doodah wrote:Morning All,
First off, I have used cycle travel quite a lot and am very content with it.
I know how to use it but would like to understand how it arrives at some of its planning.
eg. If a route is asked for from Nantes to Constanta, CT gives a route at variance to EV6 - which is for cyclists. Not a problem for me but why?
If I plan a route from A to B and it passes through a mountain range with 3 passes, will CT give me the shortest route with, say the highest pass, or will it give me the lowest pass with a 50km 'detour'.
I only ask because I would like to put my complete faith in CT for providing me with an optimum route for a laden touring cyclist. I appreciate that I can carve the route up and get elevation profiles that show % elevations but this can be tedious and then generate doubt into what CT is really offering on other parts of the route.
It weighs up a lot of different factors: surface type, climb (both total and gradient), signposted routes, motor traffic, minimising turns, and so on. So there's no hard and fast answer - it won't necessarily choose the lowest pass or the shortest route, but will look for a "best of both worlds" route. There's a few thousand lines of code that work out the weightings.
That's why, although it does like EuroVelo routes (and National Cycle Network routes, and any equivalent), it doesn't slavishly follow them: it will often cut off long doglegs or divert past rough surfaces. For example, for this
big loop in the Danube, it will cut off the loop to save 30 miles although it does entail more climbing. If you do want to do the loop, you can drag the route back to the river. (I'm in the early stages of looking at options to make it easier to follow signposted routes faithfully if that's what you want to do.)
Generally for a long, laden route I'd suggest planning an outline route with via points in the places you want to go. Then split it up into stages for each few days - you can do this quite easily by putting a via point at your overnight stop,
right-clicking the via point and selecting "Delete after", then saving under a different name. You can then fine-tune the legs by dragging the route around, using the "Paved only" option, and so on.
Ian - glad it's working now!