How To Plan A Great Cycling Route On Safe & Quiet Roads
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- Опубліковано 18 чер 2024
- Planning an enjoyable cycling route can be challenging. It's far too easy to ride your bike on roads you're familiar with after having driven them in your car. But, roads that are great for driving are usually pretty rubbish for cycling. To get the most out of your bike riding, it's best to stick to quieter lanes and back roads and avoid the fast moving traffic you find on busy highways. In this video, Si gives you his top tips to help you plan your next cycling route to make your bike ride safer and more enjoyable!
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I'm digging all the content aimed at newer cyclists. Glad to see GCN extending a helping, non-snooty hand to those venturing out for the first time.
A good tip, perhaps for less experienced route planners, is look at the direction of the turns. Ideally you want to minimise the number of times you have to turn across traffic. In the UK riding a loop anti-clockwise will usually give mostly left turns. Try clockwise in USA or mainland Europe.
pete howard great comment. I go by the same method, left turns are so much easier then across traffic
Strava heat map to see where other cyclists go, avoid any main roads, and an ability to not care if you get lost. Works for me.
Strava used to be best in class but it's new 'dirt roads' option is appalling. In the UK it seems to think that all footpaths are fair game for cyclists. Komoot much better if you aren't simply going road riding.
good feature but is a premium feature...
never heard of it but i tried it and it works like a charm
@@steveh3483 no it's not a premium feature
Komoot is great and all but it has tried to send me down a road that didn't exist, then the only way around it was a very muddy bridleway then it took us down what I can only describe as mountain biking single track but with concrete under the tyres. It was one of the best adventures I have ever had. 10/10 would recommend for exploration. It took me where I needed to go not where I wanted to go.
Komoot has a weird pathfinding algorithm that often tries to send me on weird detours that are much more unsafe. I've had it make me take the 3rd turn on a roundabout, zigzag through 200m of backroads before having to cross back onto an A road at a T-junction. Komoot thought that was safer than taking the first exit at the roundabout and following the A road.
We went bikepacking in Poland last week and what komoot considered fit for bike touring was impossible to ride on a bike without suspension. I actually fell off my gravel bike and hurt myself so bad I had to return. Blame’s on me for even trying, but that was pretty disappointing on komoot‘s part.
@@carmafluxus Road bike routing for Poland in Komoot is mostly spot on. It sometimes uses dirt roads when that saves you some distance, or tries to stick you on a high traffic, high speed road (but not an express way or highway). But yeah, when I tried testing the bike touring option, it basically went wild with the trails and "shortcuts".
It is indeed hard to find quiet roads when you live inside a city.
F
It indeed is. I live in Frankfurt/Germany and have almost completely abandoned the roady and changed to MTB just for several years and for the only purpose to escape the traffic. Then suddenly a few years ago they started to build these very nice bike routes all over the country (and I think more and more in several european countries). A lot of them are quite flat. But not all. It really works great for me so I have picked up riding my roady again and really love it. More and more also other sporty bikers do the same. So where ever you live I cross my fingers for you that your local government will also soon decide to build a very nice bike route very close to your place !!! 👍🏻
@@67er_matze97 Same in the Ruhrgebiet and Saarland/Rheonlandpfalz, the designated routes are jsut so nice and really empty, if you`re not cycling on them on a saturday or sunday.
@@67er_matze97 Have heard about this "Randschnellwege" but als someone from Stuttgart i can only cry. Streets here are Hell.
I live in NYC and imagine my hardship :(
“I love to ride up and downhill” sad that I live in the Netherlands xD
Me to😅😪
Sushhh... At least you have dedicated bike paths, unlike the majority of the U.S.
Want to house swap!
Rip ons
I live in Macedonia and there a lot of up and down hill
I normally quite like the wide open roads, regardless of if there are cars on them because if there is a car it can give you lots of space. I hate having to ride on narrow single track roads where you have to cycle slowly in case something is coming.
Narrow single tracks with clean air and no risk being hit by a car?
