How to plan a cycle route for fundraiser

[Anonymous1502]

Also, London is big. Where you start from in London is very important.

The following route sneaks through the Chilterns with minimal climbing. Assuming you start in Hyde Park, which is as good a guess as any: Hyde Park, Ealing, Southall, Iver, loop round the N of Slough to avoid the centre, Maidenhead, Warren Row (Velolife Cafe), Henley-on-Thames, Christmas Common, Brookhampton, Oxford.

That's just less than 700m of climbing in 106km. You'll struggle to get significantly less climbing than that. As 100k rides go, it's on the flat side.
View attachment 540868

And at 60km you have the opportunity to have some amazing cake at the Velolife Cafe near Warren Row to fortify yourself for the only real climb of the day up to Christmas Common. The Chilterns are in the way. You can't avoid them, and this is seems like the easiest way through.

I've not ridden that route myself (other than some nice bits around Christmas Common and other nice bits near Warren Row) so no guarantees. You will need to do your own research, this is just a suggestion and could have some poor choices.

The first 30km (up to the M25 just before Iver) will be horrible - it's a case of studying the roads, asking on here for local knowledge, and making a bearable London exit, avoiding the biggest of main roads. "Bearable" can be counted as a success. But at least it's flat.

Thank youuuu so much for this! Is there any way I can download this route on my phone and follow it or anything like that? I don't mind crazy busy roads in London, Im used to them. I'll be starting not too far from Hyde Park.

 

[mistyoptic]

We use Komoot and found it very good for the most part. It has the occasional "moment" but not as often as the cousin's garmin.
Navigated all the way from Roscoff to the Spanish border with Komoot and use it routinely for routes around Staffordshire. Different setting for road cycling/cycle touring/mountain biking. With an earpiece it gives good on route navigation too.

 

[chris-suffolk]

cycle.travel/map is excellent. Easy to tailor routes but it does a pretty good job on it's own. Just google it. Can download gpx file to follow too.

 

[Anonymous1502]

cycle.travel/map is excellent. Easy to tailor routes but it does a pretty good job on it's own. Just google it. Can download gpx file to follow too.

The route they gave me goes through the A40, and I have cycled through the London parts they recommended and tthey're terrible roads,not very cycle friendly.

 

[HLaB]

If I want to do it fast and its a completely new route to me, Id start with a RWGPS cycle route generator, then hover the google streetview man over the map to see where it goes off road (if it doesnt go blue its off road), edit to avoid tracks that look unsuitable in streetview and edit it also to try and take more direct routes or add/avoid hills

Un edited start: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/33856161?privacy_code=si1MkMzY4YK4bC94

 

[Anonymous1502]

If I want to do it fast and its a completely new route to me, Id start with a RWGPS cycle route generator, then hover the google streetview man over the map to see where it goes off road (if it doesnt go blue its off road), edit to avoid tracks that look unsuitable in streetview and edit it also to try and take more direct routes or add/avoid hills

Un edited start: https://ridewithgps.com/routes/33856161?privacy_code=si1MkMzY4YK4bC94

How do I edit the route?

 

[HLaB]

How do I edit the route?

If you are on the Edit Route page you just drag it where you want to go. I usually put control grips (go to drag but dont actually drag) in either side of the bit I want to drag. Depending how youve set the 'Optimise for' Walking, Cycling or driving it will automatically modify the route for that. Occasionally you have to tell it to follow straight lines. (at Cycle contraflows for example, it might try to route you in the one way direction of motor traffic)

 

[Anonymous1502]

-1 for Kamoot from me, joined it free on a GCN recommendation, totally unimpressed, defo won't be paying for it. I use either Google maps or mapometer.com

Can you please elaborate? Why do you prefer google maps to komoot?

 

[Sterlo]

It's purely personal preference, when I pre plan a route I memorise where the rods are, I don't download them and take them with me (getting lost sometimes is all part of the fun). I saw about Kamoot on a GCN video and thought I'd have a look but it did nothing to impress me, plus I don't see why I should pay for something I can get for free elsewhere. With mapometer,com, you can see distance, elevation, gradients and all again for free. I you want to download to a device to take with you, neither of these will work for you but as I say, that's just my choice.

 

[Nomadski]

If you want free, I would say RideWithGPS has the most options on the free side, but I'm not convinced by it's route selection. It works far better if you know the roads already / do some homework with Streetview.

