Cycling UK Forum

Vorpal wrote:

RickH wrote:

LittleGreyCat wrote:I'm trying to plan a route along the sea front at Felixstowe.
Probably a common thing as it links the Harwich Foot Ferry with the Felixstowe Ferry Foot Ferry.
The Promenade is open to cyclists and mainly runs parallel to the road.
I can plan a route from Felixstowe Dock which runs along the Promenade to Undercliff Road East but Cycle.Travel will not allow me to move from the Promenade to the road (trust me, this is easy).
Instead it insists on sending me to the end of the Promenade then up Jacob's Ladder which is a set of steep steps.

I could just ignore this quirk, but it would be useful if the software recognised that the Promenade runs alongside the road and that it is easy to switch from one to the other. Also that steep steps are not usually part of a cycle route.

Cycle.travel has no way of knowing if you can move between 2 parallel routes unless there are interconnects (locations of dropped kerbs for instance) marked in the OSM mapping. There could equally well, in other instances, be a tall fence or other impenetrable barrier separating the road & a cycle route.

LittleGreyCat: You could update the OSM yourself, with locations of dropped kerbs, marking Jacob's ladder as a footpath, etc. OSM does not have the most user-friendly interface in the world, but there are user groups and a froum to help people figure it out.

I will add it to the list - I hadn't realised that the map data was so scanty in some areas.

Sadly, there is quite a bit on the list already.

Richard Fairhurst wrote:Gah, Google really are a pain. It's not really either http or https - it's not downloaded from a server, but rather is created locally in the browser using JavaScript. In other words, it's a file Chrome itself has created, following cycle.travel's instructions. The same's true for the GPX, so why Chrome is blocking one but not the other I don't know - maybe they've whitelisted GPX as an acceptable format but not TCX?

In case you hadn't noticed (why doesn't c.t's forum offer any notifications?), there's a similar report of GPX being considered dangerous on the c.t feedback forum.

Hi Richard, now that I'm doing more tracks, bridleways and byways, I find I often can't use cycle.travel to plan - even with 'Paths and roads' toggled on. It just won't let me select certain routes - which is a shame, even if I try and 'force' a route by adding dense via pins. e.g. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100997 Rode this section yesterday, except my route was direct on Whiteshards Bottom to Stock Lane, between pins 1 & 2 (which can be selected on it's own: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100999 ).

edit. posted in the other place too. I gather that it may be due to an OSM data cycles=yes/no issue.

andyrox wrote:Hi Richard, now that I'm doing more tracks, bridleways and byways, I find I often can't use cycle.travel to plan - even with 'Paths and roads' toggled on. It just won't let me select certain routes - which is a shame, even if I try and 'force' a route by adding dense via pins. e.g. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100997 Rode this section yesterday, except my route was direct on Whiteshards Bottom to Stock Lane, between pins 1 & 2 (which can be selected on it's own: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100999 ).

edit. posted in the other place too. I gather that it may be due to an OSM data cycles=yes/no issue.

It's much simpler than that: https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=19/5 ... 4&layers=C shows that the two routes don't connect on the map. Can you correct that if it's a mistake, please?

There's also a strange-looking double-back at the eastern end.

Good spot, yes they're definitely connected. What's the procedure for correcting this/editing?

Is it possible to move the "side bar info" so that the map will be Full Screen?

andyrox wrote:Good spot, yes they're definitely connected. What's the procedure for correcting this/editing?

Off the top of my head, in a suitable/common web browser, you click the "Edit" button on the link I posted, then login or register, then get to the editing screen (might be some welcome/intro/tutorial tips to read first) and probably drag the west end of the bridleway onto the other track at the correct point (there should be satellite pics visible under it to help you, or you can upload GPX tracks or use coordinates of the junction if you can extract them from your ride) so it all clicks together, then click "Save" and fill out a comment for the captain's log, claiming either "local knowledge" or "survey" as the source, depending on what you feel is most appropriate (which probably depends if you have used a track or coordinate).

