Cycle Travel Question

Cycle-touring, Expeditions, Adventures, Major cycle routes NOT LeJoG (see other special board)
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Sweep
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Sweep »

Psamathe wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 4:21pm
Sweep wrote: 12 Feb 2022, 2:09pm Apologies if asked before.
Is it possible to force a tablet (android) to go to the normal desktop layout?
On my tab it is now different and the "round trip" button isn't available top leftish.
There is a drop down menu on the right of the screen with a whole load of functions there. But I can't see "round trip" amongst them. In fact I can't see the whole list at all as it drops off the bottom and I can see no way of scrolling the list up to see the missing items.
There are different types of tablet each having different types of browser available. More details of your configuration? e.g. on iPad with Safari your can do "Request desktop ..."

Ian
Many thanks silly me had forgotten, can do this on Chrome and duck duckgo on the android tab.
As you all were :)
Sweep
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MrsHJ
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by MrsHJ »

I enjoyed your video thingie for the cycling festival. I watched to see what features I had missed rather than pestering you for them and fascinated to see that’s you’ve incorporated Knooppoints in the Netherlands section. Fabulous.

Other favourites of mine- dividing the route by days with overnight stops. The hotel links (try to get you a little bit of commission but it’s really useful anyway). Putting stuff in folders having the different routes shown in an overview map and the easy clickiness of putting a route together. The cafe/pub feature is possibly genius.
Last edited by MrsHJ on 4 Mar 2022, 7:02am, edited 1 time in total.
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RickH
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by RickH »

Note to self: Must get round to watching your CTF video. :D

A quick question on importing GPX files. Is this new(ish)? I'd not tried it for a while but I noticed this time I get a blue line, mostly the same but sometimes diverging, as well as the purple CT route. I presume the blue line is the original GPX route. Assuming I've got this right, the blue line is really useful when importing a route that I DO want to follow precisely* as it is easy to drag the CT route onto the blue line.

(*We've signed up for the Tour of Cheshire West, an informal competition & charity fundraiser, that started last year when group rides were difficult. It consists of 6 "stages", 1 for each month between April & September. The stages are only short, 5 to 10 miles, so they can be incorporated into a longer ride. There are GPX files for each one so my plan was to import them to use as the basis to plan what we will do to get to & from each one. But the original stage route does need to be precisely followed.)
GPX imported into Cycle.Travel
GPX imported into Cycle.Travel
As an aside, is there anything I should add to OSM to indicate the CT route, where it diverges from the GPX in the above image, is usually covered in bovine emissions (mud? - of a sort1) & often floods when there is heavy rain?
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
matt_twam_asi
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by matt_twam_asi »

Hi Richard,

I've just watched your CTF video, it was enlightening to hear just how many separate factors are used to calculate a score for each section.

Out of idle curiosity, which section of road is scored best by cycle.travel? Which is scored worst?
bohrsatom
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by bohrsatom »

Playing around with CT for a future trip, I’m wondering if there’s a way to add notes to the route which would then make their way onto my Garmin to be displayed when navigating?

Use case: marking diversions from the main route to visit a town/tourist attraction that I may or may not visit depending on time of day, weather, inclination, etc

I notice I can add notes to via points within CT but these aren’t exported to a gpx track. The GPX schema says that names/comments/descriptions are available for trkpt elements, although I’m not sure if Garmin devices understand them

After some further testing - adding notes via <trkpt> doesn't do anything, but if I manually create some waypoints in my exported .gpx track then these show up after importing the course onto my Garmin. Only the "name" field is displayed, truncated at 30 characters.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