Katsu Zatoichi a few years ago I got hit by a car on a single track, slow speed so I wasn’t badly hurt, so maybe that means I get more nervous on them than the average person.
eg:car drivers taking dogs for walks grrr
RidewithGPS has probably the BEST route planner of them all.
After you get use to it’s shit operational system. It is the best and I use it but sometimes I wanna toss my computer while making it.
I agree. Komoot isn’t very good in my area of the world (California).
It seemed good for making routes but for some reason it was a hassle to get to my Wahoo compared to Komoot or Strava with the sync feature. (Spelling corrected)
@@industryrule-4080 I agree. Komoot in my parts (Southern Central Europe) just doesn't have enough data to be useful. Hence, it suggestions are standard at best.
Puvendran Pillay despite having it on my phone and using it after Grinduro I’ve spelled it wrong AGAIN! Thanks for the feedback.
This video is gold for me as I live in an insanely busy state in the US and I was recently hit by an SUV while riding through a roundabout who ignored his yield sign so now I am obviously very apprehensive to get back out on the busy roads and I am searching for quieter roads. Hopefully these tips and suggestions can help with my PTSD and fears. Thanks for this post.
for a south londoner this is literally the MOST helpful video ever thank you so much!! Very hard to find safe roads here.
Follow the sun by day and the stars by night. 😁
I installed Komoot and as a test I entered a familiar start point, end point, and way point. Sure enough it suggested one of my favourite round trips. Next some new routes. Thanks Si!
It is like you have been eavesdropping on my conversations lately! Thanks for a very timely vid. I am excited to try to find some better roads in my area with your tips.
A very helpful video to share for those less steeped in The Knowledge of local cycling routes that experienced club members know like the back of their hands.
Thanks brother. Another good one ! A true star. Fun, informational, hugely useful. As always.
Great video. Thank you Simon (&GCN)! I have just recently found myself back out on roads after buying a gravel bike. I have spent the last five years mountain biking and have only had to share my route with other cyclists and wildlife. I didn't know there were apps out there that could help plan out a road route. I personally don't like busy roads so I am glad this technology exists.
I've been skeptical of route planning apps, but on Si's highly-valued recommendation, I tried it this weekend and it was a TOTAL GAMECHANGER! Komoot took from my front door along quieter and much more enjoyable and awesome paths out of the city and back than I ever would have found on my own! Thanks for this nudge - looking forward to many more great new excursions!
I really really needed this !!!!! I've been so worried about setting out and using busy roads. Its really been putting me off so thank you so much.
So, having watched the video I decided to try out Komoot today. Old Severn Bridge to Tetbury and Malmesbury in the Cotwolds. 57 miles. Fantastic routing on quiet roads - definitely ride of the year so far. And I was wearing good legs today. Based on this ride Komoot have a new customer. Thanks Si!
I have used Komoot to plan 3 mountain climbs and surprisingly managed to get to the summit on all occasions. Using it for cycling has been equally handy.
As someone looking to take up cycle touring and camping on a small folding bicycle, this is excellent information.
I had seen Google Streetview used for cycle route planning on the Brompton Tourer channel, but the system you mentioned looks to be of interest too.
Thank you for the advice as I specifically want to be as far away as it's possible to get from cars, trucks and vans, etc, and quiet roads seem to tick all the boxes.
I was looking forward for a video with Connor. Thanks dan you got my hopes up 😫😂😂
Komoot is brilliant. Done some great rides and hikes thanks to the app
For added safety on the quiet roads I have purchased a garmin varia radar which connects to the wahoo and gives about 400 meters of rear view for cars approaching. When the wind noise is high or the cars are electric often the first knowledge of approaching car is the beep from the wahoo. Great invention.stay safe.
Fantastic video as I have nothing but main roads round me and want to take my son out on more rides on the bike and this means I can do it more safely.
Also hello from Exeter, Devon. It’s great watching a channel that is so close to home riding the same kind of roads
Excellent. Thank you.
Watching this, I realize how lucky I am to live close to a dedicated multi-use paved trail, the Arkansas River Trail in Little Rock, AR. It connects to multiple roads with little traffic and areas downtown that are walker/bike-friendly.
