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> A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks

> A few years ago, following Google maps cycling directions me and a couple of friends on road bikes were led through muddy forest trails, old rail road tracks and green lanes on a London -> Paris <24hr attempt (we took 26hrs). Yep. It's clear that Google Maps optimises for city riding and that's cool, but it does fall down badly on longer tours. To a large degree this is inevitable - only OSM actually has the level of surface quality information required for this sort of planning. With my site, cycle.travel, I've taken the opposite tack: generating quiet, safe routes for leisure and touring rides, while still being as fast to generate routes as Google Maps. Sure, I want it to be usable in cities but it's not the main focus. People have used it successfully to plan month-long tours across Europe and the US. One of my favourite bits of feedback was https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/swindon-to-orkney-a-wet-week-in-october-2019.254492/ https://www.cyclechat.net/threads/swindon-to-orkney-a-wet-we... , where someone just punched in a start and end point at opposite ends of the UK, and rode the route it suggested without any tweaking. https://cycle.travel/map https://cycle.travel/map if you want to play - always happy to hear suggestions/feedback (and thanks to Jake for including it in the post!). Currently Europe/North America/Australia/NZ only.

overlordalex 6y ago
This looks really great! I'm going on a cycling tour next week so I can directly compare this to my google maps route. At first glance your site shows the local "cycle highways" which is really cool. However I accidentally clicked on the map twice while scrolling around, and then couldn't figure out how to clear the route so I had to reload the page. On closer inspection I noticed a button called "close route" which seemed to do what I wanted, but I'm not sure if it has other side effects
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close04 6y ago
> Yep. It's clear that Google Maps optimises for city riding and that's cool I believe that even in the city it simply maps a path as suitable for cycling and that's the limit of the optimization. It then becomes a "shortest/fastest trip" calculation. They don't mark roads and paths for specific types of cycling and you're not asked to provide such info. So whether it's asphalt, cobblestone, or a dirt road even in the city it will make no difference as long as it's suitable for some bikes. Found out the hard way a couple of times...
koyote 6y ago
I plugged in some routes I am familiar with here (Sydney) and it did a great job at picking the roads/paths I would personally choose! I do agree with 'overlordalex' on the 'Close Route' button. I couldn't find it at first and 'close' seems like a weird verb to use for 'clearing' the current route. Unless I am misunderstanding what the button is supposed to do. I would personally have a 'Clear' button somewhere close to the 'Get route' buttons (but then again I am no UI/UX expert :)).
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bombela 6y ago
I will definitely try your site. The map view is great! Can I get the distances in km instead of mile?
neves 6y ago
Nice. When I'm on vacation I always want a leisure rote, with the best views, not the fastest as the GPS usually gives me. Hope someone makes one of these for cars.

overlordalex 6y ago

This looks really great! I'm going on a cycling tour next week so I can directly compare this to my google maps route. At first glance your site shows the local "cycle highways" which is really cool. However I accidentally clicked on the map twice while scrolling around, and then couldn't figure out how to clear the route so I had to reload the page. On closer inspection I noticed a button called "close route" which seemed to do what I wanted, but I'm not sure if it has other side effects

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close04 6y ago

> Yep. It's clear that Google Maps optimises for city riding and that's cool I believe that even in the city it simply maps a path as suitable for cycling and that's the limit of the optimization. It then becomes a "shortest/fastest trip" calculation. They don't mark roads and paths for specific types of cycling and you're not asked to provide such info. So whether it's asphalt, cobblestone, or a dirt road even in the city it will make no difference as long as it's suitable for some bikes. Found out the hard way a couple of times...

koyote 6y ago

I plugged in some routes I am familiar with here (Sydney) and it did a great job at picking the roads/paths I would personally choose! I do agree with 'overlordalex' on the 'Close Route' button. I couldn't find it at first and 'close' seems like a weird verb to use for 'clearing' the current route. Unless I am misunderstanding what the button is supposed to do. I would personally have a 'Clear' button somewhere close to the 'Get route' buttons (but then again I am no UI/UX expert :)).

deleted 6y ago

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bombela 6y ago

I will definitely try your site. The map view is great! Can I get the distances in km instead of mile?

neves 6y ago

Nice. When I'm on vacation I always want a leisure rote, with the best views, not the fastest as the GPS usually gives me. Hope someone makes one of these for cars.