KC8QVO

I did a trial ride this weekend that encompassed most of a local 2 day trip I have planned out. There were some set backs with closed roads and not following all the roads I had mapped out exactly. I ended up doing a fair amount of mileage on busy roads - in the 30-40 mile ball park of an 86 mile trip. The first bit was not anticipated (as in the high traffic), but a necessity. I went through the only cycle-able bridge crossing in miles only to find a few of the roads around there, mind you this is at 5:00-6:00AM on a Saturday, very busy both with car traffic and truck traffic. The last bit of busy roads was because I passed up a road that would take me across another river crossing and I didn't want to backtrack to it so I marched on and ended up on a busy state route that carried vehicle traffic the same direction - across the only bridge in miles. This last section of busy roads was brought on by a detour I made to get off of loose gravel roads. I couldn't safely ride at my normal cruising speed on loose stone locked in to the pedals.

So my question is - for areas you have never traveled through, how do you plan your route?

I know one trick is to look for wide shoulders. What other theories have you implemented that have pointed you to the right route? What have you seen remotely thinking it was a good place to ride that put you in the wrong spot to be riding?

Machka 

1. I cycle a lot in a lot of different areas. So I use that information to extrapolate to other routes.

2. I use both Google maps and real paper maps.

3. Sometimes I'll check to see if there are events on in the area where I will be cycling.

4. Be prepared for things that will slow you down. There will be construction, gravel sections, bad weather, steeper hills than you're used to. This is why we suggest aiming for, say, 60-80 km/day on a 3 days on 1 day off rotation. Sure, you might be able to do more, or go for 5 or 6 days in a row, but if you use 60-80 km/day on a 3 on 1 off rotation in your estimated total time calculation, it will give you the flexibility to be able to backtrack or go slower or whatever when things don't go according to plan.


So, for example ...

If there's a morning market in a town, you can bet that the traffic on the somewhat more main roads in and out of that town is going to be heavier ... and especially if it is an annual market, or an extra large/important one. Therefore, I'll avoid that town if possible.

"Scenic routes" are often good choices, but usually only on week days. They tend to be busier on weekends.

If it is a statutory long weekend, anything remotely touristy is going to be busy.

If it is a week day, there will be a period of time in the morning and evening that will be busy around most towns and cities.

Using a paper map, I can easily determine the category of roads. A is usually big and busy, but may have a shoulder. B is usually busy and you're taking your chances if you are counting on a shoulder. I tend to avoid B roads. C is usually a quiet country road with no shoulder, but it's not really necessary. And then there are even smaller roads. That's here in Australia. The designations in Europe are different.

Google will show you those designations too but they aren't nicely colour coded, nor can you determine if the road is gravel or not like you can with a paper map. The benefit of Google is that it is a quick way to calculate distance and there's Street View so you can zoom in and have a look. However, be aware that Street View is often badly out of date. The Google van came through here in about 2007 and then returned to update a few things in 2010. Whole subdivisions have been put in since then.

Having to cross bridges is tricky ... I generally try to avoid those situations. But that's one place where I will definitely use Street View.

wahoonc

I will second what Machka says...

I use Google for planning, paper maps and route sheets for traveling. I use our state DOT website to check for closed roads by county. We just went through a massive flood event here in NC and some roads are still closed. Google is good, but by no means perfect. They are still routing around a road that was closed by the flooding but has since reopened, other roads they show open, however they are still closed due to bridge washouts. The DOT sites will also, quite often list road projects. They are in the process of widening the road I live on, most of the work is done on weekends so they don't disrupt traffic during the weekday rush hours.

I am usually very flexible when it comes to my touring and rambles. We used to do what we call "quarter rides"; come to an intersection and not sure which way to go? Flip a quarter, heads you went right, tails you went left. Led to some interesting discoveries and rides.