Thanks Si - very useful. Especially the google street maps view which I didn’t know about or how to use. Looking forward to planning my next route - “don’t ride where you drive” 👍
I love Komoot. Been using it for years for hiking and mountaineering. Excellent for road cycling in Germany, though sometimes it'll want to send me over gravel occasionally, which is difficult to foresee due to some very few roads having no surface type data and to there being no bloody Google Street View in Germany.
Great experience overall.
Great video. One build on the 'ride where you drive' mantra is to avoid those rat runs where other people drive at key times - especially white van man who is rushing to work at 8.00am or back at 4.00pm. OK so that makes it a bit clunky - so maybe it's easier to say, "Don't go riding in the rush hour" as well.
This is the content I subscriber for!
Fantastic! Very helpful. more of these videos please
I wouldnt have a problem with traffic if there wasnt so many maniacs in cars...
Not just cars, but vans, lorries and buses. All things that'll make you go splat even harder.
I think buses are the worst
YEP
Yep agreed, a few weeks ago I actually got overtaken by a lorry while another was oncoming, he basically passed me at arms length while going 50 or 60 mph
Based on experience, I found that having a camera mounted on my helmet is a surefire way for cars to not even THINK of getting close to me. Even the maniacs give me enough room. lol
Thanks for the tip!
Can't wait to use these tips to plan my next trip. Thanks Si and GCN!
I use Strava Route planner (or Komoot) to Wahoo and it works really well. In UK, I can also recommend using Ordnance Survey maps, it’s certainly worth investing in a map for your local area to find quiet roads (marked on map in yellow) or, Bridleways (marked as red dashes) if you want to go off-roading
Route 20 that goes through Morrisville NY where I went to high school has amazing roads with awesome climbing hills for miles!😃
When looking for route ideas off the top of your head, nothing beats an OS map spread across a big table! I tend to use an explorer 1:25,000 map for finding partially off road routes, but a 1:50,000 land ranger might be helpful for grander road rides.
Ohh. How I love Komoot 😍
As ever very informative. I had the Komoot app but didnt know the functionality of it nor the website for producing routes.
Thanks Si! 👍🏻
Komoot really helped me for three years to find excellent roads. Even if this video is possibly paid, I can honestly confirm that the Komoot app is worth getting such good comments. Whether I do it for road bike, a city tour with the kids or a gravel ride. Never let me down the last three years. And I also use the synch with Wahoo. Works brilliant. Can confirm the good impression of this video!
The music programming on these pieces are fab
Plotaroute works well for me. Its killer feature is direct connection with Streetview. Split screen (Map Streetview) lets you navigate in either panel and see it reflected in the other. Another nice feature is the option to quickly lock and unlock the route - to prevent accidental changes. So many times I've zoomed out on my route to find I've destroyed it! OK, Split screen is a premium feature, but not that prohibitive, imho!
Love the video
Thanks Si, I will see how Komoot fairs against my OS maps and use the force of the internet for tomorrow’s early ride😊
Hi Si , Ken here. I used to drive my 1966 spitfire around the back roads when I got my drivers license, now I ride my bike on them same twisty roads. Sometimes I feel spoiled for choice, not really LOL .
Good stuff. I also enjoy the desktop version of Google Earth Pro. (open Google Earth Pro, Click on Add Path, click Measurements, now click and drag the trail you want to cycle on the map) This will allow you to trace over roads, trails, paths, etc and give you a distance measurement. I find this really useful for times I'm on a path through a wooded area that a standard map app will not have info for as it is not a road for cars.
Strava heatmap has been remarkable for me as a beginner. I mostly plan my routes around the "hottest" roads near me
Nice Kit. 👍
Or combine turning up any new back lane you can find and then studying the route on a map afterwards. And going on club-runs with experienced riders. That's how I got my local knowledge back in the day. :)
Careful using Komoot. Once tried to send me down the A1(M) where bikes can’t ride. Just an FYI
nice music mix. love it
I just recently learned how to make a route for garmin myself))
nice kit :D
Thanks Sy.
