Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

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ogg
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Joined: 24 Jul 2007, 4:43pm

Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by ogg »

Can't access that Nuke - it's set to private
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NUKe
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by NUKe »

ogg wrote: 11 Aug 2021, 3:19pm Can't access that Nuke - it's set to private
Changed it to public if you want to re try its only one I put in for a demo
NUKe
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esuhl
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Joined: 22 Mar 2017, 3:20am

Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by esuhl »

I start with the CycleStreets route planner. Then have a look at OpenCycleMap (OCM) and Google Maps. And plot the route on MapMyRide.

OCM shows cycle/bridle/foot-paths. Google has "street view" to gauge how safe roads look, and spot the gap in the hedge concealing the hidden off-road route that you might not notice as you ride past. Its "satellite view" can give you a rough idea of the terrain and whether it might be overgrown.

On MapMyRide, you can trace out the route on a map, then use it with the mobile app -- it shows a map with your planned route, and your current location. I haven't used it for ages, but I presume it hasn't changed much.

----

As for the "cycling on the road" issue... The one thing that really helped me was a rear-view mirror. They're not popular, but I wouldn't be without mine. It's a Cateye BM-500G. I tend to glance in mine every few seconds, so I can see vehicles approaching, and what they're doing. It stays firmly in place off-road, and on-road I can see vehicles approaching from about 50m behind.

Happy cycling :D
sgl5gjr
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by sgl5gjr »

Plotaroute gets my vote.... premium users at £16 a year get the OS overlay too.... I plot where I want to go... then check on OS...and if all is well save the route which gives several download options....one is pdf and others are for GPS units but usefully kml for Google earth...
Google earth allows a good check up and some off road sections also have road crossings so easy to check your planned ride
If anyone wants to do the Peddars Way in Norfolk for instance, that can be followed at Streetview level too.....
Safe RIding
SteelR4t
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Joined: 16 Oct 2021, 10:33am

Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by SteelR4t »

Arrived here after a web search for MTB forums and this particular conversation caught my eye, so thought I'd sign up and jump in!

I've been riding off road for 4-5 years and have been Komoot quite successfully for that time. I've tried some of the other apps and sites for route planning and whilst there's no perfect single app that "does it all", Komoot has always seemed to give me the best of what I need. Recently, however I've found it to be incredibly frustrating in that it will consistently highlight areas where cycling is forbidden, both on areas I've cycled before and also routes regularly ridden by other riders.

What's exacerbated this issue is that since lockdown and increased cycle traffic through local woodlands (some of which categorised as "area of outstanding natural beauty") a good number of them have been closed to mountain bikers by local authorities.

I'm left with a situation where I'm not sure whether or not the area that's identified in Komoot is forbidden to cyclists or not, and if I err on the side of caution and try and reroute around an area that is, I'm either restricted to a very small number of routes, or just redirected on to a road which kinda misses the point!

Really just wondering if anyone has had similar experience, not just with Komoot, but also with trails being closed by local authorities?
Pauline
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Joined: 25 May 2022, 9:44am

Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Pauline »

You also have Cyclope which allows you to plan a bike route.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/deta ... on.Cyclope
https://www.cyclope.dev/
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Sweep
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Sweep »

I understand that for paid subscribers cycletravel now has some sort of "gravel" mode for routeing but know little else about it.
Perhaps richard would like to say more.
Sweep
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Yes - there's a new gravel/off-road mode. It's basically the same idea as the main routing, but the bias is "prefer off-road tracks" rather than "prefer quiet roads". Where possible, it prefers gravelly tracks and byways to pure muddy bridleways.

OSM data isn't as complete for paths/tracks as it is for roads: some paths are missing, and others don't have the correct bike permissions or surface information. So it won't always find the ideal route, because the data just isn't there - as always with OSM, it varies from area to area. But it'll often do a decent job of finding something that's 40% unpaved or so. (Coverage in mainland Europe is a bit better than in the UK.)

It's supporter-only for the first month or so, partly to say thank you to supporters, and partly to help iron out some of the initial issues with a friendly audience! But it'll be opened up as standard in due course.
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
Nearholmer
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Nearholmer »

Very interesting.

Can you give a shout when you feel ready to fully unveil it?

On the gravel bikes forum people are forever starting threads seeking a good routing software, and they end-up getting gulled into Komoot, which IMO is a catch-penny thing. Yours should definitely get trumpeted at the right moment.

