The best option is to find a friendly local citizen to advise you on the route. For example, in Idaho Falls we have 5th West, 5th East, and 15th East going north to south. 5th West is wealthy people who cycle a lot themselves, but almost no shoulders to no shoulder. 5th East is straight with shoulders on the entire route, but large trucks and rush hour traffic. 15th East is curvy, without shoulders, generally nobody who lives on 15th East has ridden a bicycle in a decade, and it has rush hour traffic and trucks carrying gravel and potatoes, which end up in the road for a cyclist to dodge because there isn't a shoulder. Google maps sends cyclists down 15th East as the primary, 5th East as the secondary, and 5th West which is almost perfect, isn't suggested. Google maps wants to kill cyclists?
Safety. Living in a metropolitan area, there are many roads that are just plain too dangerous for cycling (because of the cars, not because the road itself is dangerous, as Si is very wise to point out). Heat maps are super helpful for this, but sometimes not enough -- Gmaps Street View almost always helps fill in the gaps. Maybe Strava would consider teaming up with G to embed Street View into Strava's mapping feature. :-)
For circle routs it makes sense to make them clockwise if you live in a country with right-lane drive and counter-clockwise for islanders. Key reason that in this case you will have less uncomfortable turns on a road when you need to cross the traffic.
Thats easy, but requires some preparation. You start with finding a plane and a pilot, that can fly at 15 miles height and then you just need to jump out and land in the airport. Total distance 30 miles, all downhill (or just down, not even a hill) and is a round loop. As a bonus, while doing loops in the plane, you could ask for some drinks.
@@sn0tkore I did spend a few days somewhere in Cambridgeshire and to be honest I found riding on the flat hard work. I do prefer ups and downs, maybe it's just what I'm used to to.
Good call on making a ‘shortcut’ if things don’t go to plan! Couple times I set off thinking I was fine but was actually brewing an illness and it feels like a real failure to have to completely stop and turn around. Thanks Connor for another great video!
Last week I had a route planned and all was going well, met a flock of geese, saw a bald eagle fishing in the river, nice urban/riverside scenery and it all came to a grinding halt when I came across surprise roadwork a third of the way in that veered me off on a miserable paved wasteland of scrap yards, truck garages and searing heat. I guess I had to pay for the really solid one I did the day before!!!
Nice video. I have one thing to add. Do a wrong turn in a junction and you will discover a road you havnt thougt about. I did this trick in June and arrived 1,5 hours later on my destination, absolutely tired, but i discovered an absolutely beautiful and nice gravel forestroad that wasnt even on the map (outdated map from 2018), this road I have used four times the last month :)
@gcn what do you recommend me buying? I can't really afford much I am only 16 but if there is anything what will improve my experience can you recommend anything like a good lycra brand etc
Check the weather, particularly the wind direction. Try to have the wind behind you on the 2nd half of the ride. Plan to ride downhill into the wind and uphill with the wind helping.
I also love to make use of Strava's personal heat map to explore--ride every road in an area. Great for relaxed zone 2 type rides, and this falls into Conor's tip about finding new places. I've found things I didn't know about even though I've lived my entire life in the same area. Strava also has an add on called "Wandrer" which is specifically for this and gives you achievements for covering new roads.
My favourite is the Garmin Edge which has round trip routing functionality, which, as the name suggests, calculates a route from, and back to the starting point, based on whatever distance you give it.
Always nice to plan new routes but sometimes it's fun just to go out and ride. Last time we had high winds forecast I just went out, tried to keep the wind on my back and roughly followed a train line to get home before the yellow warning came in to effect.
I’ve tried using Strava’s ‘easy’ auto-routing function several times. It almost always tries to route me on roads that aren’t suitable for cycling (like 70 mph DCs), or maybe I’m just too scared…. Komoot for planning/routing. Strava for recording/fitness.
Can't beat OS maps in the UK though. For gravel planning its essential for rights of way (avoiding footpaths!) but for road you can see the grade and elevation of road easily. Plan on OS, plot on Strava/Garmin/whatever...
