Strava Route Builder

I also use the Strava Route Builder and the Strava Heat Map if I don't know the area. It uses two years of uploaded strava ride recordings to color code roads by how popular they are with riders. It usually makes a pretty good route, instead of just picking the most direct route between two points. It's also good for avoiding roads that are terrible for cycling -- if a road is way less popular than the nearby roads, I know it's not the best choice.

I reviewed it in this post.

It's free, just make a free strava login to use it.

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See the Strava Heat Map. It's color coded, white hot is the most popular, shading down to dim red as least popular, blank if there's essentially no activity on a road.
As you zoom in, it recodes the colors -- rural areas have few riders, so they show dim on a zoomed out view, but zoomed in, the locally popular roads are white.

Click "Show Labels" to see the town and road names. Click the Bicycle icon to see just cycling. You can save the current view as a bookmark/favorite.

Example: the middle of Kentucky. Lots of riding in the scenic Bluegrass region around Frankfort and Lexington!