Reply no. 667, not the devil's number any more

andyrox wrote:Hi Richard, now that I'm doing more tracks, bridleways and byways, I find I often can't use cycle.travel to plan - even with 'Paths and roads' toggled on. It just won't let me select certain routes - which is a shame, even if I try and 'force' a route by adding dense via pins. e.g. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100997 Rode this section yesterday, except my route was direct on Whiteshards Bottom to Stock Lane, between pins 1 & 2 (which can be selected on it's own: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100999 ).

edit. posted in the other place too. I gather that it may be due to an OSM data cycles=yes/no issue.

You can force it to that route. Just right click on point 1 and select go direct to point 2. Then drag point 2 along the track route to close to point 1

Thanks mjr.

mongoose wrote:

andyrox wrote:Hi Richard, now that I'm doing more tracks, bridleways and byways, I find I often can't use cycle.travel to plan - even with 'Paths and roads' toggled on. It just won't let me select certain routes - which is a shame, even if I try and 'force' a route by adding dense via pins. e.g. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100997 Rode this section yesterday, except my route was direct on Whiteshards Bottom to Stock Lane, between pins 1 & 2 (which can be selected on it's own: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100999 ).

edit. posted in the other place too. I gather that it may be due to an OSM data cycles=yes/no issue.

You can force it to that route. Just right click on point 1 and select go direct to point 2. Then drag point 2 along the track route to close to point 1

Ok, thanks, that works - I hadn't seen the direct to function.

andyrox wrote:Ok, thanks, that works - I hadn't seen the direct to function.

It can be a very useful function where you know the map is wrong (or where you plan to do something such as visiting somewhere by going in one entrance & coming out elsewhere when there isn't an official public through route).

It is still also worth being able to do minor corrections in the OSM data for the benefit of those who follow in your wheeltracks. Basic stuff isn't too hard to do.

Just catching up after being a bit distracted with paid work this week...!

andyrox wrote:Hi Richard, now that I'm doing more tracks, bridleways and byways, I find I often can't use cycle.travel to plan - even with 'Paths and roads' toggled on. It just won't let me select certain routes - which is a shame, even if I try and 'force' a route by adding dense via pins. e.g. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100997 Rode this section yesterday, except my route was direct on Whiteshards Bottom to Stock Lane, between pins 1 & 2 (which can be selected on it's own: https://cycle.travel/map/journey/100999 ).

edit. posted in the other place too. I gather that it may be due to an OSM data cycles=yes/no issue.

I've just fixed that on OSM so it'll be reflected in cycle.travel next time I run a data update.

On OSM, if you don't have the time/knowledge/inclination to make the change yourself, you can add a "note" to the map and hopefully another mapper will spot that and pick it up. There's a little "speech bubble" icon at the right of the map on osm.org for this.

Woodtourer wrote:Is it possible to move the "side bar info" so that the map will be Full Screen?

Not yet (I do want to add an option to turn off the turn-by-turn instructions, not least because it'd make route calculation faster for really long routes) but you can go to https://cycle.travel/map/mobile as a workaround - that brings up the mobile view, which is full-width, and though designed for small screens will work ok on large ones too.

Thanks Richard! I will use this method to get more map. Look forward to the upgrade!

Hi Richard,

Would a Progressive Web App be a good way to get a solution on mobile that would be usable by on all mobile OSes and offer a UI to a if not exactly the same but sufficiently similar to a native app?

Thanks

Yes and no! I've gone some way towards that with the interface at https://cycle.travel/map/mobile which is a little more app-like.

The big challenge I've found is that JavaScript map interaction tends to be very pernickety on mobile - the library used by cycle.travel (and everyone else), Leaflet, was originally developed for desktop use and is a lot less smooth on mobile than a mobile-first library. There's all sorts of really exasperating frustrations in real-world use: for example, I find that using the web interface on a cross-city ride, every bump in the road makes the iPhone think that I've shaken it so it blocks the screen with an "Undo typing" message! Each of these is ultimately fixable, but there's so many that to get a decent mobile experience I'd really need to rewrite the interface from first principles... at which point I might as well build a proper native app.

It's also harder to do offline mapping with web technologies than it is with a native app, and I think that's important for medium/long-distance rides - I'd like people to be able to download a whole country onto their phone.

The iPhone app is mostly there now - there's a lot of little details that need tidying up but the core of the app works well. Once I've got that released I'll port it to Android, which should be much quicker given that much of it can go straight across (the vector map styling, the turn detection algorithms, that sort of thing). Watch this space.