Cycle routes - how do you find yours?

[raleighnut]

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.

It goes all the way past the football ground* and finishes near the Railway station. It goes through urban areas with multiple road crossings but is still an off-road cycle only pathway. After the short towpath section it crosses the canal by the lock that has a keepers cottage next to it.

* Pride Park

 

[Saracenlad]

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.




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.

Presta. Read my reply. I don't take any maps, just my little Beeline.

 

[Mike_P]

Current OS maps come with a free download of it their app on your mobile -stops the need to take a paper map with you.

 

[raleighnut]

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.

It goes all the way past the football ground* and finishes near the Railway station. It goes through urban areas with multiple road crossings but is still an off-road cycle only pathway. After the short towpath section it crosses the canal by the lock that has a keepers cottage next to it.

* Pride Park

 

[Saracenlad]

My favourite maps were the beautiful Bartholomew's Half Inch series. Long gone now but they were an absolute joy to use. Height of the country in lovely different colours. I really am old fashioned. Still have around 50 of these and yes, I still use them.

 

[presta]

Current OS maps come with a free download of it their app on your mobile -stops the need to take a paper map with you.

I've tried using OS maps on my laptop and they drive me up the wall, either you zoom in to see the detail and lose the wider context, or you zoom out and lose the detail. Give me paper maps any day.

My favourite maps were the beautiful Bartholomew's Half Inch series. Long gone now but they were an absolute joy to use. Height of the country in lovely different colours. I really am old fashioned. Still have around 50 of these and yes, I still use them.

I have a few that I've used, but once I had the pages cut from a road atlas and a mapholder to put them in, they became redundant.

 

[Fergs]

When I first started venturing out I looked at websites of the local cycling clubs. They tended to have sample routes to give an idea of what their rides were like, which were invaluable in showing me where the decent areas to ride were and weaning me off laps of the local roads.
After a few rides I learned the value of using rwgps and streetview to check any iffy-looking a-roads and/or gradients. And to find halfway stop cafes.

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

My favourite maps were the beautiful Bartholomew's Half Inch series. Long gone now but they were an absolute joy to use. Height of the country in lovely different colours.

I don’t think I’m giving too much away by saying the cycle.travel default map style is very much informed by those old Bartholomews maps! (We used to have the hallway of our house wallpapered with them…)

 

[Mike_P]

I've tried using OS maps on my laptop and they drive me up the wall, either you zoom in to see the detail and lose the wider context, or you zoom out and lose the detail. Give me paper maps any day.

The available OS mapping on the mobile app is a basic large map of GB & NI with smaller scaling of maps you have bought. if you then zoom beyond that to mapping you have not bought it will go blank. With for example purchased Landranger mapping active generally zooming that to full size is IME rarely needed.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

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.

It can produce some odd routes on Strava etc

I normally ride along local canals and there are points where it looses GPS

and then gains it again later

and so my route swaps from one side of the canal to another and back again

mind you - it often shows that I have been riding happily down the middle of the canal

so accuracy is not the strong point quite often!

 

[Mike_P]

It can produce some odd routes on Strava etc

I normally ride along local canals and there are points where it looses GPS

and then gains it again later

and so my route swaps from one side of the canal to another and back again

mind you - it often shows that I have been riding happily down the middle of the canal

so accuracy is not the strong point quite often!

Can depend on the GPS device being used. An old Garmin I had quite regularly placed me on a completely different road at one location but not had that issue on more recent ones which have happily tracked me along bridleways.

 

[ebikeerwidnes]

Bit off topic but I remember coming back in the car from Southern Island many years ago
I had a new SatNav but had the route planned on a proper map anyway

It was funny watching the SatNav trying to sort out the best route to Dublin for us
The main road we were using was quite new and cut directly towards Dublin - but the SatNav didn;tknow about it so was constantly trying to work out where we were and what route to recommend.
Every time we went over any road of any kind if seemed to get all happy and show us the route
only to get confused again when we appeared to be going across fields


anyway - back to the topic!!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

If local I’ll just head out. Further afield I’ll plan it out on mapping and send to GPS. The key is to find where the minor roads directly cross the major roads. That way you can stick to quiet roads and when you reach major roads you are straight across. Else look for where a minor road takes a bridge over or passes under a major road. You can get right across this island without touching major roads in any appreciable way.

 

[geocycle]

My strategy is to see which way the wind is blowing then decide between Cumbria, Yorkshire Dales or Bowland in Lancashire. Ive saved a lot of rides in these areas on cycle.travel, all accessible from home, Then I decide on how far I want go and select something around 50, 80 or 100 km. I usually change the selected route slightly to find some new roads or reverse direction or a different lunch stop. If the wind is exceptionally strong I’ll look at a linear ride with a train.

 

[Ming the Merciless]

That is of course one tactic. Take the train one way and ride with a tailwind all day.