DXchulo

You're arguing against yourself here. State maps can be good, but they're often difficult to find, not so user-friendly, etc. The ones that have traffic data and shoulder width are worth their weight in gold, though. If they were all easy to use and had all that information it would be a different story.

If you're riding across multiple states, one single state map doesn't allow you to see the big picture. That's the great thing about Google Maps. It's quick and easy to use. You can do a lot of zooming in and zooming out. You can easily drag your route around and compare different possibilities. It's really good for doing rough sketches. The other resources out there are good for filling in the details.

boomhauer

there are lot and lots of county parks that aren't listed on state maps.....but the google seems to have them.
got me some good camping spots.

Machka 

You find a good bicycle route for a tour the same way you find a good bicycle route for an evening or weekend ride. How do you find routes for those? After all, you've got at least 150K miles cycling ... right?


Personally, at some point during the week, I think about where we might like to go on our day-rides on the weekend. I open up Google Maps, I select a start and end point and choose bicycle to see the elevation, then make adjustments until I end up with a ride of the length and elevation I want.

I might put it into Ride with GPS if it is a route I particularly like and may want to repeat.

And, as someone else mentioned, the points I choose on the route could be places we'd like to go. For example, there's a historic town on the other side of Hobart which has a decent bakery. We might do a route that includes that town and bakery.

Same as I do for a tour.


Incidentally, I would use a paper map, but haven't found any really decent ones for this area. Some areas have better maps than others. And Google Maps has "Street View" which can be quite helpful.

jamawani 

Hmmmm - first you say that state websites are a hassle -
Then you say that if there is traffic and shoulder data they are the gold standard.
Now those would appear to be contradictory statements.

I find it odd that so many megabytes here are devoted to gear inches, tires, spokes, bar ends, etc.
When just a little time looking up easily available data would allow for much nicer riding.
Isn't that what gear inches are about - more pleasant riding up hills?
Wouldn't you think a road with 485 AADT would be more pleasant than one with 3500?
(AADT - average annual daily traffic)

Google Maps don't say a thang about AADT.
Not to mention that Google Maps can put you on closed, non-existent, private roads, too.

saddlesores

are we arguing yet?

Happy Feet

Not necessarily. Depends on the road.

For example; Hwy2 from Souris to Antler had less traffic than the Trans Can (Hwy1) but a loose gravel shoulder that caused me to slough wildly whenever I rode on it. Fortunately the traffic that day was unusually light, even though it is a southern corridor for trucking so I simply rode the opposite side of the road whenever traffic came along. If it had even been moderate I would have had a horrible 100km ride stopping and starting on the gravel shoulder. In contrast, Hwy 1 had more traffic but an 8 foot nicely paved shoulder.

Google maps also always tells me if the route crosses boundaries, uses a ferry or accesses private roads.

Having said that I often grab a local map from the info center when I'm in an area as I find them easier and more fun to use on the road. Last example was an excellent map by Parks Can for the Icefield Parkway that showed elevation, stops of interest and distances both in birdseye and sideview fashion. Oddly enough, it was made for car traffic along the route but acted as the perfect cycling map.

Parkway by dc460, on Flickr

jamawani 

Yes, it does depend on the road - and thank you for proving my point.

Never ridden much in Manitoba, but have in southern Saskatchewan.
Here is the website for the Manitoba traffic flow map:
https://umtig.eng.umanitoba.ca/mhtis/flowmap2016.pdf

Note that Hwy 2 west of Souris doesn't have 485 AADT, but 1340 AADT.
And much of Hwy 2 west to the SK border has counts above 1000 -
not bad for most folks, but you need to pay attention.

HOWEVER -

If you look again at the MB traffic flow map, you will see a much better option -
at least, better in my opinion than the Trans Can with 6000-8000 AADT and heavy truck traffic.
Notice - Hwy 23 has 340 AADT and Hwy 345 has only 130 AADT - and they are paved.
Pretty darn flat no matter which road you take - but sweet & empty on the last option.

And it took me 30 seconds to find the Manitoba traffic flow map.

You may prefer riding on the shoulder of a busy 4-lane highway,
but I prefer listening to the wheat and songbirds.

Happy Feet

Nope.

I said I prefer a shoulder I can ride on rather than ditching it into loose gravel when traffic comes. Now look at Hwy 23 at Elgin or Baldur (for example), no shoulder. Hwy 345 near Bernice, Broomhill etc... same thing. Use google street view. You tried to prove a point by suggesting roads that show exactly what I was talking about.
The route you suggest would also add 50 km or 1/2 days ride to the route.

