Online route planner for Plymouth to Cambridge

[Dave 123]

In June there is a family wedding in Plymouth. Over the following week I'm hoping to ride home.

My first conundrum is Devon. Ain't nothing straight. I think my best bet would be up to Okehampton and then I'm up for suggestions as to routes.

My only wish is for a quiet, scenic route.

I've done this journey a million times in a car on motorways and I'd like to see some of what I'm missing.

What would you advise as my best online planner?

Thank you.

 

[jefmcg]

I'm going to suggest https://www.strava.com/routes/new (you need to sign up, I think, but not necessarily record any rides).

It's based on routes Strava users have used, so can be brilliant. It's crowd sourcing the way practically nothing else I know achieves (I'm looking at you, wikipedia).

Caveat: I live near Richmond Park, so nearly every route it gives goes through there, because it is so popular with cyclists - but for most people, it just works.

 

[mjr]

Http://cycle.travel/map

 

[Dave 123]

How about ridewithgps?

I shall have a peruse. (This was actually the site I couldn't remember the name of)

Thank you!

 

[Pale Rider]

I shall have a peruse. (This was actually the site I couldn't remember the name of)

Thank you!

RidewithGPS has a handy find feature.

A search for Plymouth to Cambridge gives a handful of results, including this one.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/17277243

 

[Broadside]

I'm going to suggest https://www.strava.com/routes/new (you need to sign up, I think, but not necessarily record any rides).

It's based on routes Strava users have used, so can be brilliant. It's crowd sourcing the way practically nothing else I know achieves (I'm looking at you, wikipedia).

Caveat: I live near Richmond Park, so nearly every route it gives goes through there, because it is so popular with cyclists - but for most people, it just works.

^^^^ this

There are lots of route planners available but this is the only one that shows you the local knowledge of where other cyclists are riding and avoiding. It's brilliant and is what I use whenever planning a route in an unfamiliar area.

You need to switch the heat map option on then avoid blue roads and plan along the red stuff which is where all the cyclists are riding.

 

[Dave 123]

RidewithGPS has a handy find feature.

A search for Plymouth to Cambridge gives a handful of results, including this one.

https://ridewithgps.com/routes/17277243

I like that route.
It leaves the coast at Burton Bradstock where one of my musical heroes lives. I could be brewing up with Billy Bragg.

 

[graham bowers]

As your requirement is for a quiet, scenic route, I'd give https://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/ a go. The feature I particularly like is once you have chosen your start and end points, it offers 3 alternate routes; Fastest, Quietest and Balanced. Limitations of cyclestreets are that it has a limit of 300 Km route length, so long rides have to be broken down, and it will only accept start and end points, or put another way, you can't select intermediate points that you may wish to pass through within the 300Km. It does pick nice quiet routes though. To produce a navigation file for a gps I always recreate the route in ridewithgps. (Not saying there is anything wrong with CS nav files, its just a standard process I adopted when I first got my Garmin and had issues).

I also use cycle.travel and it has the advantages that there does not seem to be a limitation on route length, and intermediate waypoints can be selected. I have used the navigation files from it directly as well with success.

Or, as others have indicated, you could find somebody else's route on ridewithgps. It just depends if their requirements and yours match.

I just had a quick comparison of cyclestreets (using Bicester as an intermediate waypoint) and cycle.travel and see that they produce quite different results.

 

[briantrumpet]

I like that route.
It leaves the coast at Burton Bradstock where one of my musical heroes lives. I could be brewing up with Billy Bragg.

Don't do the A386 out of Plymouth - a horrid road, full of impatient commuters. Take the Plym Valley cycle track to get yourself in the Tavistock direction. But yes, you've got to head over Dartmoor to get to Exeter. It's a tough but fabulous 40 miles.

 

[steveindenmark]

I use plotaroute. Its free, easy and simple to see the road you will be riding on.

 

[jay clock]

I use RWGPS daily and love it. But very impressed with Strava, and the heat map and have to disagree with @User in that for my local area the heat map does perfectly match my idea of roads to avoid

Another to look at if you can be stuffed (it is a little fiddly) is bikehike.co.uk which uses OS maps so you can be confident of the type of route you are plotting on. You do have to save the file to a pc though, not online like RWGPS

One more tip if you want certainty is that with many planners you can drag the Pegman to show which roads have been Streetviewed (and have 99.9% confidence they are tarmac. Best to zoom to about 10km at a time - too big just shows all the map in blue. I have avoided parts where the site plotted me some oddities using this

 

[Broadside]

All the heat map really shows is you is where the sad people are being lemmings and trying to get a segment record... the way Strava works distorts the heat map.

Not correct. It uses the entire routes used by people using Strava, not just segments.

 

[Broadside]

You miss the point... people will take certain routes in order to do the segments on those routes.

Not all people on Strava chase segments. To illustrate my point have a look at the road from salisbury to amesbury that you mention, it is blue and would be one to avoid exactly as you say, the wiggly routes by the river come up red.

This excellent resource from Strava is much underestimated. The other route mapping services are behind in comparison.

 

[mythste]

I prefer route planning with Strava as RWGPS tends to automatically put you on "cycle paths" - no matter how unkept canal path-ish they may be! Even if there are perfectly fine roads nearby.

 

[Dave 123]

Don't do the A386 out of Plymouth - a horrid road, full of impatient commuters. Take the Plym Valley cycle track to get yourself in the Tavistock direction. But yes, you've got to head over Dartmoor to get to Exeter. It's a tough but fabulous 40 miles.

Yes, that was my plan. When I'm at the in laws I'll reluctantly cycle between Brixton and Yealmpton to do a loop in the South Hams. The alternative of the Lee Mill A38 cycle path is crap! Such a pity as it's such a nice corner of the world.