RickH wrote: 3 Mar 2022, 9:07pmA quick question on importing GPX files. Is this new(ish)? I'd not tried it for a while but I noticed this time I get a blue line, mostly the same but sometimes diverging, as well as the purple CT route. I presume the blue line is the original GPX route. Assuming I've got this right, the blue line is really useful when importing a route that I DO want to follow precisely* as it is easy to drag the CT route onto the blue line.
Yes! Exactly.
RickH wrote: 3 Mar 2022, 9:07pmAs an aside, is there anything I should add to OSM to indicate the CT route, where it diverges from the GPX in the above image, is usually covered in bovine emissions (mud? - of a sort1) & often floods when there is heavy rain?
That's an interesting question. I don't actually think there is an OSM tag for the cow poo! You could perhaps add something like smoothness=intermediate, which is the nearest to suggesting the surface isn't great (and c.t will give it a little penalty accordingly). For flooding you could in theory try flood_prone=yes but cycle.travel won't pick that up.
matt_twam_asi wrote: 7 Mar 2022, 3:29pmOut of idle curiosity, which section of road is scored best by cycle.travel? Which is scored worst?
I've never asked it to output the individual scores that way - maybe I should... The worst would be a multi-lane highway with very heavy traffic, probably in one of those US Midwest states where bikes are allowed on interstate roads, with heavy industry alongside. The best would be a flat, beautifully surfaced tarmac traffic-free path somewhere scenic (a narrow valley or up a hillside), perhaps with some sort of cycle route signage.
bohrsatom wrote: 7 Mar 2022, 3:37pm Playing around with CT for a future trip, I’m wondering if there’s a way to add notes to the route which would then make their way onto my Garmin to be displayed when navigating?

Use case: marking diversions from the main route to visit a town/tourist attraction that I may or may not visit depending on time of day, weather, inclination, etc

I notice I can add notes to via points within CT but these aren’t exported to a gpx track. The GPX schema says that names/comments/descriptions are available for trkpt elements, although I’m not sure if Garmin devices understand them
Funnily enough I've had this in the works for some time and someone else had been asking me to add it. I've just finished a first pass at it that you can play around with. If you add notes to the via points, they'll now be included in a GPX track export (as waypoints) or a TCX course export (as standard course points). Not the PDF cuesheet yet - that's next on the list!
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
bohrsatom
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by bohrsatom »

Richard Fairhurst wrote: 9 Mar 2022, 11:44am Funnily enough I've had this in the works for some time and someone else had been asking me to add it. I've just finished a first pass at it that you can play around with. If you add notes to the via points, they'll now be included in a GPX track export (as waypoints) or a TCX course export (as standard course points). Not the PDF cuesheet yet - that's next on the list!
Hi Richard - thanks for the quick fix - this is exactly what I was looking for!
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chris_suffolk
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by chris_suffolk »

Does anybody know where gradient information comes from?

White Lee Lane in Lancashire (from SD557429 to SD543431) travelling West, gives a maximum gradient of 8.2%, where-as signs on the road say it's 20%. Having cycled it, it's NOT 8.2%.

So where does the gradient info come from? Can corrections be input if we know it's wrong?
Psamathe
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Psamathe »

chris_suffolk wrote: 14 Mar 2022, 10:25pm Does anybody know where gradient information comes from?

White Lee Lane in Lancashire (from SD557429 to SD543431) travelling West, gives a maximum gradient of 8.2%, where-as signs on the road say it's 20%. Having cycled it, it's NOT 8.2%.

So where does the gradient info come from? Can corrections be input if we know it's wrong?
I'm sure Richard will correct me but I believe it's from SRTM and most online/computer systems use the 90m grid spot points. Of course your route wont go through many of those spot points so it interpolates to fing an altitude estimate for points along your route.

How successful this is depends on the terrain e.g. west end of EV6 in France it's not great as you are cycling along beside a river (pretty flat) but sometimes with cliffs to one side, sometimes none, sometimes valleys so all computer based systems make it look pretty hilly. More gentle terrain it works a lot better.

Also, SRTM data has limitations e.g. foliage. Some areas have corrections for foluage, other areas not so for an area that isn't corrected, ride along a flat track from open countruside into a forest and the data will have you jump up by the height of the trees.

It's not a cycle.travel limitation, all mapping systems use similar and not a lot else they can do.

