Route Planning

[ColinJ]

On cycle.travel is there an option to select only roads?

Yes, as @LeetleGreyCells posted, you can do that now - the option was added fairly recently.

One thing you can't do is to ask cycle.travel to avoid steep hills. If the quiet route is up a 25% climb, that's the way it will go, even if there is a fairly short stretch of flat busy road as an alternative! In that case, you would have to force it to route round the climb by adding via points on the stretch of road that you insist on using.

 

[mjr]

I think it would avoid most 25% climbs but it depends how busy the flat one is! I used to have to drag it to route up the 25% hill I lived on, or just move the pin to where I got on/off the bike.

"Paved only" is not quite only roads. It'll still use good tarmac cycleways.

Each extra routing option basically means a new server, if I remember @Richard Fairhurst's comments correctly.

 

[Deeps]

I've made one! I found it quite fiddly but that may come with practice. It's a 40m loop to Haworth using the greenway to avoid all the gritty bits through Brighouse and Halifax. There's a short stretch on a straight, busy road at the end of the greenway but then quiet roads through Shelf to get on the Queensbury road which may be classed as busy, but it should be fine compared to what I'm used to. Then the fun begins, I loop back over the other side of Haworth after going through the cobbled main street then down roads such as cold edge road where I won't see a single soul (slightly bumpy in places but should smoothen out). From there I do need to negotiate a couple of roundabouts/ busy junctions on the edge of Halifax but then it's back streets all the way to the top of the greenway and then down that again to pretty much my front door!

Watch me get lost and end up in Burnley!

 

[Heltor Chasca]

I’ve just had a play on cycle.travel after not using it for a while. WOW! It is fast now.

 

[ColinJ]

I think it would avoid most 25% climbs but it depends how busy the flat one is! I used to have to drag it to route up the 25% hill I lived on, or just move the pin to where I got on/off the bike.

I specifically asked Richard about it. Let me check what he told me...

Oh, yes - you are right! Richard's words:

"Essentially cycle.travel works by pre-calculating all the best routes for cycling. That's how it can be fast (even on really long rides) and allow the via points to be draggable, because most of the computing work has been done in advance. It tries to balance all the various factors, and elevation/climb is one of them, but it generally errs on the side of safety - mostly because I can sleep easier at night if people are exhausted by a hill rather than flattened by a truck!"

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I specifically asked Richard about it. Let me check what he told me...

Oh, yes - you are right! Richard's words:

"Essentially cycle.travel works by pre-calculating all the best routes for cycling. That's how it can be fast (even on really long rides) and allow the via points to be draggable, because most of the computing work has been done in advance. It tries to balance all the various factors, and elevation/climb is one of them, but it generally errs on the side of safety - mostly because I can sleep easier at night if people are exhausted by a hill rather than flattened by a truck!"

Will he sleep easy if someone's brakes fail on a steep hill? 😂

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I think it would avoid most 25% climbs but it depends how busy the flat one is! I used to have to drag it to route up the 25% hill I lived on, or just move the pin to where I got on/off the bike.

"Paved only" is not quite only roads. It'll still use good tarmac cycleways.

Each extra routing option basically means a new server, if I remember @Richard Fairhurst's comments correctly.

It's quite memory hungry depending on the geographical coverage. All the optimum routes are pre calculated for a particular form of travel, tweaked to how Richard wants it to work. He uses Open Source Routing Machine I believe. As well as pre calculated it holds it all in memory , which is why it is so fast. Put it on an underpowered server without enough memory and you'd soon know. I had a project (running locally) using OSRM but then cycle.travel came along essential solving the same problem I was shooting at. So I retired my project as cycle.travel is good enough for my needs.

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

I like the fact everyone is answering the question better than I could! 😁

cycle.travel really doesn’t like 25% gradients so will do its best to avoid climbing them. Marin Avenue in Berkeley (California) is my test case for that... it deliberately wiggles around the side-streets to avoid the 25% pain.

 

[ColinJ]

Will he sleep easy if someone's brakes fail on a steep hill? 😂

Ha ha - I reckon so... if somebody doesn't maintain their bike properly, that's their own lookout; if the nice man with the maps sends you down a deathtrap busy dual carriageway and a truck gets you, then maybe he shouldn't have sent you there!

 

[Ming the Merciless]

I like the fact everyone is answering the question better than I could! 😁

cycle.travel really doesn’t like 25% gradients so will do its best to avoid climbing them. Marin Avenue in Berkeley (California) is my test case for that... it deliberately wiggles around the side-streets to avoid the 25% pain.

Whilst here cycle.travel in paved mode took me on this route.

https://cycle.travel/map?from=Burne...4.2608859,-1.528211&toLL=54.340482,-1.4345459

The bit before Maunby isn't paved cycle track and as far as I can tell isn't marked as such on the OSM source data. It's more of a very muddy Bridleway with a deep crossing of a river at a so called ford!

First time I've had a problem with a generated route mind.

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

Thanks - on mobile at the moment but will take a look when I’m home!

 

[ColinJ]

I've made one! I found it quite fiddly but that may come with practice. It's a 40m loop to Haworth using the greenway to avoid all the gritty bits through Brighouse and Halifax. There's a short stretch on a straight, busy road at the end of the greenway but then quiet roads through Shelf to get on the Queensbury road which may be classed as busy, but it should be fine compared to what I'm used to. Then the fun begins, I loop back over the other side of Haworth after going through the cobbled main street then down roads such as cold edge road where I won't see a single soul (slightly bumpy in places but should smoothen out). From there I do need to negotiate a couple of roundabouts/ busy junctions on the edge of Halifax but then it's back streets all the way to the top of the greenway and then down that again to pretty much my front door!

Watch me get lost and end up in Burnley!

GPS is your friend!

Watch out on the road over to Cold Edge if ice is possible - I am fairly sure that it won't get gritted up there! I was cycling over there one year and encountered a hug patch of black ice on a bend. I got off and walked along the verge. About 100 metres further on the ice finished so I remounted and continued on my bike. I spotted a motorcyclist bombing down the hill towards me so I stopped in the middle of the road and flagged him down to warn him. He would have been in BIG trouble otherwise...

The rough section wasn't as rough as it used to be, last time I cycled that way. It used to be a nightmare but they filled the worst of the holes in a few years ago. I have done it several times since then on my best bike and not had a problem with it. At one time I would have only done it on my mountain bike.

 

[Houthakker]

I'm just giving cycle travel a try. Have used RWGPS for a god while (free version) but you now have to have a paid for version to be able to export to a garmin with advance warning of junctions. Looks like CT will do that for free, Guess I'll find out tomorrow. Have planned a nice 50m around South Ribble, Upholland, Skem, Ormskirk etc. Looks cold but if its like today should have some sun.

 

[Globalti]

Buy a a map. You'll be blown away again at the wealth of information it gives you.

 

[mjr]

Whilst here cycle.travel in paved mode took me on this route.

https://cycle.travel/map?from=Burne...4.2608859,-1.528211&toLL=54.340482,-1.4345459

The bit before Maunby isn't paved cycle track and as far as I can tell isn't marked as such on the OSM source data. It's more of a very muddy Bridleway with a deep crossing of a river at a so called ford!

First time I've had a problem with a generated route mind.

https://www.openstreetmap.org/way/224166073#map=16/54.2690/-1.4681 claims it is paved. Is that wrong, then? How rough is it on the 1-5 scale shown at https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Key:tracktype ?