That map link shows very little besides statistically averaged yearly traffic use. Summer/winter? Weekdays? Harvest time?

Google maps gives you w a y more useful info.

Another thing to consider when selecting routes is the lack of services along the way. When I planned that trip I spent a lot of time looking at google street views of the towns I would pass through to see if there were stores, cafes, campgrounds etc.. As it was, even on the 2, 13 and 39, many of the towns shown were half abandoned and lacked even a corner store. Very sucky if that's where you planned to eat lunch/dinner. The route you suggest would have almost no services at all.

This was a point that was discussed some time ago on the forum in regards to how many tools/spare parts one takes on a trip. I paid attention in the small towns I visited and from Winnipeg to Moose Jaw it was almost 450km's without any sort of bicycle related store.


And.. The Trans Can is a two lane divided Hwy each way separated by a very wide median. I did however just ride a 4 lane Hwy (3) through most of Manning Park and it was beautiful. We even did 60km's of it downhill in the dark flat out because of the good shoulders.

The thing about a wide shoulder, even on busier Hwys is that it is more relaxing as one need not focus on the traffic in the same way as one does on a sketchy road because they have their lane and you have yours. On a narrow/no shoulder I am always looking in the mirror to sees what's coming. On the Trans Can I never do. This frees me up to actually enjoy the scenery which, having done both in the Prairies I can attest is pretty much the same.

Trans Can photos from that trip:

P3241785 by dc460, on Flickr

P3241801 by dc460, on Flickr

P4011842 by dc460, on Flickr

P4031884 by dc460, on Flickr

P4031863 by dc460, on Flickr

raybo

I planned my recent ride from Amsterdam to Passau across Western Europe using Strava's heat map: https://labs.strava.com/heatmap.

This is a compilation of all the routes ridden for an entire year by Strava's user base. It will let you route from A to B and drag the route to other road, as well as, set waypoints for the route to go through. It was very useful on the Western Europe route. I used much of it on my trip.

Note that Germany and Austria don't allow Google street view and some of the smaller countries have limited street view coverage.

Ridefreemc

Google maps for general direction, and then venture outside your main route using the state Gazetteer. Some roads are too sandy or not passable (too sandy here in Florida for example) so you have to be ready to turn around, but you can get good alternatives to US highways.

jamawani 

300 AADT means 300 vehicles per day average traffic.
If there is zero traffic at night - that means 150 cars each direction over 15 hours.
Or 10 cars per hour. Given a "rush hour" in the early morning and late afternoon -
You might have 6 cars per hour - on average - during the day - or one every 10 minutes.

I don't need a shoulder with an AADT of 300.
And I don't hear the noise of 8000 vehicles or smell the exhaust.
And you find empty backroads by using state/prov traffic maps.

After 100,000 miles - - Just sayin'.

Pix -
Pandora Road, east of Rosalia, Washington
Old Trail Road near Larwill, Indiana

Happy Feet

Ok. Having used the mileage card I guess I can't play any more because I really haven't kept score overall but I still find off the track roads using G Maps. Why is that a problem?

Like this section connecting the 5 and 5a we did two weeks ago. Thirty km of gravel with one truck encountered. GM showed distance, elevation, campgrounds and satellite view showed houses, what the intersections looked like so we wouldn't miss a turn etc... I don't know about other places but in Canada GM shows roads down to Forestry service level. There really aren't any other roads smaller than that around here. I don't really need a special map to tell me if a road is well traveled or not.


P2180648 by dc460, on Flickr

20170804_192143[1] by dc460, on Flickr

or this one we plan to do next.

Captureaz by dc460, on Flickr

GM is such a powerful 3 dimensional tool I can't understand why anyone would argue against it. Of course one has to use common sense in all things but the amount of data it presents is pretty staggering when you know how to use it. even something as fundamental as calculating distance is stupid easy compared to non interactive maps. How would one calculate the distance shown above otherwise.. piece of string carefully wound across the VDT laid flat on a table and then held up to a legend scale?

But anyways - Cheers.

Doug64

The scenery is about the same on the Canadian Prairies regardless of the route. I tend to go with good shoulders in this situation.

The Trans-Canadian Highway was a very pleasant place to ride.

