Route planning in Europe Eurovelo vs Google maps

[Mark Manley]

I am planning a possible trip this summer from Calais to Athens and was wondering what experience people have using Eurovelo routes vs Google maps set to cycle route? The biggest difference seems to be on the Calais to Vienna section which even with a diversion to visit friends is still 500km shorter on Google but will it still have good cycle paths which is my experience of Eurovelo or is one simply not as accurate as the other when calculating distances?

 

[Ming the Merciless]

Google will take you on inappropriate roads and tracks and footpaths. I would not use it for routing on a bike, unless there was no other alternate.

 

[abcd efg]

Cycle.Travel has extensive coverage of most of Europe.

 

[roubaixtuesday]

Wot Ming sed.

Google maps is terrible and not to be trusted. Cycle.Travel is excellent - we used it last year to plan a not dissimilar route to yours.

But. And most importantly: there is no routing app that you can trust without doing a thorough check of your route every day.

 

[Psamathe]

As above, use https://cycle.travel. If you want to follow official cycle routes eg a Eurovelo route then there is a check box to "Cycle Routes" which will move the proposed route to use official cycle routes.

I've been using cycle.travel for all my European tours (couple of months each year) in France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands and I've never had a bad route on any day.

Ian

 

[Mark Manley]

Thanks for your replies, I have tried my destination on cycle.travel and it came up with a good looking route that is shorter than Eurovelo so if I go ahead with this trip I will probably use it.

 

[Emanresu]

Eurovelo routes tend (but only tend) to be safer. Check everything. Any routing software can be wrong.

 

[Cathryn]

I've been using cycle.travel for all my European tours (couple of months each year) in France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands and I've never had a bad route on any day.

Ian

As above! We’ve done several long trips using cycle.travel and it’s been awesome every single day!!! I tried using Komoot for one day because they said their route was 10km shorter and it was raining and we regretted that decision on the busy road they sent us on!

 

[Javelin301]

Another vote for Cycletravel. I've found it to be really good. Just avoid doing what I've done a few times- phone in pocket, using voice prompts. No clue when out of mobile signal. Usually happens when it's hilly of course, struggle to the top and think -oh look, theres a phone mast!

 

[JB052]

We tried using Google maps set to cycle mode last year in France (Chinon area), it would get you to the required destination but using roads that were not great to cycle on, due to the volume of fast traffic.