But Richard will be along and put me straight on the real explanations and reasons.

Ian
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RickH
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by RickH »

chris_suffolk wrote: 14 Mar 2022, 10:25pm Does anybody know where gradient information comes from?

White Lee Lane in Lancashire (from SD557429 to SD543431) travelling West, gives a maximum gradient of 8.2%, where-as signs on the road say it's 20%. Having cycled it, it's NOT 8.2%.

So where does the gradient info come from? Can corrections be input if we know it's wrong?
The other thing to add to Psamathe's info is that my understanding is that UK gradient signs indicate the steepest gradient at any point on a hill.
Former member of the Cult of the Polystyrene Head Carbuncle.
Richard Fairhurst
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Richard Fairhurst »

That's spot on - really not a lot I can add to that!

I guess the one additional thing is that because of the limitations of the elevation data, cycle.travel (and pretty much any other route-planner) does a fair bit of post-processing/smoothing over the raw data. That gives a more accurate picture overall, especially in scenarios like the river valley example mentioned by Ian. But the corollary is that short, sharp climbs which immediately follow a dip, like White Lee Lane, are at risk of being smoothed out.
cycle.travel - maps, journey-planner, route guides and city guides
mattheus
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by mattheus »

bohrsatom wrote: 7 Mar 2022, 3:37pm Playing around with CT for a future trip, I’m wondering if there’s a way to add notes to the route which would then make their way onto my Garmin to be displayed when navigating?

Use case: marking diversions from the main route to visit a town/tourist attraction that I may or may not visit depending on time of day, weather, inclination, etc

I notice I can add notes to via points within CT but these aren’t exported to a gpx track. The GPX schema says that names/comments/descriptions are available for trkpt elements, although I’m not sure if Garmin devices understand them

After some further testing - adding notes via <trkpt> doesn't do anything, but if I manually create some waypoints in my exported .gpx track then these show up after importing the course onto my Garmin. Only the "name" field is displayed, truncated at 30 characters.
Thanks, this is useful. I've been trying to understand how my eTrex handles waypoints, and experience seems to fit your description (annoyingly a recent Audax organiser in Bristol put really good waypoints on the route/track/thingy - but they were much longer than 30 characters!)
I still need to figure out the fastest way to do this thru a map interface (i.e. not completely "manually".)
bohrsatom
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by bohrsatom »

mattheus wrote: 15 Mar 2022, 10:28am I still need to figure out the fastest way to do this thru a map interface (i.e. not completely "manually")
Well cycle.travel will do it now :D

Given the 30 character limit, for my next tour I'm planning on creating a document with a numbered list of interesting points, then setting the waypoint name to the number in the list. Before a day's riding I can then do a quick check of the route (on cycle.travel or MapOut) and get an idea of the diversions/deviations/interesting places of the day.
Steve X
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by Steve X »

Linking Euro Velos. We are doing our first longer Tour this summer and the intention is EV19, but getting to a start point looks like train Journeys and another 24 hours from landing in Rotterdam, and its supposed to be a cycling trip.

What I want to do is this, starting in Rotterdam, link EV12 > EV5> EV19.

For us the main concerns are mileage and gradients, we dont want to over do it on our first trip, which pay put us off in future.

The Cycle Travel website is ace, is there a donation page or something?
richardfm
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Re: Cycle Travel Question

Post by richardfm »

Steve X wrote: 17 Mar 2022, 8:23am Linking Euro Velos. We are doing our first longer Tour this summer and the intention is EV19, but getting to a start point looks like train Journeys and another 24 hours from landing in Rotterdam, and its supposed to be a cycling trip.

What I want to do is this, starting in Rotterdam, link EV12 > EV5> EV19.

For us the main concerns are mileage and gradients, we dont want to over do it on our first trip, which pay put us off in future.

The Cycle Travel website is ace, is there a donation page or something?
You can donate via Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/join/cycle_travel
Richard M
Cardiff
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