detour to. Dropping a POI makes a pin by default; uncheck Off route to make it a stop. Detach turns a stop into a pin. See Kinds and storage.

Each route carries its own copy. Renaming on a route changes that route only; the waypoint library's rename-everywhere changes every copy. Deleting from the library removes copies from routes and rides but leaves collections alone; remove it from a collection separately. Deleting a route sweeps its waypoints into any collection that holds it first.

GPX, KML and FIT, by button, drag and drop, or from a connected Garmin. A file with several tracks is kept together as one collection. TCX is not supported yet. See Formats and packaging.

Yes, two ways. Rides are compared by start time, start location and distance and flagged before saving. Route packs re-imported into the same collection are adopted instead of duplicated. The Pro clean-up tool also finds duplicate routes by shape after the fact. See Duplicates and bulk import.

Your own routes, rides and collections as GPX. Items saved from other riders are never exportable. See Export rules.

$9.99 a month or $59.99 a year. Every account starts with 14 days of Pro, no card required. Organizer is $79.99 a year and includes all of Pro plus the event toolkit. See Free, Pro and Organizer.

The account continues as Free. Nothing you built goes anywhere; the Pro road classes and tools lock, and the limits on routes, collections and device sends apply. See Accounts and the Pro trial.

Yes, from Profile, Edit Profile, Account settings…, Cancel subscription…. Access continues to the end of the paid period. See Subscription.