Aaron

Machka 

And I'll add that information like what you might find in these links can be useful for determining whether or not to travel somewhere. I just added the Tas Alert page to the first link below. It will inform users of fires and floods ... and other things. Last summer, Tasmania had a lot of fires, and then Tasmania had a lot of flooding during the winter, so that site was very active.

https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/81...eful-info.html

https://www.bikeforums.net/touring/14...ravellers.html

jamawani 

AADT is your friend.
That's Average Annual Daily Traffic - a pretty good measure of how busy a road will be.
Some roads have big seasonal fluctuations - esp. in the West near major parks.
Some roads have daily differences - the weekend near a popular reservoir.
And many roads have daily commuting peaks in the morning and evening.

Here's a clickable county map of Ohio -
https://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions...-and-Maps.aspx

And here's Delaware County -
https://www.dot.state.oh.us/Divisions...l_tsr_2012.pdf

I don't see any state highways that look like good riding.
Maybe a little better in the northern part of the county.
That is usually an issue in outlying suburban counties with rapid growth.

Next step is to search for AADT info on county roads.
Ohio DOT has an app with county roads, too.
https://odot.ms2soft.com/tcds/tsearch.asp?loc=Odot&mod=

My general rule of thumb is:
Less than 500 - Magical
500 - 999 - Great
1000 - 1999 - O.K.
2000 - 3999 - Tricky
Over 4000 - Tough without shoulders

It looks like some of the better riding is west of US 33.
The challenge is how to get there. Expressways are often Chinese walls for cyclists.
Smaller roads - the roads we use - are often cut off.
Larger roads with exits have heavy traffic and are dangerous.

Of course, you could always move to Wyoming.

reppans

Google Maps.... right from your smartphone if you want.


From map view, use the bicycling button to highlight dedicated rail trails, bike paths, bike lanes and bike friendly road (mostly around urban areas); satellite button to gauge surface type, road/shoulder width, traffic; terrain button to identify tough climbs; and street view to see detailed road surface, incl. 360 degree view as if you were standing there (roads not photographed yet can usually been seen by looking in from their access roads).

The routing function also has a bicycling button which switches up routes from that suggested for cars (i.e., avoid highways and major roads, favoring lower traffic back roads).

TDJ1776

I'll double and triple what everyone else here has said, and add this: check Adventure Cycling; their maps do carry a nominal fee, but are typically on quiet, safe (ish) roads.

Sometimes main roads are unavoidable. Do what you know is right, be visible, carry a coach's whistle, and stay calm

Ty0604

I use Google Maps to plan my initial route but talk to locals before planning my final route. If there's a police station available stop in and talk to one of the officers. If not Google the nonemergency number and give them a call. Otherwise people working at the grocery store etc are usually good sources but LEO's are the best I think!

fietsbob

Touring Out of the Country, in Europe, West, East and the British Isles, I bought Maps, large panel paper maps.


Now in one place, here , the LBS goes thru a Case Lot of ODOT Pacific Coast route Maps, given out. .



now, back to the popular technology dependency.

DXchulo

State DOT websites are hit or miss. Some of them have great information and some don't. Nevada, unfortunately, is one of the states that doesn't have great information for cyclists (or maybe I'm looking in the wrong area). Compare that to a state like Montana that has a pretty good map: https://www.mdt.mt.gov/travinfo/docs/bike_map.pdf

The problem with Nevada is that a lot of shoulders are ruined by rumble strips. You'll have maybe a 3ft shoulder with a rumble strip in the middle. There's not enough room to ride to the right of the rumble strip. A lot of 95 and Alt 95 are like that, as are portions of 50.

DOT maps, Google Maps with street view, Strava Heat Maps, Ride with GPS are all helpful. Nothing compares to local knowledge, though. That can be hard to find. Try the regional forums here, and try to look for local cycling clubs. (If you thought DOT websites were hit and miss, you're really in for a treat when you do that.)

