Cycletravel why use it.
- Thread starter Sallar55
- Start date
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Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Careful what you wish for ... ! In a lot of scenic areas there are little absurd lanes that are just NO FUN to ascend/descend. Whilst the steadier climbs are more enjoyable AND give the better views. I'm really not sure what algorithm would deal with this; I think I'm happy with routing through known scenic/hilly areas, and in certain cases fixing the route [ and this would apply with most websites/packages] to go up certain iconic/desirable climbs. Could be Fleet Moss, or Le Tourmalet, Ditchling Beacon ... all sorts.
Discuss!
I did a test run by replanning a favourite route of mine - Swanley to Dover along the spine of the Kent Downs. Cycle Travel hated this idea when I put the end points in. But a lot of judicious dragging of the route I managed to stop it diving down to the flat Weald of Kent and kept it on the uplands. I then edited out some very weird things it had done inside Rochester - presumably to keep me away from the main roads and had roughly my route.
In general, if you want a route to your specification there is no algorithm that's going to give it to you. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and get planning. When I'm driving my car I'm happy to let TomTom's algorithm do all the navigation because I just want to get the drive over with. But when I'm out on my bike I'd never trust an algorithm to do my routing.
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presta
Guru
When I went back to doing some gentle walking after quitting cycling I had to plan everything to the nth degree because I needed to make sure I could hack it, and was dependent on public transport. I quickly found that I was losing the will to live when it was taking as long to plan as it would take to walk.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
Which is pretty simple as 99% of it will just be motorways, A roads, B roads apart from start / finish. Car Nav is a much less trickier problem to solve.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Yes that's pretty much my point. An end to end algorithm is ideal for a car journey. Not so much for cycling.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
Not perfect but they’ll get you a pretty good starter for ten most times. As above we’ve all got our own preferences. But a bit of drag and drop and you can quickly have a route you are happy with. Of course certain people are never happy, but that’s just their nature, rather than the tools.
matticus
Guru
How do we know it avoids hills? I genuinely don't have a clue (apart from this thread), but the main description page doesn't specifically mention hills:
https://cycle.travel/map/difference
I ran doggy's Swanley-Dover test, and the default route was far from flat, and seemed to focus on dodging the large towns. His (more northerly?) route seemed to seek them out (or at least Rochester!)
matticus
Guru
roubaixtuesday
self serving virtue signaller
The most excellent @Richard Fairhurst explained a little about how the routing works to me in another place. It's fascinating!
https://forum.cyclinguk.org/viewtopic.php?p=1826829#p1826829
Anyway, he mentions something called Brouter which apparently allows personalisation of the routing algorithm.
https://brouter.de/brouter-web/#map=5/50.990/9.860/standard
I've not tried it myself.
Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
My route is straighter, probably shorter, more northerly, dives straight through the middle of the Medway towns and is much hillier. So CT may be avoiding hills, or it may be avoiding Rochester, Chatham and Gillingham (which is never a bad thing to do)
I've done some quick experiments and I can't find route with less overall climbing than the CT suggested one. I thought I'd be able to, but I wasn't. I tried taking a northerly route through Faversham, but it was climbier than the suggested one. (Edit. I have managed a less climby route, but involves significantly more main road riding than the suggested one)
Here's my route. It's hard but once you're past the Medway towns it's really nice. But a bit up and down.
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Dogtrousers
Kilometre nibbler
Slick
Guru
So, I've got a CT account, and I enabled sharing with Garmin Connect, and created a route in CT. I'm expecting it to automagically show up in GC under Training & Planning/Courses, and from there I can click "Send to Device" and then sync the device and the route will go to the device. At least that's my plan.Am I doing it wrong?
But nothing has appeared in GC so far.
Yes I was doing it wrong! I've just found the "Send to Garmin Connect" button.
Guys, I had no idea about any of that.
I have now transferred my up and coming tour on to connect, ready to go on to my garmin.
Thanks for that, what a great thread.
HobbesOnTour
Guru
- Location
- España
Agreed!what a great thread.
It is very pleasant to see how it's evolving into something far more positive than its origins.
If I have one criticism of CT it's that its lacking some proper documentation.
In all fairness, there are three versions of CT out in the world - the Website, the IOS App and the Android App. And Richard is very diligent at making improvements. Every month there is something new, sometimes under the hood that we don't see but regularly a new feature. Recently it was the ability to add POIs, this month the new option to follow official bike routes. I've seen improvements done in real time - a request on the CT forum carried out within minutes. Forgiving a lack of documentation is easy in those circumstances.
It is a fascinating experience to watch CT grow. However, that growth is not always documented - except if we are subscribers and receive the monthly updates.
In that vein I'd like to propose that this thread become the main repository for CT information sharing around here, an ask and answer thread.
CycleTravel why use it. (sic)
Let us list the reasons why.
Of course, the alternative is to subscribe for the price of a coffee.
Andy in Germany
Guru
- Location
- Rottenburg am Neckar
Wow, I never noticed that before, probably because street view wasn't available here until recently. I've often used Google maps despite CT offering a better route, because I wanted to check Street View at junctions.
Ming the Merciless
There is no mercy
- Location
- Inside my skull
Another thing you can do in cycle.travel, if others aren’t aware, is create folders for your rides and tours. Proved really useful for organising and pulling up possible route options during my recent tours.