My only stipulation to my wife when bought our first house was that I am going to ride my bike from the driveway so she better pick a safe road 😂 she did great to say the least🤗
When I plan a route in Belgium, I avoid cycling paths. Because unless you Streetview every part, you don't know if it's a 'cycle highway' (love those) or an old, small, paved part next to a busy road where no two stone have the same height. And tbh, from my experience Komoot tends to use those bad bike lanes, while Strava does a better job in finding the smaller, calm roads.
In the UK really recommend the OS maps app, never let me down all os maps are on it and brilliant for giving the odd byway or bridleway " shortcut " a try
Safety measures prevail no matter where we live. Thank you for this video.
I'm new to cycling at the age of 66, so thanks for the great tips. Sarah.
I'm blessed to live in rural area in North Florida. I can ride about 20 miles just around the lake near our house.
Good video. Komoot is indeed great. Wish the app had a dark mode to save battery.
I live in South Somerset so have an abundance of lanes, get passed 2000h and your lucky if you see 5 cars on a 20mile route.
I live by a riverbed that has a trail that follows it from point to point. At the North end it starts in the mountains and in the South end it starts in the beach. In other words I can chose to start in the mountains and end at the beach or vise versa. 15 miles, 30 round trip. Best trail ever imo.
i luckily live in a city where the majority of fast moving traffic roads have bike lanes and i feel very safe on them - and ones that dont have dedicated lanes have fairly large shoulders to ride on. Its the back quiet roads i feel the most exposed because they generally dont have a shoulder to ride on and the people that travel on them generally arent used to seeing bikes so they dont tend to pay as much attention.
Wide but somewhat busy roads downhill arent bad. I usually go for narrow and obscure country lanes uphill, busier, wider and faster roads downhill. Unfortunately in the South East London area quiet roads are annoyingly uncommon
Tip: on the top left of Google Maps, you can select the 3 bar button for the Menu and select the Bicycle view to display the known bike routes
I live in Clevedon - I work in Bristol - the Komoot map shows two ofmy routes too and from work - another phrase that doesn't exist but should - is 'don't ride where you commute... by bike...'
Thatnk you so much for this video, o love getting out on my bike and I will always encourage others to do the same, BUT I'm a lorry drive also Delivering food to shops all over. And had been getting slightly sick of being stuck behind new slow cyclists on main roads for miles because I will not overtake untill I can get completely on the other side of the road to give good space. Durring this pandemic your holding up key workers so please please please choose quite back roads.
I’ve moved to kamoot but (like all route planning software) use it in combination with google satellite data and OS Maps (UK) when aiming to get off the beaten track, as access rights are not always understood by route planning software
Simon went to all this trouble to find a golden piece of local advice. Brilliant bike lanes. Or a road full of s***
Great session, thanks. Feedback on Komoot: A big draw back is is does not recalculate route if you take a detour. I took a different road on one section, and even after I was back on the planned route, it continued to ask me to do a u turn. It appears the only option is to restart the route from where you are. If this was fixed it would be great. Without it, it is not much use.
This has been fixed. You do need an internet connection for it. And the option needs to be turned on.
I like to go go on semi familiar routes with a vague destination in mind and then go exploring up random roads to see where it takes me.
the issue i have when out riding the northumberland country lanes, is because they are quiet, tractor, cars, and vans some time bomb down them thinking that there is nothing else coming because they are quiet, and even at time the odd sheep or pheasant darting out the hedge row and across the road, worse of all is the bumble bees that hit you in the face or the end of the nose haha.
I'll try Komoot to get back on the horse. Living in SUV stroad sprawl Toronto is getting pretty old and my mileage has dropped off in the last few years.
Nice advert for Kamoot
Great video! I'm a new rider so this helps. What helmet is Si wearing?? Love it looks like a Giro..... Which model? 🧐
I find Komoot very useful and easy to use, however it's not foolproof like the presenter suggests and has directed me down some very busy roads sometimes, but that happens rarely and it gets it right most of the time.
can you make a video on how to care for the body, before, during and after cycling?
This is good to hear, exactly my opinion, only, no one agree with me, anyhow, I have found basically 3 tours without car/heavy traffic, those are the ones I use to be safe when I am bicycling
Komoot now does google street view ,That's pretty handy .
