alicewithbike

Hi There!

I've been a longtime reader of these forums and have learned so much from all of you!

I'm planning a tour from Venice, Italy to Pula, Croatia later this month and am trying to preplan a route I can put into my phone.

Does anyone know of a site that would help me create such a route and then download it in a format that I can open on my phone? I've looked around but can't seem to find a site that would help me determine the best bike route/paths. Google maps only seems to show driving routes for Italy and Croatia but I'd like to be sure I'm on bike-friendly paths/roads.

Thank you!
alicewithbike!

pdlamb

There may be some help available at the Strava heatmap.

(Sorry, the settings on this computer do a fabulous job of preventing useful information from being displayed...)

dh024

RideWithGPS.com and MapMyRide.com are very helpful sites. You can plan a route on your computer and then access the routes on their apps for your smartphone or download GPX files that will load in a GPS unit. Both of these sites have a lot of free functionality, but there is a cost if you want advanced features. And both have pretty good online help. I prefer MapMyRide.com for creating and especially editing routes, but I think more people are familiar with RideWithGPS.com.

fietsbob

Europe has better paper maps than the USA, (except USGS, but they're for hiking)

travelinhobo

Why not leave the phone at home and buy that ancient gadget some of us still use called a paper map?

fishboat

Maps.me is an offline map that is popular with many touring cyclists. Just be sure to download the maps for all areas you'll be in. Your phone will always have a GPS signal and offline maps negates the need for a cell signal. Between the two, you'll know where you are. (open Maps.Me on your phone and your location will be shown on the map)

Next..where do you want to go? RideWithGPS is a great route-mapping website. I've never used it on my phone(I use other options..that being Maps.Me), but I assume using RideWithGPS on your phone will require a cell signal..too iffy for me. An offline map is much more reliable. There are many touring companies marketing the ride your discussing. I'd find the route they use and map it on RideWithGPS. Once you have that, send me a pm and I can walk you through getting the RWGPS route accessible by Maps.Me.

raybo

HobbesOnTour

I'd second the advice here, but suggest an alternative offline map - OSMand. That's for seeing where you are and following a route.
It has been my emergency back-up for years. 5 free maps and for a small one-off payment you get unlimited free updates for life.

Planning the route is a whole other kettle of fish.
There are numerous on-line mapping services as mentioned in all the other posts. Here's another one; Bike map Cycle route planner cycle.travel
You can put in your start location, end location and it picks a bike friendly route. You can pull the route in any direction you want, see Google Street Views (if available) and find nearby accommodation (camping & hotels). Plan your route before you go, save it as a gpx file and load it into your phone.

A couple of tips;
Whatever you decide to go with, test it out before you go. They all have little eccentricities, so discover these before you're far from home!
Break the journey down to bite size pieces - don't just save 1 gpx file. Use several, smaller files that link together. These will work faster and better on your phone.
Do not use Google Maps for long distance planning on a bike - unless you like a lot of adventure! :-) It's great for finding a nearby shop/bank/campsite & getting you there.
Bring a batterypack for your phone. If you're depending on it for your directions you do not want it to go empty!!

One of the great advantages of touring on a bike is the freedom that you have. Don't be closed off to the idea to wander off your pre-planned route to investigate whatever interests you on your way. Locals, tourist offices and helpful cafe owners will often have interesting diversions. Having a (paper) map or 2 can help them show you where to go and give you the confidence to find your way back!

Have a great trip!

fishboat

Great info @HobbesOnTour...thx. The Maps.Me pathway will also show your location on a highlighted route of your own design. Maps.Me only sees *.KML files rather than *GPX directly. Transitioning from a GPX go KML is easy, but info for a later stage (the route has to be planned first).

Your route planner app sounds very good..I need to check it out(as well as OSMand)

Alice, as Hobbes mentioned, by all means work out the details of all this mapping and try it out on some local rides before you go. On your tour is the wrong place to find out you didn't understand a minor detail. The entire process(route planning at home to seeing it on your phone in Italy) is actually very easy.

fishboat

@alicewihbike I just found a route on RideWithGPS by someone named "vandermint" that rode Venice to Pula in 30-45 miles/day segments, posted in July 2016. He/she rode a western route close to the coast.

@HobbesOnTour.. I tried a Venice-Pula route on cycle.travel. Nice software. It suggests a more eastern, inland route. Lots of options..

joseph_morris

Second vote for OSMAnd, which also is very good at finding features like campsites -- I wrote a blog post and made a video about how to do that recently. morris dot cloud/ campsites-touring-europe/ (sorry for the broken URLs, haven't posted enough to be able to post them so working around)

OSMAnd has a built in router (i.e., "give me bike directions from A to B"), but there are others that you can use to create GPX files: wiki.openstreetmap dot org/wiki/Routing/online_routers

It's hard to know how well a route suits you until you are on it, so personally I'd try to get a few GPX files from routing software, other tourists (RideWithGPS, Strava), or planned routes, both for planning purposes and so that you have options while en route. Your route is near EuroVelo 8 -- although that segment is still only "planned", but at the very least some bike people have thought about routing, so would be worth downloading the GPX and seeing what it looks like. Overview: www.eurovelo8 dot com/stages/venice-rijeka GPX: github dot com/tlevine/gps/blob/master/eurovelo/EV8.gpx

Googling regional names with "gpx" is also often helpful, regional tourism agencies often publish regional greenways and other planned routes.