B. Carfree

In some areas, like the one I live in, Strava heat maps don't offer up much information. The best riding between Eugene and the coast won't really show up because there are so few cyclists riding them with Strava. Ditto for getting over the Cascades from here. Some really poor routes show up because the ACA lists them, apparently without doing their fieldwork.

I tend to find my own routes and 90% of the time they are better for me than what is popular. Mostly, this involves being able to read a map with Google maps being a last resort. Of course, what is better for me may be horrid for you. I know many riders don't like hills. Some folks want a hotel at the end of the day. (I enjoy this at times too.) For others, having no stores or restaurants available would ruin the day. For others, a bit of gravel is a deal breaker. Some even dislike roads without shoulders, even though many of these have near-zero motorized traffic.

As for me, give me some knowledge of my next food source, some hope of cleaning up at day's end, water I can filter and low traffic counts and I'm happy. Pavement is nice, but not required and I expect the low-traffic routes to have lots of climbing since the flat routes are easy to widen and thus attract more cars and trucks.

Happy Feet

So.. Just off the top of your head, what course would you suggest? Local knowledge aside, If you are going to suggest those logging roads does a paper map tell you which is currently active with trucks hauling logs.

A quick look on G Maps shows two basic routes from Eugene to the coast (Florence) or some variants thereof; the 126 at 62 miles and the 36 at 77miles. The high points being between Noti and Walton and Low Pass respectively. On the 126 you are going up 1194' and down 1565'. I can also see local stores and use street view to see what they are like. The Noti Pub is recognizable by it's Pepsi sign and the provided link gives the phone number and 28 reviews with an average of 4.5 out of 5. There's a gas station and cafe at Low Pass (12 reviews giving it 4.3) but the cafe looks closed. It has one review from four months ago but the street view seems sketchy. Google maps shows secondaries like the Old Stagecoach Road (5020) and every logging road as well btw.

I can see all this on my VDT right now and, if I want, I could do the same for areas outside of Las Vegas or Prince George or Port Hardy without having to spend a cent on paper maps. I wouldn't buy a paper map until I knew I was going to tour a specific area and how do I decide to tour a specific area unless I look at a map?

Oh yeah.. Google maps.

jamawani 

How much traffic does Hwy 126 have?
How much traffic does Hwy 36 have?
Can one assume that the two-digit highway is busier?
Or would AADT help clear that up?

Machka 

What is AADT? Never heard of it.

indyfabz

Annual average daily traffic.

Some maps, such as state DOT maps, show traffic volumes for some roads.

jamawani 

See above discussion -
AADT - Average Annual Daily Traffic

My rough chart:
Under 500 - Majorly sweet
500 - 999 - Pleasant riding, no need for shoulder
1000 - 1999 - Shoulder helpful, but o.k. without with caution
2000 - 3999 - Pretty rough riding without shoulder, doable but unpleasant
4000+ - Dangerous without shoulder, sometimes necessary for short stretches

AADT is an average.
Traffic levels vary by season - more traffic in summer, esp. in beach or park areas.
Traffic levels vary by day of week - many rural highways have higher weekend traffic
Traffic levels vary by time of day - morning and late afternoon have higher traffic, work & school

Happy Feet

Sure great. You can get traffic volume from them I guess (I'll accept your word for it). But my point is that there are only really two roads between those points (connectors and frontages not withstanding) unless someone is going totally off the beaten path on logging roads which is a whole different level of planning (just look at the matrix in that area) so the average tourist planning a route will pick one or the other. And most will want to know a little bit about conditions and what you will see/encounter along the way. I get most of that initial info from GM and then, if I decide that is the area I want to tour I can pursue more info from other sources like the one you indicate. Even with google I can zoom in and use street view to tell which of the two probably gets more traffic but also what each road condition looks like. That also influences my decisions.

It's not that I don't think one should look at other sources but for initial route finding/research GM is hard to beat.

Doug64

My perception of those roads is that 126 is the busier road. However, it has better shoulders. Highway 36 has lower traffic volume, but narrow shoulders.

That is my perception from being on those roads, it would be interesting to see what the AADT really is.

bikenh

Where do I want to start, where do I want to stop. RWGPS click on avoid highway/driving. Point click on where I want to start, point and click on where I want to finish. The website draws the route for me. I follow it the next day.

Most of my time is spent figuring out where I want to go the next day and finding possible camp sites for the next evening. That's been getting a lot simpler thanks to the computer program I've been writing up and the data collection I've been doing to show me where the services that I'm looking for are located, what their hours or operation are and other details so I can take a very quick look and decide just where I want to go for the next day/several days in a matter of a minute or so, and then point click on RWGPS.

