Guide · personalisation
How do you make a custom race poster?
Three ways in. Pick your race from the catalogue, upload a GPX file, or connect Strava. Either way, you choose the ink, the size, the name and the time, approve the preview, and the poster is drawn with a pen in the workshop.
Where do you start?
With the simplest question: is your race in the catalogue? Search for it by name in the shop. If it's there, the course and the title block are ready, and all that's left is your name and time. If not, you start from your own track, as a GPX file or from Strava.
How do you start from a race in the catalogue?
It is the quickest way. The catalogue holds 194 races: marathons, trails, ultras, long-distance hiking trails, cycling climbs and Tour de France stages. Open the race page, type your name and time, choose the ink and the size, and the preview shows exactly what will be drawn.
Catalogue courses are illustrative routes. The workshop redraws them from public data: the course announced by the organiser and OpenStreetMap paths. They are not the official courses, and Plotrek is not a partner of, or affiliated with, the organisers.
How do you start from your own GPX file?
Every sports watch and app can export a GPX file. Upload it on the “Your race” page: the course is drawn on the map, with its distance and elevation gain. Then fill in the title block: race name, date, your name, your time.
Two tips. Export the race itself, not your warm-up: the drawing follows the track to the metre. And copy your time from the official results, because the timestamps in a GPX file are not always reliable.
How do you start from Strava?
Connect your account, pick the activity, and the track comes in with its name, date and time. Nothing to retype. Plotrek keeps only what the poster needs, and you can revoke access at any time in your Strava settings.
If the Strava connection isn't available when you order, export the same activity as a GPX file from Strava: the result is the same.
What can you personalise?
- The ink: night and gold, burgundy and gold, cream and gold, white and blue.
- The size: A4 (21 × 29.7 cm, 8.3 × 11.7 in), A3 (29.7 × 42 cm, 11.7 × 16.5 in) or A2 (42 × 59.4 cm, 16.5 × 23.4 in).
- The title block: title, subtitle, name, time, date.
- Place names on the map, which you can keep or remove.
In the studio, you can also set the framing of the map, points of interest and the background: terrain in contour lines, or the city's streets.
What happens after you order?
The preview you approve is the drawing that will be plotted. In the workshop in Le Bouscat, the poster is prepared, drawn with a pen, line by line, then checked. The pen is on the paper for about 19 minutes for A4, 27 for A3 and 48 for A2; the whole job takes three hours at most. The poster then ships rolled in a tube.
Until plotting has started, a change is still possible: write to the workshop with your order number. Allow 5 to 10 business days to make it and 5 to 7 business days in transit, so 10 to 17 business days from order to delivery.
How much does a custom poster cost?
From €59 in A4, then €89 in A3 and €149 in A2. Personalisation is included: the ink, the paper, the track and the title-block text. Tracked shipping is free, in France and abroad. In a single order, every poster from the second one on is 20% off.
Why drawn with a pen rather than printed?
A printer lays down dots. The workshop's plotter holds a real pen and draws every line of your map, then your name and time, stroke by stroke. The line has a crisp edge and a slight relief of ink, on mass-coloured fine-art paper. The full comparison, with inks, papers and lead times, is in the guide “Pen plotter or print”.
Which mistakes should you avoid?
- An incomplete track: if your watch stopped along the way, the drawing follows the track exactly as it was recorded. Check it on the map before you approve.
- An overloaded title block: a name and a time read better than a sentence.
- An approximate time: the official result is the one that counts.