Cycling abroad virgin seeks advice

[psmiffy]

erm Europe is a big place - you're bound to lose detail trying to cover such a large area. The most useful combination of detail and coverage is in the 1:200k or 1:400k maps - these cover only regions within countries (although I guess small countires may get their own map).

Yes - 1:500k is asking a bit much for there to be much detail when it gets a bit populated - I have used worse succesfuly in some countries - but that was because generally there was not much to put on the map in the first place

I second Andym that a map at 1:200k to 1:400k is most appropriate for road touring

 

[Rebel Ian]

The other thing I always carry is a compass! In worst case scenarios you can always resort to the trusty compass and at least head in the right direction.

As others have said you'll find two things about cycling in France. The roads are infinitely better to cycle on compared to the pot holed nightmares we have to endure over here. You'll also find motorists extremely accommodating of cyclists.

My final tip would be if you're cycling on a Sunday, don't expect to find everything open like it is over here. Most of the French villages and small towns that we cycled through en route to Paris were closed on the Sunday making a lunch stop tricky.

 

[delport]

erm Europe is a big place - you're bound to lose detail trying to cover such a large area. The most useful combination of detail and coverage is in the 1:200k or 1:400k maps - these cover only regions within countries (although I guess small countires may get their own map).

I know it is big i've practically travelled the whole of europe on the train.All of which i managed by laptop and autoroute.

The detail just isn't there on a michelin map for stuff that is actually needed or of use.
Hence why i will now be taking a laptop loaded with autoroute and a gps in future journeys to travel from a city.
If i go to any city i don't expect to look at a michelin map and see nothing for 15 miles, i bought the map to be able to cycle from a city to outside a city, instead i have to rely on a compass to get out a city because the map isn't good enough.
And i am talking about large french cities here not a town with 100 residents.

I wouldn't recommend anyone buy the latest michelin map, save your money for something better.

 

[andym]

I know it is big i've practically travelled the whole of europe on the train.All of which i managed by laptop and autoroute.

The detail just isn't there on a michelin map for stuff that is actually needed or of use.
Hence why i will now be taking a laptop loaded with autoroute and a gps in future journeys to travel from a city.
If i go to any city i don't expect to look at a michelin map and see nothing for 15 miles, i bought the map to be able to cycle from a city to outside a city, instead i have to rely on a compass to get out a city because the map isn't good enough.
And i am talking about large french cities here not a town with 100 residents.

I wouldn't recommend anyone buy the latest michelin map, save your money for something better.

It's pretty misleading, and not really very helpful, to compare a laptop's worth of data (or at least a couple of gigabytes) with a single map. And Michelin maps come in different scales - compare a map at 200k with your Europe map and I'm you'll find a lot of that detail is there (and equally if you get an IGN 50k or 25 k map there'll be even more detail. That said I seriously doubt that any Michelin map would not show 'large french cities'.

Personally I use a GPS with CityNavigator and OpenCycleMap and/or Garmin's topo series - and yes the detail is there for when I need it, but navigating with a tiny screen can be a pain. A paper map is useful/essential to have as well, and IME when it comes to paper maps at medium scale (ie above 100k) Michelin are as good as they get - at least for France and Spain - in Italy possibly the Touring Club Italia have an edge if only because they are printed on waterproof 'paper'.

If anyone wants to check out the level of detail on Michelin maps for themselves they should go to viamichelin.com.

 

[snorri]

I find it quite handy to carry a paper map of Europe on longer tours, but it is only used for orientation every few days. It can be useful to know that you are roughly xx days from some national border or major city, but a map of that scale is useless for any route planning.

 

[Polite]

Thanks once again everyone, I can't wait !

 

[delport]

It's pretty misleading, and not really very helpful, to compare a laptop's worth of data (or at least a couple of gigabytes) with a single map. And Michelin maps come in different scales - compare a map at 200k with your Europe map and I'm you'll find a lot of that detail is there (and equally if you get an IGN 50k or 25 k map there'll be even more detail. That said I seriously doubt that any Michelin map would not show 'large french cities'.

Personally I use a GPS with CityNavigator and OpenCycleMap and/or Garmin's topo series - and yes the detail is there for when I need it, but navigating with a tiny screen can be a pain. A paper map is useful/essential to have as well, and IME when it comes to paper maps at medium scale (ie above 100k) Michelin are as good as they get - at least for France and Spain - in Italy possibly the Touring Club Italia have an edge if only because they are printed on waterproof 'paper'.

If anyone wants to check out the level of detail on Michelin maps for themselves they should go to viamichelin.com.

Okay, so here is what i bought for my £12, is this acceptable for a cyclist going to any french port and trying to find their way?

There are 100 pages of the map of europe dedicated to a map ratio of 1:1 000 000 ,among them is this example.
The map i uploaded was 22mb in size, photobucket has shrunk it a bit.
There is no detail better than that in the book for French ferry port travel, and there is no city plan for those ports, they are cities, but don't get their own special map section with greater detail in it.