All you can really do is try your best and just go for it. There will be times when you end up on a stretch of road that isn't ideal. I've run into roads that were busier than expected, had less shoulder than expected (usually because of rumble strips), construction zones, unexpected stretches of gravel road, etc. You may hate it in the moment, but these are the kind of things that you'll look back on after the ride is over and laugh about.

Doug64

I use all of the above, but with a few caveats.

Google maps have led us into dead end roads, and into some very long stretches of gravel.

On a tour two years ago we followed a Google map "bike" route to these stairs on a muddy dirt road. The road we wanted was 100' above us at the top of the stairs. It was a challenge on loaded touring bikes. Sometimes it is better to look at the car routes, and evaluate the pros and cons.



I also don't trust local folks information, unless they are a cyclist, and I will check it out before following their advice. A lot of folks are not good at estimating distances, road surfaces or hills. I've been led into a lot of situations, that were a lot longer or tougher than needed to be, by not double checking locals' advice.

Following a local person's knowledge about what roads were open after the 2013 Alberta, Canada floods. Luckily, it was a nice day and an an interesting ride—out and back

rm -rf

Strava Heat Map

I like the Heat Map for riding in unfamiliar locations. And I often browse ridewithgps.com routes for an area.

The Heat Map shows roads colored in by biking popularity, from a year of uploaded strava.com rides. Click the Toggle Labels button to show town and street names.

I use it to avoid bad roads that are avoided by riders, which are the light blue roads near a darker red road.

Warning--it can also include mountain bike rides, and gravel rail-trails, so you'll want to check the results with google satellite view or a road map.

And strava has a new Route Builder that prefers to use the most popular roads, instead of the obvious direct routes. I reviewed it in this post.

For example, my local SW Ohio - N Kentucky area map link

Here's an annotated screen shot.

A: Decoursey Pike looks terrible on a map, it seems to be a major highway out of town. But it's quiet and scenic. See the very light blue roads parallel--these are busy and awful for riding. Then, south of Independence, things quiet down, and most roads are fine.

B: This area is near the I-75 freeway, built up and busy. Riders avoid it.

C: Another suburban location with mostly arterial streets, busy, with rude drivers. Good alternatives both north and south of this.

D: This red road is about the only reasonable bike road out here, still kind of busy and not ideal. But better than the alternatives.

E: The Indiana side of the river is all light blue because there's few riders here, with no easy access from the city. These are actually very nice roads! So, if a whole area is light blue, it might be perfect for bikes!

indyfabz

+1. Pretty much sums up the first two days of September trip from Brattleboro, VT home to Philly, including the unexpected gravel section, where I had to blaze my own path to hook up with ACA's Atlantic Coast route. Even when I did hook up with the ACA route there was some less than ideal conditions, mostly due to construction work (and needed construction work). In the end, it worked out fine and I had a blast.

Ty0604

So you're saying you didn't forge the river? How long was the out and back? I ran into a similar situation this summer in Iowa. 11 miles downhill to find the bridge across to Illinois was out. Had to double back and ride west to come out east. Rode about 60 miles but only ended up 20 miles east of where I'd started that morning.

Roughstuff

I look for the green! BY this I don't mean cold hard cash sittin' on the road, though that would be nice.

Instead, using Rand McNally maps and similar things, I look for forested and farmed areas. This almost guarantees ideal spots for wild camping in areas such as fishing/hunting access roads, rights of way, etc. And of course the scenery is great in such areas.

I still do this even with the availability of maps online, because I find the screens difficult to read no matter what scale I use. In general, for road information and quality I get the latest from the locals. They always know out of the way routes that have hidden beauty that tourists miss; and they love to tell you about their local "impossible to climb" hill! I'll take a local over google any day.

Leebo

Always an adventure, great mantra for a bike tour. Like cussing the bike pushing up an 8% grade. Only to find the best peaches you've ever eaten at the farm stand at the top. I use paper maps and map my ride. I also carry a compass. The goggle maps options allows you to look at the road if mapped, just drag that little yellow guy over. Can see the road and shoulders.