How to navigate when touring?!

[J-Lo]

Evening,

I wonder whether some of you could divulge info on how you manage to navigate when touring - especially when your not staying in one area and only have a rough idea where your going (meaning you plan your route on a day to day basis in the tent!).

For example, even if you were only going 150 mile away etc that would probably span 3 or so of them small OS maps (which I think is quite costly).

Is it just a case of buying one of those big AA road atlases, and taking the pages you need with you? Is this actually beneficial if you plan on staying clear of A roads and want to get out into the countryside?

Having never toured on a bike before I am wondering how I will find my way lol, but getting lost is an adventure too sometimes (although I hope to avoid it).

Appreciate any tips & tricks!

Cheers

 

[mcshroom]

I tend to work from roadmaps, but if you can get one for the area you are touring I find the Sustrans maps are a good balance between detail and scale.

A tip is to look for local cycle maps for the towns you go through, or a google/OpenStreetMap map. The road maps should be fine outside of urban areas but in towns it helps to have a smaller scale map with road names on it.

 

[psmiffy]

To start with I will have the main route points in my head – say I am going from the Med to the Baltic starting at La Spezia then it would be Parma – Bolzano – Lienz – Prague – etc – I use a big map (say 1:150k to 1:200km) and spread it out on the floor of the tent in the evening or at my first coffee stop of the day – pick the route by eye – quietish roads if possible maybe following some geographical features – rivers or valleys or a mountain pass – through what I know are interesting places or what appear from the map to be interesting places - fold it up so that the bit I am on for about 40km is visible and follow the route I have picked – adjust map at stops during the day – probably adjusting route as I go so that I have a choice of campsites and shopping to stop at depending on how well I am going.



To me I find it is important to have a mental picture of where I am going in the medium to long term – this afternoon to the end of the week - opening out the map in the evening and/or getting out the next map out as well provides me with that mental image

 

[Cush]

Coming from a walking background I work on 1:50,000 OS that I down load on to A4 and when in towns and villages ask the way (but why do I allways manage to find the local story teller?)

 

[andym]

I think it's a good idea to have am idea of places you want to visit and places to stay the night.

It's possibly not quite so critical in the UK, but if you are touring somewhere mountainous you need a map that will give you some idea of how much climbing is involved, and the steepness of the roads. I don't know whether AA maps provide this. (michelin and others do).

Ordnance Survey LandRanger maps (ie 1:50k) cover a lot of ground with no loss of detail. OK, a bit pricey/weighty for long linear rides, but there's nothing wrong with focusing on a particular area and just taking the time to explore it.

 

[Kirstie]

OS Touring scale maps (1:250000 I think) do me OK. But being the control freak that I am most of my tours are plotted in tracklogs and downloaded onto my GPS, after havign been checked out on google earth and geograph first!

 

[rich p]

Smiffy said it for me plus a compass for emergency direction finding.

 

[hubbike]

road maps are fine. In the UK I find it is fine to navigate purely by roadsigns and a healthy dislike of main roads.

 

[vernon]

There's a whole range of maps at different scales that you can purchase.

If you want to avoid main roads then the National Byways maps might be just the job.

It is useful to have a vague idea where you are going. The ulimate in vagueness for me was pointing my bike away from Lands End and pedalling in the direction of John O'Groats. I navigated by pages torn from a road atlas having made sure that I had the pages that would cover the areas that I would be cycling through

 

[MontyVeda]

plot the intended route on Google maps (my maps)... use street view (if available) to have a look at turnings to see if they're signposted/have a landmark and make notes.

 

[psmiffy]

road maps are fine. In the UK I find it is fine to navigate purely by roadsigns and a healthy dislike of main roads.

Thats a sentiment that I can agree with - as long as I know that Maidford is before Blakesly and not vice versa - a road map generally gives clues like that

 

[J-Lo]

Thanks alot for all the replies yet again!

Ive taken the advice and pages from a roadmap sounds good. Obviously if im going to be around a certain area for a few days then an OS map will be good too (in the uk).

Obviously I will have an idea of which towns/cities I will end up at each day, and I suppose you can just make notes beforehand and get there by going town to town with the aid of a road atlas.

 

[andym]

Road signs are useful to a point, but don't forget they are often intended to route cars along particular roads and away from others - on a bike you might well want to go down the road the signs are routing the cars away from.

 

[samid]

One small tip: especially if you're using "disposable" maps (such as pages torn out from a road atlas) I found it very convenient to plot my route for the next day using a yellow highlight marker - makes finding your desired way on the map so much easier when you're on the road.

 

[frank9755]

As PSmiffy, Rich and others.

I have a rough idea where I am heading, tear out some road atlas pages to take with me, and sketch out my intended route with arrows on the map the night before. I usually deviate from the intended route at some point. I then stop when I have had enough and repeat for the next day!

OS maps are not good for cycling as the scale is too large - you are forever turning them over. You ideally need something between 1:100,000 and 1:250,000 (but it depends on the terrain). In some countries there are good maps of that sort of scale, but a road atlas is a good banker.