Cycle Travel Question

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
Richard Fairhurst
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Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

MrsHJ wrote: 22 May 2022, 5:52pmThe find accommodation is working a bit patchily at the moment.
It's... complicated! Essentially getting the information from booking.com is challenging. I'm hoping it'll be fixable but it won't be a quick and easy one I'm afraid.
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Psamathe
Posts: 17647
Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Psamathe »

MrsHJ wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:12pm
Psamathe wrote: 22 May 2022, 8:09pm Following MrsHJ raising accommodation, Feature request: Allow user preference (maybe for registered users in their profile or wherever) to specify the type of accommodation you are interested in. My distinction would be "camping" only (i.e. don't show hotels, B&Bs, etc.) but I guess what distinctions can be made depends on the sources of the accommodation info and what information they provide.

Ian
Well, it isn’t in settings but you can deselect everything except camping. I guess you know that and want it in settings anyway? - it’s top left on the page but it is showing a bit erratically at the moment.
Ooops. Never noticed that before and that completely meets what I was looking for. I'll edit my prev "Feature Request" post accordingly.

Thanks
Ian
BeardyWeirdy
Posts: 58
Joined: 10 Jul 2007, 10:49am

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by BeardyWeirdy »

Hi Richard

I came across a minor issue when using an android phone.

I was using a route the other day, and I needed to edit it and save it with a new name.

When I changed the route and saved it with a new name it just overwrote the original route. I tried it a few times and the new route name never showed up in the list of routes and the existing route was always over written.

I was able to get the new route to my Garmin - but the naming got confusing.

Thanks
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Could you check that, when you're saving, the "Save with new name" radio button is selected as well as typing the name? The blue button here:
Screenshot 2022-05-28 at 17.07.09.png
Screenshot 2022-05-28 at 17.07.09.png (45.34 KiB) Viewed 1110 times
It should do that automatically but it's possible that the Android browser is fouling it up somehow.
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BeardyWeirdy
Posts: 58
Joined: 10 Jul 2007, 10:49am

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by BeardyWeirdy »

Yes - that seems to be it - if I select the save with new name button it works, but does not show up in my journeys until I click away from the journey tab and reload it.

I probably should have noticed the radio button wasn't selected, but you know how it is when everybody else is waiting on their bike for you to be ready!

Another little issue I had was that we found one of the main bridges south out of Rotterdam on the north sea route is closed on the way out of our trip (n15 bridge between points 97 and 98) - I imagine for some time as they are building an entire new road system. This does not seem to have been reflected in the osm data, which is fine - but I would like to have put an exclude this bridge from the route option, so I could rework the way back easier. I endued up using the en.routeplanner.fietsersbond.nl site which seem to know the bridge was shut.

eg
https://en.routeplanner.fietsersbond.nl ... erences=63


I image that having blocked paths is a pain, so don't worry to much.
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Sweep
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Sweep »

andrew_s wrote: 9 Jun 2021, 1:47am
Sweep wrote: 8 Jun 2021, 6:16pm why if you ask for a route from carlisle to inverness,
and then ask for a round trip,
does the route divert to and then come straight back from the doubtless charming town/hamlet of Claonaig?
Claonaig is the Arran ferry, which is doubtless quite a reasonable way back to Carlisle.
Why it abandons the idea and then goes back to use the Portavadie & Gourock ferries instead is anyone's guess
Have found another example of this odd behaviour.
On finding it, the odd behavior rang a bell so went back and found above.
Clitheroe to Blackburn - all makes sense.
But ask for a round trip and you get sent on a large detour to what looks like a cul-de-sac in Church (have never been to the best of my knowledge) and then retrace your steps.
If I didn't have the ultimate faith in your niceness, generosity of spirit and honesty richard I'd start to suspect you of taking bungs from tiddly places with over-expanded tourism boards.
Sweep
Psamathe
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Joined: 10 Jan 2014, 8:56pm

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Psamathe »

