routes

[clutterydrawer]

Proper newbie question, but is there a way to find a good cycle route from one place to another, without just setting off and working it out? I have maps but they don't show very important details eg whether there's a verge to leap into when an artic comes too close.

I want to cycle from my village into town, without going on any super busy roads with no pavement. It's 12 miles though so I'd rather not keeping going wrong and retracing myself and trying a different way.

 

[HLaB]

IME maps are the best place to start selecting smaller roads and lanes experience then selects the best route. Other peoples experiences can be good too.

 

[littlelegs]

Major cycle routes are shown on Open Cycle Map.. not sure if that will help you or not!

 

[clutterydrawer]

sounds good, thankyou!

can i just humiliate myself further and ask what IME means?

 

[HLaB]

sounds good, thankyou!

can i just humiliate myself further and ask what IME means?

Forum Acronyms

 

[Steve Austin]

i like bikeroutetoaster. very simple, gives length of ride and height in climbing which is useful
http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/

 

[summerdays]

Also use things like google maps and look at the ariel view - then you will see if there are lots of sets of lights, road markings, mini roundabouts etc. Though to be honest a bit of trial and error also helps... some hills look bad on paper but are fine when cycling them and the reverse. And its always good to know an alternative route just to be able to vary your route.

 

[marinyork]

Google earth is very good. Unfortunately they've updated a lot of the imagery for the UK the last few months on the massive 2005ish updates and a lot of the new stuff has lost it's crispness and some areas as extremely hazy.

For urban areas multimap's birdseye view is great. Quality varies.

 

[Randochap]

Bikely.

 

[roadiewill]

mapmyride.com is another, tells you distance and elevation

 

[clutterydrawer]

That's great, i had no idea there were so many resources out there thanks everyone

 

[Cubist]

Hi and welcome. Another vote for mapmyride.com, especially in the "hybrid" map version.

 

[marooncat]

I use
windows local live
using the aerial view option.

I think the detail is alot better than google earth, around me anyhow and you can plot routes to work out the distance on it (I know you can do it on most other sites like this as well).

However as others have said anything like this is only a handy guide of what looks like it was there when the photo was taken. Once I thought I had worked out a decent route only to find that a building site had appeared in the middle of it (and on more than one occasion a "massive" hill )

 

[HLaB]

I use
windows local live
using the aerial view option.

I think the detail is alot better than google earth, around me anyhow and you can plot routes to work out the distance on it (I know you can do it on most other sites like this as well).

However as others have said anything like this is only a handy guide of what looks like it was there when the photo was taken. Once I thought I had worked out a decent route only to find that a building site had appeared in the middle of it (and on more than one occasion a "massive" hill )

If you're lucky you can also get 'Birds Eye' view which is more up to date and can be rotated if there's something in the way

 

[clutterydrawer]

Well I took my time but I have finally achieved this, so thanks to your helpful suggestions I can now get safely into town without being dependent on buses...saving £30 a month on bus fares too. yey