Why is cycle navigation so complicated?

[roubaixtuesday]

No technology needed, a few OS maps of your area is all you really need, you'll soon memorise the routes and roads. Sit at home with a cup of tea and look at the map in peace, put it in your pocket on rides for reference.

I prefer the laminated OS Explorer.

£10 each from Dash4it
https://dash4it.co.uk/act-5-the-english-lakes-north-easter..html

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The OS app is great as a back up particularly if you're in one of those locations you'd otherwise need four of them.

 

[DRHysted]

Reading this thread really shows the point I was trying to make, as there are so many different ways that cyclists like to deal with routes.
Personally I very rarely plan routes as I know most of the New Forest very well, and my fall back is to continue in a set direction until I come across something I recognise (track, road, village). I always have a Garmin running (if it’s not recorded it didn’t happen), but the maps are pitiful. I have all of the UK on my phone via Memory Map (road atlas down to 1:25). However some of the maps I have seen others using to navigate make me wonder how we don’t have search and rescue out more often, to be fair when I see these maps it’s because people have stopped me to ask direction’s because they’re lost.

 

[Oldhippy]

But when the batteries go flat and you don't know where you are a paper map comes in to its own.

 

[slowmotion]

I'm a huge fan of paper maps. They give you context.

 

[berty bassett]

personally I have tried garmin ( 705 + 1000) I found them both very good but downfall is you have to preload a route
I now have a wahoo bolt and sacrificed the colour screen for black and white but a much longer battery life and if you use your phone with either rwgps or cycle.travel , you can plot a route , email it to yourself and put it straight on the wahoo - if you need a bigger screen maybe the wahoo roam ?
I used cycle.travel to plot a 300 mile trip and I think I was on 1 busy road for about a mile , rest was all quiet

 

[Mike_P]

My Garmin really teed me off this afternoon - I had deliberately resynced it this morning having just tweaked the route I was taking as Komoot as advising a signed cycle route may not be suitale for a road bike so I ahd adjusted the route to avoid, Set off and it soon started complaining I was off route - i wasn't, I can only think an older version of the route altered yonks ago had turned right where I went straight on. And its much hyped course recalcalculation invariably comes up with Make a U turn which it on two further occasions it did as I rejoined and then left its route.

 

[HobbesOnTour]

My Garmin really teed me off this afternoon - I had deliberately resynced it this morning having just tweaked the route I was taking as Komoot as advising a signed cycle route may not be suitale for a road bike so I ahd adjusted the route to avoid, Set off and it soon started complaining I was off route - i wasn't, I can only think an older version of the route altered yonks ago had turned right where I went straight on. And its much hyped course recalcalculation invariably comes up with Make a U turn which it on two further occasions it did as I rejoined and then left its route.

I can't be sure but if I import a route into Komoot I am often asked something about "keeping the original" or adjusting for maps (can't remember the exact phraseology).
I suspect that Komoot (and possibly others) may adjust a route to suit their maps.

I know that RWGPS can change a route depending on the map option chosen.

For safety's sake I don't transfer routes between various planners.

 

[Reynard]

+1 for paper maps and a compass

I use a mix of OS Landranger and Explorer sheets, along with A to Z town / city maps for any urban stuff I might need to do.

 

[slowmotion]

+1 for paper maps and a compass

I use a mix of OS Landranger and Explorer sheets, along with A to Z town / city maps for any urban stuff I might need to do.

There's a real satisfaction in navigating by paper. You don't always have to take a whole sheet map. I sometimes just print off tricky sections from OpenStreetMap for difficult junctions etc. Something else you can do is "go" down your route beforehand on Google maps to see what it looks like. It's amazing how familiar it looks when you actually ride there.

Linky here:https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/54.910/-3.432

 

[Reynard]

There's a real satisfaction in navigating by paper. You don't always have to take a whole sheet map. I sometimes just print off tricky sections from OpenStreetMap for difficult junctions etc. Something else you can do is "go" down your route beforehand on Google maps to see what it looks like. It's amazing how familiar it looks when you actually ride there.

Linky here:https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/54.910/-3.432

Or just a quick sketch and a few tulip diagrams on the side - straight out of a rally navigator or co-driver's road book...

Between Girl Guides, geography GCSE and a really good book on rally navigation borrowed and then bought from my local library, I've been well sorted since I was 11 or so.

 

[slowmotion]

Or just a quick sketch and a few tulip diagrams on the side - straight out of a rally navigator or co-driver's road book...

Between Girl Guides, geography GCSE and a really good book on rally navigation borrowed and then bought from my local library, I've been well sorted since I was 11 or so.

Given my speed on the bike, I suspect rally navigation is somewhat irrelevant.

 

[cougie uk]

But when the batteries go flat and you don't know where you are a paper map comes in to its own.

Only if you know where you are though.

 

[slowmotion]

Only if you know where you are though.

Ah. With paper maps you do actually know where you are because you have being paying attention rather than jabbing buttons, swiping screens and wetting yourself about the battery running out.

 

[cougie uk]

Maybe 30 years ago I'd take an OS map with me but not now.
Usually I've plotted a good route on the GPS that looks interesting. Never had the battery run out.
Even if it did - there's still my smartphone that's got the area downloaded into it so I don't need a signal.

 

[DRHysted]

But when the batteries go flat and you don't know where you are a paper map comes in to its own.

Given under normal use I get two days use from my phone, and I’ve done over 200km rides without the Garmin going flat. I’ve never been concerned about batteries. Of course if those two fail, I could always use my watch, that’s got maps as well.
I grew up before sat navs, was forced to do orienteering, travelled the country using atlases, did alarm response using “blue books”. Sat navs win hands down as long as you use sense when using them (don’t turn down railway tracks, into rivers, off of harbours).