Sweep wrote: 2 Jun 2022, 7:36am
andrew_s wrote: 9 Jun 2021, 1:47am
Sweep wrote: 8 Jun 2021, 6:16pm why if you ask for a route from carlisle to inverness,
and then ask for a round trip,
does the route divert to and then come straight back from the doubtless charming town/hamlet of Claonaig?
Claonaig is the Arran ferry, which is doubtless quite a reasonable way back to Carlisle.
Why it abandons the idea and then goes back to use the Portavadie & Gourock ferries instead is anyone's guess
Have found another example of this odd behaviour.
On finding it, the odd behavior rang a bell so went back and found above.
Clitheroe to Blackburn - all makes sense.
But ask for a round trip and you get sent on a large detour to what looks like a cul-de-sac in Church (have never been to the best of my knowledge) and then retrace your steps.
If I didn't have the ultimate faith in your niceness, generosity of spirit and honesty richard I'd start to suspect you of taking bungs from tiddly places with over-expanded tourism boards.
I've noticed on an "out and back" round trip it does not route back entirely along the outbound route (some detours). I'd assumed where there is not a lot in it that it tries to create a more "circular" route and/or traffic volumes maybe directional and the route preferences are based on traffic volumes so outbound route is the quieter route (but more oncoming traffic) and return route is the quieter route (more oncoming traffic). But this is my guessing so interested in the real reason.

Ian
Richard Fairhurst
Posts: 2030
Joined: 2 Mar 2008, 4:57pm
Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

Under the hood, the "Round-trip" and "Find alternative" buttons are very similar. If you ask (say) for a route from Nottingham to Sheffield, and then click "Find alternative", you'll see that it finds two roughly parallel routes. If you click "Round-trip" you'll see that the round-trip is actually made up of going out on the main route, and back on the alternative route. There are a handful of differences but that's effectively how it works.

The challenge is that the algorithm cycle.travel uses (Contraction Hierarchies) is geared to finding the best route. And by definition an alternative route isn't the best route. It's not even the second best route, because that would probably be the best route with a very slight tweak in it. OSRM (the core routing engine which cycle.travel is based on) has a go at finding alternatives but it's far from perfect.

So that's why it can be a bit hit-and-miss. The example I use is Oban to Lochgilphead - there's a really obvious round-trip (out via NCN 78, back via the A816) but the algorithm is actually incapable of finding it. (I spent a weekend once researching it and digging through the source code to figure that out!) I'd like to do something about it but it'd probably take about three weeks of coding...

If you're really interested there's some discussion of it on the OSRM issue tracker at https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-ba ... ssues/2883 and https://github.com/Project-OSRM/osrm-ba ... ssues/5663, and an academic paper at http://algo2.iti.kit.edu/documents/Diss ... Moritz.pdf .
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Sweep
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Sweep »

Psamathe wrote: 2 Jun 2022, 11:36am
Sweep wrote: 2 Jun 2022, 7:36am
andrew_s wrote: 9 Jun 2021, 1:47am
Claonaig is the Arran ferry, which is doubtless quite a reasonable way back to Carlisle.
Why it abandons the idea and then goes back to use the Portavadie & Gourock ferries instead is anyone's guess
Have found another example of this odd behaviour.
On finding it, the odd behavior rang a bell so went back and found above.
Clitheroe to Blackburn - all makes sense.
But ask for a round trip and you get sent on a large detour to what looks like a cul-de-sac in Church (have never been to the best of my knowledge) and then retrace your steps.
If I didn't have the ultimate faith in your niceness, generosity of spirit and honesty richard I'd start to suspect you of taking bungs from tiddly places with over-expanded tourism boards.
I've noticed on an "out and back" round trip it does not route back entirely along the outbound route (some detours). I'd assumed where there is not a lot in it that it tries to create a more "circular" route and/or traffic volumes maybe directional and the route preferences are based on traffic volumes so outbound route is the quieter route (but more oncoming traffic) and return route is the quieter route (more oncoming traffic). But this is my guessing so interested in the real reason.

