It was one of those nights when the clock struck eleven, my phone was half-charged, and I was still dragging points across a digital map, trying to make an 8-kilometer route not end in the middle of a highway. I had been doing this for weeks, maybe months. Every night, the same ritual: open Google Maps, draw a path, discover it cut through a sidewalk-less area, start over. Twenty, thirty minutes wasted. It wasn't laziness about running; it was the tedium of route planning that kept breaking my Strava streak. As a developer, I knew that pain had a name: friction. And friction, in a digital product, can be removed. That is why jokiinlari was born — an AI-assisted route planner that turns a vague idea into a GPX file ready for your Garmin or Coros, without leaving the browser.
The problem wasn't unique. Talking to other runners, I found many shared this struggle: the motivation to lace up was there, but the step before — designing a safe route with the right distance and manageable elevation — became a psychological barrier. In software development, we understand this concept well: if a step hurts, people avoid it. So I decided to build the solution by applying the same principles we use at Q2BSTUDIO to create custom software: identify the exact friction point and eliminate it with clean technology, without monthly subscriptions or cumbersome processes.
The result is jokiinlari, a route planner that works anywhere in the world thanks to OpenStreetMap data. Its operation is simple: you can place waypoints directly on real streets — without logging in, without registering — and instantly see distance, cumulative elevation, and altitude profile. But the real magic lies in the AI co-pilot. Just type something like '10 km loop from the National Monument, under 50 m elevation gain' and the artificial intelligence returns a route over roads that actually exist. No impossible straight lines, no shortcuts crossing rivers. Real routes, in seconds. Behind this functionality is a process that combines natural language models with graph algorithms — an integration reminiscent of the systems we develop at Q2BSTUDIO for custom AI agents, capable of understanding geographic context and delivering actionable results.
The business model also reflects that friction-removal philosophy. There is no monthly subscription. You only pay for AI tokens and GPX export credits when you need them. You can buy a basic pack for 15,000 IDR (roughly $0.90) or a standard pack for 49,000 IDR, and tokens never expire. This matters for runners like me, who don't plan every day, but only when they actually go out. Additionally, running clubs can purchase custom packs via WhatsApp or email. The idea is that the tool adapts to the user, not the other way around. That flexibility mirrors what we apply at Q2BSTUDIO when designing Cloud AWS/Azure solutions, where scalability and pay-as-you-go are core pillars.
From a technical standpoint, jokiinlari does not just solve a runner's problem. It is an example of how artificial intelligence can be integrated into everyday tools to reduce friction. But it also raises questions about security and privacy. Location data, even if used only for plotting routes, must be handled carefully. At Q2BSTUDIO we know this well: every time we work on cybersecurity projects, we insist that user data protection is not an afterthought but a layer of design. That is why jokiinlari does not store routes without consent and offers direct export without passing through intermediate servers if the user prefers. Transparency is key, just like in the BI / Power BI dashboards we implement for businesses, where data traceability is mandatory.
The story of jokiinlari is not just that of a developer solving his own frustration. It is a reminder that the best tools come from real needs, and that technology, properly applied, can remove barriers we didn't even know existed. If you've ever skipped a run because route planning felt like a chore, try describing what you want to an AI co-pilot. It might turn out that, like me, the only obstacle left was that preliminary step. You already have the motivation. The rest is a matter of seconds.