That intro music just made Simon seem cool.
Used Komoot around the area around lake Bodensee in Germany got lost about 6 times on a 50-60km ride deleted it afterwards 😢
Maybe I’ll give it another try
perfect timing when the decling $trava now forces you to pay for route planning. Please please introduce segments on Kommute, and replace that motorbike riders' app (in Vietnam, at least)
6:13 “definitely make the most of that” as he gestures to rather large pile of whatever that is in the middle of the road. Can’t script that! 🍎🦄(?)🧑🌾😳
I wish we had roads like this in Manila. It is a struggle everyday regardless of which route we take.
I use Komoot, but it is terrible at finding good routes for travel in my parts of the U.S. It doesn't know gravel from paved or which roads are quiet. That may be the fault of the OSM database, but Komoot doesn't overcome it. So I use Komoot, but then inspect every segment of its suggestion with Streetview, Strava heat map, or other maps (where available), and re-route accordingly. In the end I may not have used a single piece of Komoot's original suggestion, but at least it was something to start with. And when done I load the route onto my Wahoo Elemnt Bolt. I wish it had knowledge of what roads riders actually use. If it did, it would be a lot more useful. I was hoping to find out if Komoot is better in Europe, but it looks like that won't be happening this year.
Thanks for this. I am looking for the best app that I can plan a route
for my bicycle rides....and record the ACTUAL route that I use for later
use in a youtube video...and hopefully all off line for the case I am
in areas without internet service. What is the best thing to get all
this done? And hopefully for free lol. Is Strava the way? I don't
care about stats etc. Just routes and history as I am very forgetful.
I use to be my own "track engineer", using ridewithgps , and I rather go more km than take any buisy roads, if possible... it is always a little more work, but it always pays off, fortunately here were I live in northern GER, there are enough options with small quiet roads, unlike the last place I lived near Hannover... would never move to a major city again, just hate it
Agreed.
Ride with GPS has the street view character so you can see the roads👍
First! Woohoo! I still use map my ride and google maps for street view (to see if the road looks safe to ride in terms of traffic). Kamoot seems like a good option too. Will check it out! Thx, Si.
@@ronaldgjosey1254 Right, yes more recently I've been using RideWithGPS as well.
You may answer this by the end (excellent by the way!) can you see the turn by turn route in road names before you set off like a sat nav? Tnx
I'm with the third option, first Komoot and then Wahoo Roam. I never check the route, I'm just dropping pins and going for adventure. I really wish morr people do that as I see plenty of riders on main roads. This is not fun.
If I rode where I drive I’d be on the M4.
Im good at drawing shorthand maps in pen on my skin. I draw the intersecting roads on a journey and list names like a map would but the whole 'map' compresses easier.
... For those times you might not use gps
So for you, GPS = Great Pen Scribbles?
@@maranatha3333 bwahhaha yes. Routes are easy to begin with and with some simple notes gos isnt needed that much. It Is a good skill but why be smart and savvy when we can be better consumers instead?
I have a question:
Do GPX files from komoot work with Garmin Fenix watches?
I tried to navigate a short track which I installed to my Fenix 5X Plus watch, and it didn't navigate me. Didn't give instructions or follow the route.
Any ideas why?
The opposite game. When you get to a junction turn the opposite way to what you normally would, if it's be on a bike or a vehicle. One road day. You can't go on the same road more than once. Unknown. If you get to a junction and you don't know what's down there, that's where you're going. (That might not sit well with you, but I do live on an island again)
I live in a genuine cycling paradise 🇮🇹 in Tuscany. I use Google, Komoot but still love good quality paper-based maps. Good point Simon on keeping off the busy roads as they certainly suck. #vistacyclingtuscany #vistacyclingtours
Try this in Brazil.
I like Komoot but don’t use it much because I find it over cautious. I can plot a route, using the gravel selection, near where I live & it will always pick quiet lanes over bridle ways.. even though they are good & very rideable. If I select MTB it will add in bridle ways 🤷🏼♂️