Doing the actual route is very simple. I don't ride bike path, only highways. RWGPS/googl has major road construction areas marked so if there's a bridge/road that is closed it will route you around it and you won't have the route around it yourself. Doesn't get much simpler does it.

B. Carfree

Neither, and I used to live one mile off hwy 126 (on Stage Coach, out past Walton) and commute into Eugene by bike. Here's the ways I roll between Eugene and the coast:
1. Get to Wolf Creek Rd, out in Crow, by any of a variety of routes depending on time of day and inclination to add a bit of distance/hills (Crow Rd is okay now that its shoulders have been repaired, but not necessarily the best choice unless one really doesn't want to climb). Then take Wolf Creek to Siuslaw River Rd and turn off on Oxbow (Alma site on the map) (becomes S. Sister) After Oxbow, it's all downhill (almost) to the coast along the Smith River to Gardner, just north of Reedsport. Total distance of about 85 miles to the nearest state campground (free warm shower, yippee!). There's other variations that bring one out at the same place that involve a bit more riding on the Smith and/or Siuslaw Rivers and more climbs, all of which are fun. The only traffic of any note at all is the last eight miles or so before getting to hwy 101, and that's mostly just folks living along Lower Smith River Rd (not a lot). I think the ACA finally added this route a couple of years ago as an option. No services from Crow to Reedsport, and Crow is iffy. One bar a dozen miles east of hwy 101 is sometimes open, but don't count on it.

2. Start out the same, but don't turn on Oxbow. Just keep rolling down the Siuslaw River for another 25 miles to Austa. Cross under hwy 126 and over the Wildcat Covered Bridge and turn left (downstream, west). Three miles of gravel brings you to Stage Coach Rd. Take that downstream (ten miles?, mostly gravel in the middle six miles) to Swiss Home and then turn west on hwy 36 to Mapleton, at which point one picks up hwy 126 to Florence. The downside of this route is it really doesn't work on a Friday (too much traffic on 36 and 126 for my taste). There will always be traffic on the 14 miles of hwy 126 from Mapleton to Florence, but the shoulder is eight to ten feet wide and usually relatively free of debris. Services in Mapleton.

One variation on this theme is to take the C-line road (private logging road) from mile post seven on Wolf Creek Rd to mile post eight on Siuslaw River Rd. This substitutes 18 miles of gravel going down-creek for 23 miles of pavement that has some hills (a two-mile climb and two one-mile climbs). I like this road a lot on weekends when it is guaranteed to not have any logging going on.

There are other routes that bring you to Yachats or Waldport, but they take longer and are even less ridden than the two above. You won't find any of them on Strava.

Oddly enough, a friend of mine, a recently retired ophthalmologist, used to ride to Florence on hwy 126 to do a clinical day once every couple of weeks. Not surprisingly, he no longer rides at all as he is convinced it is too dangerous. If I did much riding on hwy 126, I'd agree with him. Fortunately, I have mostly ridden the section of 126 from Stage Coach to Eugene in the wee hours of weekdays (2:00-4:00 AM) when there was next to zero traffic, so I never had any trouble. I would no longer consider the stretch from Veneta to Eugene as rideable since that suburb grew in population over the past decade, but there is an alternate (with a bit of gravel, of course).

As far as active logging goes, the log truck drivers are really only a problem on the main roads near town. Out in the coast hills on those very narrow river roads, they are very considerate as long as you are. Remember, they're all chatting on the radio, so if you behave nicely to one, all of them know about it. Ditto for being rude. Also, since they are communicating with each other, once one of them sees you, they all know where to look for you. Even when there are several active sites going, I rarely get passed by more than three trucks all day long. It can be a bit busier if they are graveling a new logging road, but that's not very common.

By the way, in this area Google Maps shows some roads that don't actually exist and fails to show some that do. And, since these are tiny roads with lots of tree-cover, it can be difficult to determine from the satellite view if the road is there or not and if it is paved or not. The USFS maps are MUCH better in this regard. If the USFS shows a road, it's there. If it shows it as paved, it's paved. Occasionally, it shows a road as unpaved that has been paved since the publication date. I've never known the USFS maps to not show a road that exists. Google is fine for an initial look, but I wouldn't plan a tour in the west based on Google Maps alone.