Ian
think you may have understood me - I meant that it went off a return route to go to a place, then turned round and went straight back to return to the return route - ie a stray dead end.
Sweep
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RickH
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Joined: 5 Mar 2012, 6:39pm
Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by RickH »

I'm finding some odd behaviour on a route with a note added (https://cycle.travel/map/journey/337266). I don't know if it is the note or something else. The note marks the location of a new cafe (via point 5) down a driveway. If I reverse the route or edit it in any way (including viewing the altitude profile) the via point with the note, plus the via point on the road, vanish completely. Trying again from scratch, or even adding things back in to the original route but without the note (https://cycle.travel/map/journey/337985), if I don't add the note the route seems to behave itself.

Edited to add: sending the original Garmin Connect seems to bork it up differently to what happens in CT. Editing the "no note" version, or sending it to GC loses the bit to the cafe. Adding extra via point to the end of the route doesn't seem to cause problems.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
wirral_cyclist
Posts: 1024
Joined: 17 May 2010, 9:25pm
Location: Wirral Merseyside

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by wirral_cyclist »

I saw the sign on the TriVets last Sunday but couldn't find any info to get opening hours, might just be when the sign is out I suppose.
Bmblbzzz
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Bmblbzzz »

RickH wrote: 7 Jul 2022, 9:16pm I'm finding some odd behaviour on a route with a note added (https://cycle.travel/map/journey/337266). I don't know if it is the note or something else. The note marks the location of a new cafe (via point 5) down a driveway. If I reverse the route or edit it in any way (including viewing the altitude profile) the via point with the note, plus the via point on the road, vanish completely. Trying again from scratch, or even adding things back in to the original route but without the note (https://cycle.travel/map/journey/337985), if I don't add the note the route seems to behave itself.

Edited to add: sending the original Garmin Connect seems to bork it up differently to what happens in CT. Editing the "no note" version, or sending it to GC loses the bit to the cafe. Adding extra via point to the end of the route doesn't seem to cause problems.
I tried removing your point 4, which caused point 5 and the whole of that 'branch' to disappear. I then dragged the route back to the cafe, but without adding your point 4, and it worked for me when reversed and when viewing the altitude profile. So I don't know why it didn't work originally but it seems to be to do with having point 4 in addition to point 5.
Richard Fairhurst
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Location: Charlbury, Oxfordshire

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

There's a particular set of circumstances with dead-end service roads and via points, and it looks like that's what's happening here - I think I should have it fixed with the next update.
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RickH
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Location: Horwich, Lancs.

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by RickH »

Richard Fairhurst wrote: 8 Jul 2022, 12:14pm There's a particular set of circumstances with dead-end service roads and via points, and it looks like that's what's happening here - I think I should have it fixed with the next update.
Thanks. You are very good at responding to problems*.

I ended up going to the Dark Side & recreating the route in RidewithGPS. :twisted: Most of the folk I wanted to share it with use that anyway & the ride is tomorrow (but sadly I won't be there as I've tested positive for Covid this morning! :? ).

(*My next one is probably a OSM mapping problem but I can't see what it is. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/335081 Heading south it work fine a left then a right. Heading North is makes you turn into a cul-de-sac - almost the opposite of the previous problem - then go straight across the Atherton Road.)
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
richardfm
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Joined: 15 Apr 2018, 3:17pm
Location: Cardiff, Wales

Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by richardfm »

RickH wrote: 8 Jul 2022, 1:50pm
Richard Fairhurst wrote: 8 Jul 2022, 12:14pm There's a particular set of circumstances with dead-end service roads and via points, and it looks like that's what's happening here - I think I should have it fixed with the next update.
Thanks. You are very good at responding to problems*.

I ended up going to the Dark Side & recreating the route in RidewithGPS. :twisted: Most of the folk I wanted to share it with use that anyway & the ride is tomorrow (but sadly I won't be there as I've tested positive for Covid this morning! :? ).

(*My next one is probably a OSM mapping problem but I can't see what it is. https://cycle.travel/map/journey/335081 Heading south it work fine a left then a right. Heading North is makes you turn into a cul-de-sac - almost the opposite of the previous problem - then go straight across the Atherton Road.)
I wonder if that is to stop you having to turn right on "major" road.
Richard M
Cardiff
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