The Michelin 1:250k maps in France are amazing for planning, as are the ADFC maps in Germany, but for Italy I am unaware of anything on par for Italy (or Croatia). I was sorely disappointed in the Michelin map when I tried to use it in Tuscany a few years ago. If anyone knows a good Italy paper map I'd be curious to know.

Tandem Tom

Joe, I can sent you a PM but found your you tube video. Thanks!! This will be helpful as we will enter France at Cherbourg and work our way across to Germany. Did you have a blog of yourvyrayour?

alicewithbike

what amazing help! i'm really appreciative of everyone's time and assistance!

@fishboat I found that one just now! I think this might be exactly what I need! I might use it in conjunction with

@HobbesOnTour Thank you for the advice re testing out whatever I end up with! I am short on time before I leave for the tour but will be sure to do so before I go!

@raybo Would love to hear about any other places you think would be worth avoiding (or that I shouldn't miss!). Enjoy your ride!

@travelinhobo haha fair point...

@dh024 thank you!

@pdlamb I will look into strava! I hadn't seen it before.

@joseph_morris Thank you! I hadn't seen the eurovelo route! I can't seem to make the link you sent work (even when type in manually). Is there something I'm missing?

Thank you again to everyone for the kind and thoughtful responses!

fietsbob

I love Maps, so was liking the map library , in the Geography department of the University. I could spend hours there

HobbesOnTour

There's a round-trip option there as well that will bring you back to the start by a different route.
It's a UK based developer, so works best there but I've had no issues using it in Europe. Can't vouch for it's effectiveness outside of Europe.... yet ;-)

Here's the full link. https://morris.cloud/campsites-touring-europe/
Useful info!

GerryinHouston

I used RwGPS last year for a week long tour in Holland. Once you have the ride traced and saved on your computer/phone (you can download it to your phone) you don't even need phone signal.

However, you'll need power. My phone lasted about 5 hrs, but I had a backup 12000 maH battery that I could connect the phone to via USB. I only had to use it once, but was nice to know I had it.

A feature I like about RwGPS is that it will give you actual voice instructions ('In 50 meters, turn left... beeeep turn left NOW'). I don't think any of the dedicated computers does this.

HobbesOnTour

That's fine, Gerry, when you don't vary from your route either due to that hill over there looking nice or a diversion because of road works. Once you do vary from your route RWGPS becomes less helpful - especially without a phone signal!

Something like OSMand (and probably Maps me), means that you can see exactly where you are relative to your planned route without a phone signal (presuming you've downloaded the maps in advance). I think Osmand even recalculates your route if you do go off route. (Don't hold me to that - can't be sure!)

Osmand also does voice instructions. Handy on sunny days when seeing the phone screen can be difficult.

And, as pointed out above, it has a lot of added functionality around Points of Interest which can come in handy.

If it was me, I'd choose a route planner for planning on my PC (Strava/RWGPS/CycleMap) then pick one of MapsMe or OSMand and play around with them as much as possible before I depart. Practise making a route (or using someone elses), load it on my phone, follow it, deliberately go off course and see what happens. I'd look for local POIs and see how that works. I'd make sure I was using it with phone & wifi out. And I'd try to assess how accurate the gps on my phone is. (My Samsung has crappy gps!) I'd also try to gauge how much power the phone is using so I don't get caught out.
And I'd also make sure I had a secure way of mounting the phone on the bike. Cycling one handed, on a touring bike, in strange surroundings is not comfortable. Throw in foul weather and dodgy road surfaces & it becomes downright dangerous!

GerryinHouston

Α lot of very good points in the above. I also carry offline maps from HERE, just in case.

I did veer from my course a few times (to avoid that dike with the steep uphill) and RwGPS re-routed me (being desperately obstinate to take the next turn, turn around etc.). I can't vouch that we didn't have signal in the middle of nowhere, when RwGPS did the re-routing, but to some extend it keeps the map detail.

I also relied exclusively on Google Maps, Bike directions option for routing real-time for two days around the Hague. It worked like a charm! Even routing me inside a park!

Bottom line, we have extremely capable options available for free or nearly free on our smartphones, to make touring routing easier than ever. Let's enjoy it!

raybo

alicewithbike

@raybo Thanks for that headsup! It looks like my route was going to take me down the Istrian coast for the most part. Any idea if those roads are also two lane? Have you done this trip before? Would appreciate any other tips! I'm planning to start riding in a week (on Monday the 21st) and thinking I'd have around 10 days, stopping periodically if I feel like exploring.

jefnvk

Can't help too much on the app, I tend to prefer paper maps, but one thing I will advise is not to get too locked into a route ahead of time. My first tour, I meticulously planned the route out in advance, and by day two it was tossed out the window. What works for me is having a general idea of what I want to do, then sitting down each night and looking at what I want to accomplish for the next day!

raybo