Cycle Travel Question

[Richard Fairhurst]

Mea culpa - I needed to upgrade a piece of software on the map server and didn't realise it had stopped the map processing queue. It's chunking through them again now and should have cleared the backlog in 10 minutes or so.

[deliquium]

I so appreciate this site Even local rides/destinations are always worth 'consulting'

Richard, what's the best way to flag/alert the rare/rogue routing/software anomalies?

Came across a local one yesterday here in North Wales - suggested route was barred by an ancient 8ft high private walled Victorian 'estate' wrought iron gate, locked and chained and didn't look like it had been open for a very long time. Straightforward alternative available on NCN and a proper road.

Many thanks and huge appreciation for such a brilliant resource. Plus the interface is superb, simple and beautifully uncluterred

How do you you finance this? I'd like to contribute, as I'm sure countless others would too

Kind regards, Paul

[matt_twam_asi]

It's possible that the tagging on OpenStreetMap (which cycle.travel uses as a data source) is inaccurate or incomplete. If you post a link to the route and indicate where the routing is iffy then we can tell you with more certainty.

[deliquium]

It's possible that the tagging on OpenStreetMap (which cycle.travel uses as a data source) is inaccurate or incomplete. If you post a link to the route and indicate where the routing is iffy then we can tell you with more certainty.

Haven't figured out how to post a link of the route from cycle.travel, so here's a screen grab

The padlocked gate, which is part of a huge stone perimeter wall surrounding the Glynllifon estate is a few metres off the NCN8 at the point marked 21. The track beyond the gate isn't paved and it too looks like it hasn't seen any use for quite some time.

[matt_twam_asi]

Thanks Paul. It looks like there's no additional tags on the "road" which would discourage the cycle.travel routing from using it. The gate and the wall haven't been added either.

I've added a note to OpenStreetMap referencing your post so that local mappers can improve the area. Or you could use this as a diving in point to set up an account to make the changes yourself - I'd be more than happy to QA the changes if you do.

[Warin61]

Humm
That 'road' has been edited about 1 year ago .. by cycle users too. Perhaps they accept rougher conditions than you? Or they saw a way around the gate?

I note there are no surface nor smoothness (roughness) declarations on those ways either.
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/92929697/history
http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/404936103/history

Looking at the area using Bing Imagery does not show the gate nor wall .. possibly in shadow or obscured by trees.
It does show way 404936103 is closer to a track classification along at least some of its length.

Looking at Strava .. there are no traces through that road.

As I cannot 'see' the gate I really should not add it. I'd encourage Paul to see about adding it in an appropriate location. A simple node with the tags "barrier=gate, access=private, source=personal survey" would do the job.

[deliquium]

Thanks matt_twam_asi and Warin61

There's no way around the gate without bolt croppers methinks? The track beyond certainly looks cycleable. The 8ft + wall is several miles long and very imposing!

Looking at the link:

http://www.openstreetmap.org/way/92929697/history

The wall is on the green south to north boundary a few yards west of Lôn Eifion. The substantial gate (locked with a rusted chain and padlock) is under the arched wall on that track.

It's local to me so will pop back that way in the week and this time take the camera.

Then perhaps you could advise on the best way to update OpenStreetMap?

Thanks again

[Warin61]

Then perhaps you could advise on the best way to update OpenStreetMap?

Best?
Well that is a loaded question. For me the best way is always to do it yourself.
There are lots of guides to start OSM one of them is
http://learnosm.org/en/beginner/
Google learn OSm will get you more ... including youtube if you want it.

Ask if you have problems.

[SA_SA_SA]

Richard Fairhurst:

Once again, thanks for the route planner, I have been using it a lot---

Like Michael Caine, I have had an idea (or 2):

1) After trying the turn by turn, I didn't find it as useful as a cycle.travel pdf map, hand annotated with road names. It occurred to me this could be done automatically (but simply) on the generated pdfs, by (optionally) simply tidily discreetly 'numbering' route road/path segments. A text table below each map could then 'map' the 'numbers to road names (or minor road / A/B / L number if unknown, perhaps with a space left for manual insertion by pen of name).
E.g.
2,3,4: Bicyclette Towers
5,6: A34 (Tree Road)
7,8,9,10: Posh Park Avenue

Although, it seems England is less slightly less keen on name plates on minor roads than in Northern Ireland.

2) a button to freeze/unfreeze a route once the user is happy with it, so as future routing algorithm changes won't change the route? I currently just use lots of via points.

[Richard Fairhurst]

Good thinking - I'll give the first one some thought. I know some people are really keen on cue sheets and I've been wondering about doing one of those for a while, but actually annotating a map with the numbers is another interesting step on.

Don't worry on the latter - when you save a route, it saves the 'polyline' (i.e. the exact twists and turns) and the instructions with it, so it'll stay the same whenever you reload it. If you then adjust the via points then it'll recalculate, but an unedited route will remain constant.

[SA_SA_SA]

...some people are really keen on cue sheets and I've been wondering about doing one of those for a while, ....

Thanks for your reply

I kind of assumed the turn by turn text-only pdf feature was intended as a cue sheet equivalent, what would be the difference?

[Bmblbzzz]

I used the "route upload" facility recently, more to see what it would do than anything else. I uploaded a route I'd planned on rwgps and cycle.travel gave me... virtually the same thing! Which isn't all that surprising, really. What did slightly surprise me was that cycle.travel is more shy of not only main roads, as you'd expect, but of paths as well. So several sections where rwgps had routed me along off-road tracks, cycle.travel took gave me a slightly longer route on lanes. In the event I followed the paths and they were fine, but that was in August; in winter some of them would probably be too muddy for most bikes. But one good thing was that the clear marking on the cycle.travel website enabled me to notice easily what was off-road; this isn't always at all obvious with some other planners without careful cross-checking on a different map.

[Richard Fairhurst]

It depends on the surface - or, more to the point, the surface tagging in OSM. Generally cycle.travel doesn't mind gravel or compacted surfaces too much, but if there's an otherwise equivalent parallel tarmac route, it'll always go for the tarmac. Where the surface isn't tagged in OSM (which is often the case), then cycle.travel takes a guess that errs on the safe side - for example, it assumes that bridleways without a surface tag are probably muddy, because the last thing I want to do is route people through a quagmire!

It's a particular challenge in the US, where there are two routing options in vast swathes of the country: remote dirt roads, or interstates (motorways, but in the Midwest, cycling is usually allowed on the hard shoulder). Add to that the fact that OSM surface tagging in the US is dire. I'm still juggling that one...

SA_SA_SA - honestly not sure yet; I'm playing around with some ideas. (But I should really concentrate on the mobile app first though!)

[Bmblbzzz]

I've never used the "cue sheet" facility. I used to print out the maps, which is a wonderful facility. Nowadays I've got a Garmin and usually just download the gpx track, but sometimes I'll still print out a map. The turn by turn list on screen is still very useful though for the way it highlights off-road sections and main roads. But recently someone was complaining to me about the route sheet on an audax they'd ridden; that it was full of misleading instructions, such as straight ons being labelled as right turns, and other instructions were missing altogether. They told me they reckoned it had simply been printed off a routing app without any checking, and I reckon (though I didn't ride this event) that might well be right. I'm pretty sure it wasn't done with cycle.travel, but just thought I'd mention this as a general point about turn-by-turn instructions from mapping.

[captain offensive]

Hi Richard. One little thing id love to see on the pdfs if possible would be the five mile markers you get on the website. They are useful to find out how far along one is. I normally end up adding them onto the print outs. Cheers