Cycle routes - how do you find yours?

[Vantage]

If you can keep up, join a bike club. They'll know plenty of routes with nice stop offs for a brew etc.
As Colin says, GPS units are a god send...at least till they route you up a dead end or into a farmers field which mine did a few times. But they can be rerouted without the need for internet.
https://cycle.travel/map is brill for finding and planning routes although the constant detours off main/busy roads can be tedious.

 

[Alex321]

GPS devices don't depend on a phone signal, they just need a clear view of an area of the sky large enough for line of sight to at least 3 or 4 of 24 GPS satellites! They work reliably except perhaps when they are...

• in very dense woodland
• in deep narrow canyons
• surrounded by huge skyscrapers
• jammed by the enemy in a warzone

I have not lost GPS signal in the 20 years that I have been using GPS devices.

PS I often lose phone signal on my rides so I would not use any solution that required a reliable phone signal!

There is one steep hill I ride sometimes where I do lose GPS for a few yards - as you suggest, that one is dense woods both sides & overhanging, plus a near cliff upwards on one side.

But it comes back before long, and my device/Strava just plots it as a straight line from where it was lost to where it regains it. And since there are no junctions in eth "dead" stretch, it would be no issue for navigation.

 

[mjr]

The NCN system is entirely useless for planning longer rides - I wouldn't dream of using it for that purpose. NCN6 6 round Shepshed doesn't seem too bad from a "massive detour" perspective, but doubtless is rubbish for all the other usual reasons. [...]

Ah, don't over-egg it... you sound like a disappointed lover! Maybe you're one of many who heard of the NCN and loved the idea, but then found the reality had more compromises than you'd choose to make.

It clearly can be useful for planning longer rides, going by the numbers who ride almost the entirety of quite long stretches of it. It's not great for transport IMO, which seems ironic given that "Sustrans" was short for "Sustainable Transport". For example, as mentioned earlier, even on tour, I wouldn't stick to the NCN where I see no point, and I find that cycle.travel usually does the right thing. cycle.travel will only send you from Lynn to Boston by following NCN1's 20 mile detour through Wisbech if you change the settings to insist on signed routes. It won't do Lynn to Norwich following the NCN1 detour to the coast even then, as there's a more direct Local Cycle Route signed Lynn to Fakenham.

 

[HLaB]

I usually start by clicking on A to B in the www.ridewithgps.com route planner then tweaking it with the inbuilt street view and other maps. I might also crosscheck it with Google.

 

[JonBuoy]

Looks like they've re-routed it since I last used it to be the way I'd go coming out of Belton, not been up that way since I shattered my Femur 12 years ago. Where it splits in 2 in Belton wasn't there before.

I assumed that you were talking about the loop through Osgathorpe and Worthington as opposed to the direct route from Belton to Tonge which uses a short section of the (usually very quiet) A453. This is the route that I usually use but the downside is the fairly steep steps down onto the old railway track in Tonge.

 

[Psamathe]

My local Council (District, NOT County) used to publish a few maps giving "cycle routes" but think they were created by somebody who doesn't ride as one route includes a couple of miles on a road I won't cycle on as it's fast with poor visibility. Horrible road for cycling so sending cyclists on it is just daft when there are so many quite rural lane alternatives.

Ian

 

[Psamathe]

In my local area I just wing-it, deciding at each junction which way to turn. Often how tired or weather prospects determine whether I turn towards home or away from home.

Away from home I use https://cycle.travel as I'm on tour and wanting to get to specific destination campsite.

Ian

 

[Alex321]

My local Council (District, NOT County) used to publish a few maps giving "cycle routes" but think they were created by somebody who doesn't ride as one route includes a couple of miles on a road I won't cycle on as it's fast with poor visibility. Horrible road for cycling so sending cyclists on it is just daft when there are so many quite rural lane alternatives.

Ian

Maybe they just omitted the word "culling" between cycle and routes

 

[mjr]

Maybe they just omitted the word "culling" between cycle and routes

That would also explain some of the Suffolk ones! Want to ride from the B roads off the Harwich ferry to Bury St Edmunds avoiding the traffic in Ipswich and Colchester? Yes, there's Suffolk cycle route A for that! What do you mean a detour to descend across a pretty cobbled ford followed by a 25% climb isn't a good route? 😱

 

[raleighnut]

I assumed that you were talking about the loop through Osgathorpe and Worthington as opposed to the direct route from Belton to Tonge which uses a short section of the (usually very quiet) A453. This is the route that I usually use but the downside is the fairly steep steps down onto the old railway track in Tonge.

View attachment 775283

No going the other way,it was my preferred route up into Derbyshire and back through Shepshed and also to a festival (Off The Tracks) in Isley Walton so I've probably been that way a hundred times or more.The 'newer' route along Church lane was my preferred way but the farmer had been out 'flailing' the Hawthorn hedge when I went up so coming back I tried NCN 6 to avoid that stretch having collected 4 thorns on the way up (OTT summer festival is the weekend after August bank holiday) I also 'discovered' the Cloud Trail which isn't part of NCN 6 and that leads all the way to Derby. As I said earlier the split in Belton wasn't part of NCN 6 back then.

 

[Saracenlad]

I must be a Luddite or very close. I always plot my rides on O/S Landranger map. I then do the route on Routelab/My route app. Then send it to my new Beeline and Bob's yer Uncle. Yes, I have lots and lots of O/S maps!!

 

[presta]

I must be a Luddite or very close. I always plot my rides on O/S Landranger map. I then do the route on Routelab/My route app. Then send it to my new Beeline and Bob's yer Uncle. Yes, I have lots and lots of O/S maps!!

It would take up most of a pannier just to carry the maps if I used OS maps for touring, and that assumes I know in advance where I'm going, which I don't. For that reason I use a 4m to the inch road atlas.

The downsde is that they are an absolute bugger in rain or wind.

Downside is that only 1:50,000 maps are really available in the UK which makes for a lot of stopping to refold.

Pages cut from an A4 road atlas and folded into four fit into my mapholder made from a Tupperware CD case which is showerproof as it is, water proof with the map in a sandwich bag, and covers about 20 miles at a time. The case holds enough pages for 2-3 days, with the rest of the atlas stowed in the pannier.

 

[Willd]

The only problem with OS maps is that they don't update Some of mine are forty+ years old and in some areas a lot has changed since then, which is why I also check the online versions on streetmap.

 

[Alex321]

The only problem with OS maps is that they don't update Some of mine are forty+ years old and in some areas a lot has changed since then, which is why I also check the online versions on streetmap.

It is surprising just how much can change in a few years. My car satnav maps are from 2015, and there are quite a few roads around South Wales (and other parts of the UK) which just aren't on it.

So 40 year old maps are going to be even worse.

 

[mjr]

) I also 'discovered' the Cloud Trail which isn't part of NCN 6 and that leads all the way to Derby.

Has it been extended? All of the Cloud Trail except a half mile north of the canal used to be NCN6 and it didn't go all the way to the city boundary, let alone the centre.