OSM, and therefore cyclestreets, and I guess therefore yours too, does contain quite a few coding errors, mixing-up bridleways and footpaths. I’ve found a fair few errors recently, it being “bridleway season” while the weather is dry, so tend to carry the OS map (paper and download) too.
Richard Fairhurst
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Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

It definitely does. I try to err on the side of caution but that does mean it misses some things which are cyclable. One of the biggest issues is people just tagging things as "tracks" without any ROW/access status: cycle.travel doesn't route across these, mostly because I don't want people to get accosted by angry farmers!
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
Nearholmer
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Nearholmer »

If found the best mis-code yet today, after cycling into the middle of a huge field of wheat thinking that the wheel-track through the crop that I was following was a cycleway.

OSM had coded a drainage ditch as a soft-surfaced cycle path, and what I was following was a coincidental tractor trail through the wheat about ten yards from the ditch.

I was bl@@dy glad the farmer wasn’t about to point out the literal error of my ways!
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Traction_man
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Traction_man »

I have just come across "Gravel Map", handy for planning and folks' photos provide a sense of what the surface is like:

https://gravelmap.com/

Inf on this says

"Gravelmap is an interactive database of gravel and dirt roads and paths, submitted and managed entirely by people who ride them. Gravelmap is owned and operated by Whitewater.

Gravelmap was started with two purposes in mind: give people a way to discover new gravel roads and allow them to post and manage their favorite routes for others to enjoy. Web-based mapping tools are a great resource for planning rides, and while they generally contain plentiful road data, they have a couple of shortcomings:
  • No road surface data. Online maps generally do not give any indication of a road's surface type. If you're planning on riding gravel (or if you want to avoid it), you must rely on satellite imagery, which may or may not tell you what you need to know about a road's surface. Unless you've ridden or driven the road before, the process is largely one of guesswork.

    Is the road traversible? Is it on private property? Does it even exist? Occasionally, especially in rural areas, an appealing road on a map may end up being inaccessible due to land ownership, gates, adverse conditions or other situations that a map alone will not indicate. That's why all routes on Gravelmap are user-created. We encourage people to post routes that they've ridden before and know are free of restrictions. As a result, while gravel roads don't show up on Gravelmap until someone adds them, you can use them to plan a ride with confidence.!"
all the best,

Keith
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Sweep
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Sweep »

Traction_man wrote: 26 Jun 2022, 12:35pm I have just come across "Gravel Map", handy for planning and folks' photos provide a sense of what the surface is like:

https://gravelmap.com/

Inf on this says

"Gravelmap is an interactive database of gravel and dirt roads and paths, submitted and managed entirely by people who ride them. Gravelmap is owned and operated by Whitewater.

Gravelmap was started with two purposes in mind: give people a way to discover new gravel roads and allow them to post and manage their favorite routes for others to enjoy. Web-based mapping tools are a great resource for planning rides, and while they generally contain plentiful road data, they have a couple of shortcomings:
  • No road surface data. Online maps generally do not give any indication of a road's surface type. If you're planning on riding gravel (or if you want to avoid it), you must rely on satellite imagery, which may or may not tell you what you need to know about a road's surface. Unless you've ridden or driven the road before, the process is largely one of guesswork.

    Is the road traversible? Is it on private property? Does it even exist? Occasionally, especially in rural areas, an appealing road on a map may end up being inaccessible due to land ownership, gates, adverse conditions or other situations that a map alone will not indicate. That's why all routes on Gravelmap are user-created. We encourage people to post routes that they've ridden before and know are free of restrictions. As a result, while gravel roads don't show up on Gravelmap until someone adds them, you can use them to plan a ride with confidence.!"
all the best,

Keith
sounds like an entirely different thing to cycle-travel to be honest.
In fact sounds like double-hell to me - some sort of Strava for gravel riders.

Can forsee that in no time at all, if the thing's succesful, the racing sheep will ruin any peace suggested tracks may have once had.
Sweep
Nearholmer
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Re: Apps/route planners for off road cycling?

Post by Nearholmer »

That thought has entered my mind too.

There’s definitely a divide, although that’s probably not the right word, between people who enjoy cycling off road for the element of exploration and the peace, and people who are heavily into stats around speed, distance and height, some of whom are actually into racing.

My concern is that if it all goes too far, and too popular in the latter direction, cyclists will get banned from some routes because cycling is damaging the surfaces and/or crowding walkers and equestrians out ….. I think it may already have happened a tiny bit in the Surrey Hills.
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