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Old 12-19-16 | 10:22 PM
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don't try this at home.
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From: N. KY
Originally Posted by Ty0604
Are you talking about when you select the bike option or is there a new Google maps just for biking that I'm not aware of?
Yeah, Is there something other than the "google.com/maps"? That works great for driving, not so great with the Bicycling routing option.

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Well, google map's bike option had gone from "pitiful" a year or two ago, to "mediocre" recently on some test directions I've tried. I wondered if they had improved it again lately.

So, on google maps, I routed "Cincinnati OH to Bethel OH", a town which is on a lot of local rides. To get there, it's a mix of city streets and country roads.

The Google Maps with the "bicycling" option selected originally routed on US50 to Rt 125, a terrible route. It's a busy highway most of the way, and there's a lot of better alternatives. Really, almost any side road would be better.
It's 29 miles, probably the most direct route.

I clicked the same starting and ending points in the Strava Route Builder, which uses a year of uploaded GPS ride recordings to route via popular biking roads.
It's 39 miles, and much better. (But, knowing the area, I'd go to New Richmond along the river, then inland, a small improvement over the Strava directions, in my opinion.)

Note: The Route Builder sometimes does pick unpaved roads, especially if those are about the only available road nearby. And some of the "popular" roads on Strava are steep hill climbs, that are popular for that reason!

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I reviewed the Strava Route Builder in this post.
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See the attached screen shots below for google and strava. I clicked the Global Heatmap option in the Settings on the Route Builder so I could see alternative routes. (Red are the most popular roads, blue somewhat less popular.) The selected route can be dragged to a different road to reroute.

The second half of the Google route is on Rt 125, which is a very faint blue in the Heat Map, indicating that cyclists avoid it. (I sure do!)
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Last edited by rm -rf; 05-10-17 at 05:11 AM.
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