The other two options I use are both paid versions - Komoot & Strava. Komoot you can use routing, and then download a GPX with no paid account. One nice advantage it has it will tell you how much tarmac / cycleway / singletrack etc and when hovered over, will highlight on the map where those sections are so you can use Streetview on Google to investigate closer.

I think Stravas routing has gotten much better since the recent update, but sadly it's totally behind the subscription paywall. Prior to the update I took Stravas auto routing with a massive grain of salt as I have ended up in many fields pathways totally unsuitable for road bikes and deadends in rural areas using the old system.

I would recommend Komoot to use by clicking a start point and end point, and then go thru the route checking on Streetview any potential dodgy bits. You can also select your fitness level, and types of bikes and it will try and plan accordingly.

FTR I have not used a single auto generating cycle routing site ANYWHERE which hasn't tried when routing rural areas to send me down something like this at least once, so do the homework on any suggested route.....

 

[Aravis]

Incidentally, RidewWithGPS recently (last month) added "popularity based routing" to their planner. I've not noticed any difference tbh but I'm not exactly a power user.

That's interesting. I'm aware of a few spots where the problem they describe has occurred. So a simple test, and.....no difference!

 

[Richard Fairhurst]

The route they gave me goes through the A40, and I have cycled through the London parts they recommended and tthey're terrible roads,not very cycle friendly.

It won't send you down the A40 - it might well send you along the cycle paths on either side though. If, say, you ask for a route from Park Royal to Northolt then it'll choose the cycle path beside the A40.

I'd be interested to know what route it suggested that you don't think is very good. (I run cycle.travel and London is always the singlest hardest place to get right!)

 

[Anonymous1502]

It won't send you down the A40 - it might well send you along the cycle paths on either side though. If, say, you ask for a route from Park Royal to Northolt then it'll choose the cycle path beside the A40.

I'd be interested to know what route it suggested that you don't think is very good. (I run cycle.travel and London is always the singlest hardest place to get right!)

I don't remember now, but I just ended up plotting my own route on strava, using one person's recommendations about which parts to go through- Ealing, Southall, Iver, Slough, Maidenhead,Warren row ,Henley on Thames, Waitlington, Chiselhampton and continue on to Oxford

 

[Anonymous1502]

Also, London is big. Where you start from in London is very important.

The following route sneaks through the Chilterns with minimal climbing. Assuming you start in Hyde Park, which is as good a guess as any: Hyde Park, Ealing, Southall, Iver, loop round the N of Slough to avoid the centre, Maidenhead, Warren Row (Velolife Cafe), Henley-on-Thames, Christmas Common, Brookhampton, Oxford.

That's just less than 700m of climbing in 106km. You'll struggle to get significantly less climbing than that. As 100k rides go, it's on the flat side.
View attachment 540868

And at 60km you have the opportunity to have some amazing cake at the Velolife Cafe near Warren Row to fortify yourself for the only real climb of the day up to Christmas Common. The Chilterns are in the way. You can't avoid them, and this is seems like the easiest way through.

I've not ridden that route myself (other than some nice bits around Christmas Common and other nice bits near Warren Row) so no guarantees. You will need to do your own research, this is just a suggestion and could have some poor choices.

The first 30km (up to the M25 just before Iver) will be horrible - it's a case of studying the roads, asking on here for local knowledge, and making a bearable London exit, avoiding the biggest of main roads. "Bearable" can be counted as a success. But at least it's flat.

I want to thank you once again for your help, I used your help to plan my route on strava and did the route to Oxford yesterday. I was up at 6:30am and out of the house at 7:20am.Some bits were a bit hilly in the Chilterns and Iver but most of the roads were okay. I did go to Velolife for a coffee but sadly they had no vegan cake on offer , so I just ate my homemade flapjack with the coffee, it was a nice midway stop. Adter Waitlington I picked up the pace quite a lot and I was doing about 30km/h on average, because before it was quite hilly and the roads were not the best. I got to Oxford and went to a vegan place called Happy friday kitchen- had a milkshake, burger,chips and a sundae to top it off- highly recommend it! Then it started raining so I just got the train back to London. I completed 108km in total that day. It was a nice journey, it would have been probably easier if 2 days before it I didn't go to Richmond Park- which has quite steep hills, and rested.

 

[MichaelW2]

If I was riding to Oxford I wouldnt start from London.