Reasons to tour by bicycle

Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by Doctor_Fegg on Sunday June 19, 2022 @09:11AM (#31799025)

In many places there's a network of tiny little roads that are a much more enjoyable alternative to riding next to traffic. This is certainly true of most of Europe, but also large parts of the US as well - I had a great cycling holiday a few years back in New York State and most of the roads were no busier than here in the UK. Ironically the single worst road was one south of Kingston which was a state-designated bike route!

I run cycle.travel, a touring-focused bike routeplanner (based on OpenStreetMap data, of course) which aims to find these roads. It generally won't find as direct a cycle route as some of the bigger names, but by and large the route should be quieter and less stressful. https://cycle.travel/map - always happy to hear comments/suggestions!

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by eCa on Sunday June 19, 2022 @03:20PM (#31802490)

Another happy fan here. So far I’ve used it for a couple of 5-10 day tours to great success (I’m in northern Europe). In fact, I just finished one a couple of days ago.

One thing I’ve noticed is the routing’s great aversion to hills. As someone who doesn’t mind them I would sometimes like to be able to toggle that. (It’s not a big problem, cycle.travel is beyond anything I’ve tried, it certainly beats the 1:200 000 maps of old.)

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by thunfischbrot on Sunday June 19, 2022 @10:27AM (#31799699)

This is a work of art. I check out different cycle routing options every couple of years and have never been satisfied with the high number of intersections with traffic lights and changes from road to bike path to sidewalk... Your routing algorithm taking into account Eurovelo routes is an amazing idea. Will test in the coming days!

I suggest you show input validation hints before submitting forms, e.g. for the user name.

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by matt7aylor on Sunday June 19, 2022 @10:49AM (#31799910)

That is a great looking site, I'll give it a try and be sure to remember it for telling others. I love how you can pick a point and look for nearby campsites.

Normally I plan my tour routes offline using downloaded OSM maps (something like velomap.org) in QMapshack. One thing I like doing on there is having POIs I can turn on/off with things like UNESCO World Heritage Sites, National Trust Sites, World Wonders from the Civilization games etc. so I can tweak my route to connect a few of those dots if it goes near them.

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by timed0 on Sunday June 19, 2022 @10:47AM (#31799880)

Just to say I love cycle.travel. I have used it for several medium-length tours with kids and it suggests good, calm routes.

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by hermitcrab on Sunday June 19, 2022 @12:00PM (#31800547)

Cool resource, but I could see a key that tells me what the different symbols on the maps mean.

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by habi on Monday June 20, 2022 @03:00AM (#31807146)

cycle.travel is the best, thanks (also here :) ) for making it!

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Re:Reasons to tour by bicycle by bbu on Sunday June 19, 2022 @01:46PM (#31801583)

thanks for creating cycle.travel, this is a really great resource!

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