Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
My favorite map is the Metropolitan AAA road map. Scale is appropriate to provide detail to find good roads, but covers enough distance, about 50-60 miles from downtown, to plot a century. I use my phone to locate myself on the paper map.
I have used one for DC too, as well as Philadelphia and Toronto.
Originally Posted by
DropBarFan
I used to tote metro atlas maps on local rides. Fairly light & the book style made it easy to check route during rides w/o hassle of folding & wind. Sometimes routing is easier with paper maps vs a small-screen device. On an extended tour I'd think about getting a tablet though.
Thanks for your reply. The AAA Metropolitan maps I was describing are indeed those typical folding road maps. I am familiar with those AAA map segments complied into a booklet known as a
Triptik, and that's a good idea, though as I recall, they are prepared by a service agent in person at a AAA travel office; not for spontaneous rides.
10+ dittoes for paper maps for long distance route planning.
Originally Posted by
Tourist in MSN
…
Paper maps that are large enough so that you can see several days or several weeks of travel are needed for planning your route. And if there are detours, planning your alternate routes. I preferred to look at paper maps when thinking where I might want to stop 3 or 4 or 5 days in advance. Thus,
I looked at the paper maps almost every day.
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
...On our tours, including a cross-country ride in 1977, we have had a similar strategy of 50 miles per day (or more to reach a shower).
On that ride we used a large paper map of the USA to plot our general route [and individual state maps to cross the state]. We left Los Angeles on May 4, and
had to be in Boston by July 1.
In California we were strongly advised to avoid Las Vegas, so we went through Arizona. After crossing the Rockies we realized we were not making enough progress, so we veered towards Washington DC, and arrived on June 27 with enough time for sight-seeing, and then took the train with our bikes to Boston...
Originally Posted by
Jim from Boston
Attesting to the utility of paper maps. We so relied on those paper maps that it became a standing joke to bring the current map with us at every stop to ponder the next several miles.