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Apps for Bicycle Directions

jakecoppinger.blog

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Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#51

Post by Doctor_Fegg »

BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. 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 The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

> 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 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-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 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.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#52

Post by jabroni_salad »

throw7 wrote: post #11

Citymapper is a limited amount of cities. What do "real" cyclists use? I get the feeling they use a garmin-like gps devices made for cycling? In the past, I've tried to plan a route in google maps (for just driving), but once you import and try to use it, it recalculates your route.

google maps is a nice go-to service but not a good route planner because it is aggressive about snapping to the grid (streets it knows about).

When I plan my route on garmin I am not getting a turn-by-turn list but rather a gps trace to follow, so I can plan the route to go arbitrarily anywhere I want. Personally I use the strava heat map and garmin to do everything since that represents where people actually go and not what some algorithm thinks will be good.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#53

Post by jkingsbery »

jakecopp wrote: post #2

I wrote this blog post as I'm often asked for a safe cycle route somewhere - hopefully you find this useful :D

Without having to deal with a commute, I've been doing a lot more biking for exercise lately. I've been looking for a way to plan out decent bike routes. I live in a corner of NJ where we several highways a couple miles a way, so it's pretty important to have a route planned so you don't accidentally end up on a road where bikes are inappropriate. This is very helpful!

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#55

Post by overlordalex »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #51
BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. 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 The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

> 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 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…

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

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#56

Post by ben_w »

BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. 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 The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

When I was trying to do the EuroVelo 15 route just over two years ago, it was really obvious Google Maps thought I could maintain sprint speeds all day long.

It also didn’t understand the impact of hills, which is why I cut the attempt short (1080 km) after it redirected me up a Swiss hill instead of keeping me close to the Rhine.

I would’ve preferred a GPX to follow, but I couldn’t find any of that route.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#57

Post by ben7799 »

A Garmin Edge model with built in OSM (8xx/1xxx models) are absolutely phenomenal at this with no mucking around with apps or any cell service required.

I think it's what almost all very serious cyclists use.

I've done 150 mile turn by turn routes on my Garmin. I've had various models for near 20 years of cycling. The only time ironically they ever have trouble is if you download a route generated by one of the various apps on the internet.. you need to be quite careful with those. The on the fly routes they generate don't ever have those issues.

When they started using the Garmin curated version of OSM it was a massive upgrade. Near me it's very near 100% coverage even of mountain bike singletrack trails through the woods. OSM has gotten incredibly good for cyclists. If you are not a road cyclist OSM has amazing coverage of bike lanes & paved paths too.

And you can actually see it in the sun and don't need to carry a pocketful of USB powerbanks to make it to your destination. The only people who need to recharge with a powerbank are the .01% who ride more than 150-200 miles without stopping at a place to charge.

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#58

Post by close04 »

Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #51
BattyMilk wrote: post #22

For the most part, city riding is pretty well served by Google maps IMO. 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 The difficulty with cycling directions is that there's not a 1 size fits all solution, a roadie needs smooth road but would prefer it quiet and scenic,…

> 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 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…

> 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...

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#59

Post by [deleted] »

overlordalex wrote: post #55
Doctor_Fegg wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 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…

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…

[deleted]

Re: Apps for Bicycle Directions

#60

Post by phillc73 »

putnambr wrote: post #24
throw7 wrote: post #11

Citymapper is a limited amount of cities. What do "real" cyclists use? I get the feeling they use a garmin-like gps devices made for cycling? In the past, I've tried to plan a route in google maps (for just driving), but once you import and try to use it, it recalculates your route.

I know you probably mean road cyclists, but I haven't seen Trailforks mentioned. Nothing beats it for singletrack route planning. Komoot is good too, but at least in my area of NA the elevation calculation is off by quite a bit. When I've used it for longer routes, I've ended up putting in at least 1,000 ft more of climbing than it has told me would be on the route. Trailforks doesn't have that problem. If you have a…

I've not heard of or used Trailforks before. Thanks for the tip, I'll check it out now.

However, my go to website and app for off-road adventures (on foot and two wheels) is ViewRanger[1]. Maybe it's a bit too UK and EU focused for you, but I've found it to be really good and the app's improved a lot over the last five years. Their BuddyBeacon[2] is also a nice feature.

While not open source, the best part is they provide a direct apk download, so you're not locked to Google or Apple's store to download and install[3].

[1] https://www.viewranger.com

[2] https://www.viewranger.com/buddybeacon/v2/

[3] https://www.viewranger.com/software/software.php - visit on your phone.

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