Plotting rides on bikehike etc.

[Banjo]

If you measure a route on bikehike or on a paper map will the actual distance you ride be slightly more due to the up and down of the hills being a straight line on the map?

Despite carefully calibrating my computer I find on rides more than 20 miles I allways seem to do an extra half a mile or so.

 

[andytheflyer]

Hi,

I use Bikehike for most of my longer rides and find it accurate to better than half a mile in 50, so say 1%, when measured against my wireless cyclecomputer. That suggests that the Bikehike mileage is based on a topo model, not a flat map projection.

If you are measuring the distance on a paper map that may be why there's a difference - the Bikehike distance should be longer - unless you are in the Lincolnshire fens of course!

Andy

 

[GrasB]

I've found bikehike is inconsistent. For instance it comes up with 13.61 miles to work (trip comes up with 13.4 to 13.5) & my normal home commute is 18.6 miles where as I register anywhere between 18.7 & 19 miles. Longer routes it can be up to 5% out in either direction. That said when you look at the incline/gradient data for those routes you can see blatant errors (there's not a 7% incline about 1km from my house!), so it may well just be a little dodgy in some areas due to bad map data.

 

[jimboalee]

I used to worry about this.

Nowadays, when I plan a DIY 100, I plan 105 - 110 by the SHORTEST ViaMichelin route 'by bike'.

The AUK area man always says "Yes".

On AUK Midlands Mesh, I don't have to worry about measuring it out. I just total up the strings and as long as it's over distance, it's OK.

 

[Norm]

Bikehike matches my computers pretty well too. I took the first ride with a new computer today, it said 23.95 miles, Bikehike comes in at 23.9. That difference (about 260 feet over 24 miles) could be genuine measuring differences, inaccuracy in the tyre size (1mm wear will change the distance travelled per revolution) or could be made up by swinging wide round a few corners or weaving through stationary traffic.

 

[Auntie Helen]

I find bikehike is pretty accurate when compared to my Garmin GPS after a ride. It's not perfect but it's very useful to give me a fairly close idea of distances.

 

[Garz]

I use it as a backup if my computer sensor plays up and not had my phone gps on. It's generally not far out like others here mentioned between 1-5% I would agree.

 

[colly]

I quite like Bikehike because it is pretty easy to use and as accurate as I need it to be.
It never matches my bike computer exactly but that isn't surprising really given all the things that can alter an 'exact' measurement.

Oddly though, according to Bikehike I often find myself as much as 100ft off the ground, or even underground, when I get back home.

 

[jimboalee]

Don't bother with BikeHike.

It doesn't know cycle permitted foot bridges and dual use cycle/ped routes.

It takes you round the roads and adds miles to the journey.


That said, no on-line routing sites do know cycle lanes.
Best to check the OS map on Streetmap.co.uk.

 

[trio25]

You can plot yourself on those jimboalee, click on the follow roads so it doesn't and plot using the OS maps.

 

[Banjo]

Don't bother with BikeHike.

It doesn't know cycle permitted foot bridges and dual use cycle/ped routes.

It takes you round the roads and adds miles to the journey.


That said, no on-line routing sites do know cycle lanes.
Best to check the OS map on Streetmap.co.uk.

You can plot your route on OS map on bikehike if you want to.Just click onn " toggle map sizes" to make thje OS map the biggest.

 

[Ian H]

You can mix and match - plot sections on 'follow road' and link with sections just drawing the route. Useful for including foot ferry crossings, footbridges and the like.

 

[Banjo]

Have fitted an identical computer to the new road bike.Ride I did this morning recorded 15.1 miles on the computer and when plotted on bikehike came to 15.08 close enough for me and it was quite a hilly route so i think bikehike distance must take topography into account.

Have to double check the tyre circumference on the commuter.

 

[ColinJ]

Have fitted an identical computer to the new road bike.Ride I did this morning recorded 15.1 miles on the computer and when plotted on bikehike came to 15.08 close enough for me and it was quite a hilly route so i think bikehike distance must take topography into account.

Have to double check the tyre circumference on the commuter.

If you do the calculations, you'll see that the difference between measuring the distance along the road and the actually horizontal distance travelled would only be about 6.25 m for a 5 km hill of 5% gradient i.e. for all practical purposes you don't need to worry about it. Your tape measure isn't going to measure your tyre circumference anywhere close to 0.125% accuracy!

 

[Banjo]

If you do the calculations, you'll see that the difference between measuring the distance along the road and the actually horizontal distance travelled would only be about 6.25 m for a 5 km hill of 5% gradient i.e. for all practical purposes you don't need to worry about it. Your tape measure isn't going to measure your tyre circumference anywhere close to 0.125% accuracy!

Thats amazing Colin .I would have guessed a much bigger difference.Have to admit that maths never was my best subject