How do you choose your route

[Nigelnaturist]

I have to agree about holding the mental image of a map, I also think (certainly locally), that once you have covered a large number of roads, your bound to end up somewhere you know, a basic sense of direction helps, if you know which direction you have gone, you should be able to work out the basic direction you need to go to get back, I reckon I could get anywhere (fitness aside) without a map or gps (but then I did drive a truck for many years).
I know where most major places are in the uk, and relative to my position, and time of day and the position of the sun I know which general direction I need to be going. It can be fun sometimes, if time is not an issue, as you are likely to go down roads you wouldn't normally, and they can double back and you end up (for a well at least) going the wrong way, or to a dead end as happened to me hear Drax last year, but it all builds up your knowledge.

 

[coffeejo]

Have you ever dropped a paper map in a puddle? My mental map's a bit like that. It's like trying to navigate your way through Manchester with a street map for Cardiff. Last year, whilst attempting to get from Town A to Town B on what seemed like a perfectly easy and obvious route on the map (which I forgot to take with me), I managed to get it completely wrong, went full circle and ended up back in Town A. Tried again, went wrong somewhere else, ended back in Town A. Gave up at that point and went home.

 

[Powely]

Living on a Peninsular my routes are pretty much determined for me.

 

[mrandmrspoves]

To plan a route....
1) decide roughly how far to cycle
2) look at what cake shops can be reached within that distance and check they will be open
3) plan a circular route incorporating the identified cake shops at not more than 15 mile intervals.
4) cycle planned route and return home weighing more than you did when you left!

 

[RWright]

I was doing some riding in remote areas this summer, areas I know, kind of. I would still not know exactly how far or what road I was coming to. I did know that within approx. 10 miles in any direction I would find a highway or town I knew. I also noticed every couple of miles or so that there were two big animal paw prints painted right beside the outside white line. I was thinking that I hope there is not some kind of Big Cat Rescue/Sanctuary place around here too, there is a tiger rescue/sanctuary about 15 miles northwest of where I was riding. My grandmother lived about a mile up the road from it and she actually saw an escaped tiger on the loose one day when she was driving home from work. I wasn't really worried about being attacked by a tiger in the area I was riding but, you know, one less thing to think about if I knew what was up.

I decided to get a Garmin 800 with the mapping (which I still haven't had to use the mapping functions yet) mostly just to see where I was, so I wouldn't do anything stupid like get lost and ride around in circles. I read of a charity ride sponsored by the local animal shelter so I headed out to check the route they had posted on the web. On the way out to the starting point of the charity ride ( I have not been out there recently) I start seeing the paws again and right as I reach the ride start point it dawns on me, these are ride markers from last years ride. So I will be choosing my routes for the next couple of months by tracking animal paw tracks. I guess that is old school style like the Indians used to do it, but with a Garmin back up.