Whats the best cycling route app

[Amac]

I have used cycle.travel a few times and found the suggested rides very good and easy to follow.

 

[gcogger]

I can't say which is 'best', but Komoot doesn't try and route you on gravel if you select 'Road Cycling' as the sport.

 

[contadino]

I use plotaroute and cycle.travel Both seem to send me the right way and are easy to export routes in a variety of formats for your navigation devices.

 

[cyberknight]

Maybe you have 'avoid highways' ticked?

I have just been trying it on the pc too, exact same issue where it keeps routing me onto ise roads even though i have not selected any avoidance setup
eg i clicked along the road and it routed like this

 

[cyberknight]

next click maybe half a mile down the same road , routes it around a loop not sure what the issue is ?

 

[OldShep]

I don’t use RWGPS because it doesn’t pass the test I give any routing software. The following route most fail on and suggest over 5 mls on the A701

Cycle.travel gives me the route I would always take

Note 10 mls takes you to the same place.

 

[berty bassett]

Another cycle.travel fan
As long as you remember to tick paved only
It’s perfect
Got me from Northants to Scotland with only about 3 mile on main roads that couldn’t be avoided

 

[Noblester]

Never had a problem with Strava myself. On a holiday a few years ago. Put in my home position (Watford area) final destination New Forest 100 miles. Was a bit sceptical but the supplied route couldn’t be faulted

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

next click maybe half a mile down the same road , routes it around a loop not sure what the issue is ?

Most route-planners are broadly set up to think "major road bad, minor road good". So (let's say) they might give a score of 2 to each mile of minor road, and 4 to each mile of major road, where a smaller score is better. They then find the journey between your chosen A and B that has the lowest total score.

That's fine in theory. But it means that if (say) a route-planner has a choice between 1 mile going straight along a major road, or 1.9 miles by adding a loop on a minor road, then the latter will actually score better (3.8 points vs 4 points). So it sends you round the loop.

There's a few tricks that a route-planner can use to minimise this, and cycle.travel tries to do them. Even then it still goes round loops quite often.

RWGPS is a great site but they've definitely chosen to concentrate more on the "plotting" side of things than the actual route quality - their route calculations are fairly rudimentary, but they've built a whole bunch of good stuff around it for sharing, editing routes, cue sheets, and so on. cycle.travel (my site) is the opposite end of the scale - it concentrates on finding quiet routes, and the sharing/editing tools are much more limited.

(Thanks folks for the nice comments!)

 

[cyberknight]

Most route-planners are broadly set up to think "major road bad, minor road good". So (let's say) they might give a score of 2 to each mile of minor road, and 4 to each mile of major road, where a smaller score is better. They then find the journey between your chosen A and B that has the lowest total score.

That's fine in theory. But it means that if (say) a route-planner has a choice between 1 mile going straight along a major road, or 1.9 miles by adding a loop on a minor road, then the latter will actually score better (3.8 points vs 4 points). So it sends you round the loop.

There's a few tricks that a route-planner can use to minimise this, and cycle.travel tries to do them. Even then it still goes round loops quite often.

RWGPS is a great site but they've definitely chosen to concentrate more on the "plotting" side of things than the actual route quality - their route calculations are fairly rudimentary, but they've built a whole bunch of good stuff around it for sharing, editing routes, cue sheets, and so on. cycle.travel (my site) is the opposite end of the scale - it concentrates on finding quiet routes, and the sharing/editing tools are much more limited.

(Thanks folks for the nice comments!)

ok
i dont get this issue with strava, when i plan routes i tend to know where i want to go and for club rides this extra turn routing is a PITA

 

[kenmiles]

It is best to select Driving not Cycling then check the route created and edit as you like.

 

[Cycling_Samurai]

I use Google maps for route planning. I use MapMyRide for tracking my rides. I delete most data older than 45 days to save space. Probably not many do this in England but I have spent a lot of time in the US.

 

[Blue Hills]

I use Google maps for route planning. I use MapMyRide for tracking my rides. I delete most data older than 45 days to save space. Probably not many do this in England but I have spent a lot of time in the US.

I wouldn't dream of using googlemaps for detailed cyclerouting, tho do use it for a quick and dirty estimation of cycling distance and time. Cycletravel for me.

 

[Eric Olthwaite]

I have just been trying it on the pc too, exact same issue where it keeps routing me onto ise roads even though i have not selected any avoidance setup
eg i clicked along the road and it routed like this
View attachment 575128

I used to be a happy user of RWGPS because of its decent routing and seamless syncing with my Wahoo. Then I noticed it starting to introduce these odd detours a few months ago. The problem became worse and worse until every route required 5-10 minutes of tidying up to remove these anomalies. I assume this was something to do with a change in its routing algorithms.

So instead I tried cycle.travel. The routing seems far more reliable, and while there is (as yet) no seamless sync with Wahoo, it takes less than a minute to turn the Wahoo on, plug it into USB, download a .tcx file and copy it into the Wahoo routes directory. So on balance much better than RWGPS.

 

[PaulSB]

I'm a long-term RWGPS user and rarely experience problems but I tend to plot every turn and rarely leave it to the software to route me. Overall I would say mistakes are 99% user error.

I have started to play with cycle.travel as many people on here speak highly of it. Plus I'm broadening my riding to more gravel and hope it will offer possibilities RWGPS doesn't appear to. Only playing indoors so far.