Cycle route mapping - recommendations?

[Cid]

Komoot has given me decent in-city routing in the past... And helpful that it adapts to the type of riding you're doing. I think the Elemnt just downloads the routes you've saved, i.e the ones visible in the 'planned' bit of your profile. Gave me a nice route out of Sheffield via an off-road bit I'd never have found otherwise... At least not without extensive looking at OS maps. I think the thing with the elemnt is you just have to regard it as an extension of your phone. I'd like something a bit more developed too, but that doesn't seem to be a thing yet, at least not with the things that make the Elemnt good.

 

[teuchter]

Komoot has given me decent in-city routing in the past... And helpful that it adapts to the type of riding you're doing. I think the Elemnt just downloads the routes you've saved, i.e the ones visible in the 'planned' bit of your profile. Gave me a nice route out of Sheffield via an off-road bit I'd never have found otherwise... At least not without extensive looking at OS maps. I think the thing with the elemnt is you just have to regard it as an extension of your phone. I'd like something a bit more developed too, but that doesn't seem to be a thing yet, at least not with the things that make the Elemnt good.

I had a bit more of a fiddle with Komoot last night. I realised that the reason it wasn't uploading certain routes was that they weren't in geographic zones I'd paid for (which is how the Komoot pricing works). I've made a new Komoot account which lets me try the London region free - so I'm going to try that for a while. If I like it, I'll probably just pay for Komoot maps worldwide.

When I'd looked into various services a couple of years back, Komoot was the one I liked most. Partly because of the quality of the maps, also because it seemed reasonably ok for letting you plan and adjust routes on your phone. I also prefer the way it's priced - you just pay a one off charge to access whatever zones, rather than a recurring subscription which is how most of these things work.

 

[Dogsauce]

I gave Strava routes a try-out for my trip up into the mountains earlier in the week. Selected the ‘prefer paved’ and ‘minimise elevation‘ option. This is what it gave me:



this was one of several similar ravines on an unpaved forest track, a couple of which like this one were barely walkable. I’ve picked my route back manually!

 

[teuchter]

I've had some success planning cross-London routes with Komoot over the past week or so.

Tomorrow off on a cross country ride that I've also planned on Komoot (although I've given it a check-over looking on google maps etc). Hopefully won't be presented anything like the above.

 

[newbie]

On a slightly related note, this thread inspired a fresh look at what's available, which led to GB Topo Maps for Android. I've no idea what the routing capabilities are like, they're not something I use much, but for walking/cycling mapping and tracking it's probably the best I've yet found, despite the odd quirk.

It has the Ordnance Survey Topo Map with outdoor detail and proper Rights of Way marking plus another dozen or so available maps, including Open Cycle Map, Open Street Map, OSM Landscape and Outdoors and offerings from ESRI, Google and Bing including satellite, and night maps, with simple switching. For walkers, footpaths are shown on crowdsourced maps which aren't on the OS, which can lead to well trodden paths, even if occasionally they go through barbed wire fences.

For a mapping geek like me, who likes to understand the landscape around (in or out of the city), being able to switch maps enriches usefulness. For instance this puzzling feature is only actually explained on one map.




There is also the (paid) option to add other map layers, so I added an OS map in the 1940s which gives a wholly different context.


It also has built in overlays including hillshading, with the option to add more. I haven't explored data layers yet, so far I've just used pinned historic overlays. Sadly it lacks a transparency slider, even so I'm liking being able to compare.



The only real issue I've found is that caching for purely offline use is a bit odd, but generally for £4 a year I think it's a great app.

 

[Cid]

Komoot had world maps reduced to £20, so have bought that... dunno whether that’s a general offer or they just offer it after x months. I’ve generally found it decent in the peaks. Not perfect, but yeah. Be interesting to see how it works elsewhere, or if I ever get round to planning very long routes.

 

[teuchter]

Komoot had world maps reduced to £20, so have bought that... dunno whether that’s a general offer or they just offer it after x months. I’ve generally found it decent in the peaks. Not perfect, but yeah. Be interesting to see how it works elsewhere, or if I ever get round to planning very long routes.

I did the £20 thing too.

My experience so far is fairly good, at least using the "cycle touring" option on the route planner.

Tried using the "MTB" option for an on-the-fly route plan the other day (because it offered a considerably shorter route than the "cycle touring" one) but won't use that again - thought it might put us on a few bumpy tracks which can be ok if it provides a shortcut but apparently it doesn't rule out lifting your bike over barbed wire fences or bramble-filled ditches.

 

[teuchter]

One design thing that is quite annoying (but maybe I can change this in the settings somewhere) is that it kept auto-pausing and auto-resuming the ride when I stopped briefly or was just going too slowly for teh GPS to recognise that I was in motion. This was quite an insult as I cranked my way up a very steep hill, but also a pain when stopping at traffic lights, when a giant "ride paused" message appears on screen obscuring the view of the route ahead.

You can either turn auto pause off completely or change the threshold speed where it kicks in

Are you sure you can change the threshold? I can't find this in the settings anywhere. I have the older Elemnt, maybe you have one of the newer versions, and they do allow this?

 

[beesonthewhatnow]

Are you sure you can change the threshold? I can't find this in the settings anywhere. I have the older Elemnt, maybe you have one of the newer versions, and they do allow this?

I thought so, but a quick google seems to suggest I’m getting confused with certain Garmin units, where you can.

 

[Cid]

You can turn it off in settings (on the app) though.

 

[teuchter]

You can turn it off in settings (on the app) though.

Yes, that's what I do if I'm using it in town rather than long rides.

 

[teuchter]

I see there is now also something called Karoo.

Hammerhead Karoo 2 review

The Hammerhead Karoo 2 is good right now but they are asking you to bet on the future. Is it worth it?

www.cyclingweekly.com