Even in the english side of the channel you can see how bad the detail is there too, you've got dover and to the left the nearest place is folkestone, having cycled that area i know just how far apart those places are.
The cycle took me 40 minutes or something between dover-folkstone.

The alternative is use a netbook, it weighs the same or less than a map, and the detail is far superior, you can zoom in close and find your way out from a port at street level even.
I paid £55 for an asus netbook,[i admit it was a bargain price], and £12 for the map above.

more pictures

 

[mcr]

Okay, so here is what i bought for my £12, is this acceptable for a cyclist going to any french port and trying to find their way?

There are 100 pages of the map of europe dedicated to a map ratio of 1:1 000 000 ,among them is this example.
The map i uploaded was 22mb in size, photobucket has shrunk it a bit.
There is no detail better than that in the book for French ferry port travel, and there is no city plan for those ports, they are cities, but don't get their own special map section with greater detail in it.

Even in the english side of the channel you can see how bad the detail is there too, you've got dover and to the left the nearest place is folkestone, having cycled that area i know just how far apart those places are.
The cycle took me 40 minutes or something between dover-folkstone.

The alternative is use a netbook, it weighs the same or less than a map, and the detail is far superior, you can zoom in close and find your way out from a port at street level even.
I paid £55 for an asus netbook,[i admit it was a bargain price], and £12 for the map above.

give me a minute i'm going to reupload the map, the detail was rubbish in this one.

No cyclist in their right mind would use that sort of atlas on the road - is anyone, other than you, suggesting that? For under £9 you can get the whole of France at 1:200,000, and at that price you can tear out the pages you want and take them on tour with you.

 

[delport]

No cyclist in their right mind would use that sort of atlas on the road - is anyone, other than you, suggesting that? For under £9 you can get the whole of France at 1:200,000, and at that price you can tear out the pages you want and take them on tour with you.

so are you suggesting we now have to buy specific maps and take time over it, and not buy "the so called best"?
The suggestion was you should buy michelin, read a few posts further back.This is a michelin map.And not especially cheap either.

Here is the quote
"Get a map – a Michelin will be more than good enough"

Well i have bought michelin as suggested in recent months on this forum, for cyclists, and the pictures are there for all to see.
That is the detail you wil get in a michelin map available in most book stores.

 

[psmiffy]

Okay, so here is what i bought for my £12, is this acceptable for a cyclist going to any french port and trying to find their way?

It is certainly not what I would buy to tour Europe by bicycle with - having said that I have no doubt that using it I would be able to find most of the French Ferry Ports without too much trouble - I not quite sure what is unacceptable about it - was it touted as being suitable for touring cyclists?

My choice is as I have said before is about 1:200k - this is 1:150k -and is not difficult to obtain in book stores

more detail maybe but not so much that I would be able to follow the map without resorting to looking for signs showing me where to go.


And yes - "a Michelin is more than good enough" - but not all Michelin are equal - a degree of common sense in picking a map is necessary

 

[mcr]

But Michelin makes numerous maps at different scales for different purposes, as explained up-thread - yours is only one of them. The main country road atlases at 1:200,000 or thereabouts, such as the one I linked to, can be found in any decent-sized WH Smiths or Waterstones and are, I'm sure, what psmiffy was referring to when saying 'get a Michelin' (they can also be bought in standard folding-map form region by region). If you bought that particular Michelin on someone's recommendation, it might have been wise to check its scale was suitable first.

Edit: my posting overlapped with psmiffy's - I should point out that mine was in response to delports.

 

[Dave Davenport]

I've always found the Michelin regional maps pretty good for cycle touring, ok I needed 5 for last summers tour but that was still only about £20 and I'll be using at least 2 of them again this year.

+1 for carrying a compass.

 

[yello]

My tuppence/centime;

for my purposes, a 1:100 000 is excellent and all you'd realistically need. You can buy them by region, the IGN 'carte de promenade' series costing around €6 each, depending where you buy. There's 74 of them to cover all of France (should you need!) so that would be a bit of an outlay, but you clearly only buy them as and when.

I do have a full set of 1:400 000 (8 for all of France) but they're not really adequate for back roads cycling - they'd do the job but they do lack the detail imho.

 

[psmiffy]

My tuppence/centime;

for my purposes, a 1:100 000 is excellent and all you'd realistically need. You can buy them by region, the IGN 'carte de promenade' series costing around €6 each, depending where you buy. There's 74 of them to cover all of France (should you need!) so that would be a bit of an outlay, but you clearly only buy them as and when.

Totally agree the IGN 100k are excellent maps - but for me there is too much detail and the coverage of a single map is limited - not to say that I do not own some and have used them

 

[mcr]

Totally agree the IGN 100k are excellent maps - but for me there is too much detail and the coverage of a single map is limited - not to say that I do not own some and have used them

I've got the Memory Map version - which means it can travel with me on my smartphone - but do prefer the Michelin cartography (despite the lack of contours). Some places on the IGN are so smothered in pink tourist-facility logos you can't actually see the roads!