FYI openstreetmap differentiates between footpaths and bridleways but not a lot of routing software using that data bothers to draw them differently. Which is where the opencyclemap comes in, drawing footpaths in brown and bridleways in green, which you can specify as a layer in both komoot and ridewithgps. So you have those two as an alternative to flicking back and forth between the ordnance survey map and whatever you use for plotting.
The other thing about OS maps is it shows things of interest on the route (PH 😂) like viewpoints and ancient sites. What would be nice for all these route planning apps is to be able to add points of interest and get reminders on the navigation unit as they come up...
@@thrawed You don't have to fllick back and forth you plan the route on OS then export the GPX to whatever i use Komoot personally, Trying to use the OS app for navigation is a big mistake though it's terrible.
Pretty sure Strava's "ready made routes" are actually dynamically invented on the spot by the app. Either that or there's a ton of people that like starting their routes from my front door!
It's generated spontaneously but it still considers popularity of the routes along the route it creates from where you currently are. When I use it, it always suggests popular local route loops that then happen to just intersect where I was using the app, so most of the spontaneous part is from where you currently are towards a popular route.
I live in the Netherlands, and I like to take a train to a far-off location and then ride my bike back home to Amsterdam. As a shortcut, I can always take a train from somewhere nearby. I learned this from a mistake I made once: I went from Amsterdam to Groningen to take a train back home, but I was too late and had to wait for a train until the morning :D
I do this quite often as well, but in Japan. I basically take a train and go to a remote station from Tokyo. Then cycle around there before going back to another near station to go home. Allows me to ride in the countryside and see pretty good mountain views despite living in a bustling city like Tokyo. Even did this once, cycling from Tokyo to Osaka on a multi-day trip then taking the Shinkansen home.
My wife and I are coming from the US and planning a bike trip starting in Bath next summer. I would love to know what some of your favorite routes are. We will be on a tandem, so some of the really steep climbs may be out of our range. 50K-60K ride is what what we like to do. Maybe we will stop by HQ and you can take some pictures with us Yanks. :)
I was surprised to not hear about checking with Local Clubs & Bike shops. They can often give some really good pointers like hidden sights or issues to avoid. Such as roads with bad traffic or seriously bad pavement. Near me are several roads that appear to be great and popular, but are a nightmare with skinny pavement, heavy weekend traffic & cars pulling Boats. In fact some of their 'Weekend' rides may be great introduction to an area you might want to explore.
Google Street View is an indispensable tool to my route planning. You can also click the little yellow guy when on the normal or terrain view, and all of the roads with street view available will be traced in blue -- kind of like a heat map overlay, but in this case, you get an instant broad overview of where you can ride on the road and (maybe 95% of the time; still have to be a bit careful) not end up faced with a private property gate you can't get through, or some type of impasse. In this mode (with the street view "highlight"), all you need to do is click somewhere on a blue line and you'll instantly enter street view at that location (i.e. no need to drag the little guy from bottom/right to where you'd like to see). Super useful.
Switch to satellite layer view to inspect certain roads up close. Sometimes Strava will dump you on a major roadway just because it's the shortest link or some local group rides frequently early morning, yet later in the day it's too busy.
great video, I was hoping to find some new techniques, but it seems like I'm already doing what you listed. These techniques are all great for anyone looking to start making their own routes. I have noticed that Strava will sometimes list gravel as paved and vice versa,
Based in the Netherlands one of the first things I take into account when planning a route is the expected wind direction. Ignoring this could make your ride pretty hard.
On longer rides I’ll make a circle around my home as a central point. So it can be a really long ride … but only 7-8 miles from home if I run into issues. Especially as I’ve a heart condition.
The most fun routes I’ve cycled are the ones that have ZERO planning whatsoever. The overall distance needs to be monitored of course so a bonk can be avoided, or avoid the wrath of the Mrs but other than that it’s all good!
Route planning has great benefits. Back when I used to race, I had several canned routes I'd ride. Just to mix things up, I reversed the routes and started passing this woman rider. Our first date was Valentine's Day 1989. We've been together ever since.
I find most route planning apps don't differentiate between footpaths and bridleways. I use OS Maps app when planning gravel routes, either that or have Bing Maps up with the OS layer showing to double check which tracks we have legal access through
How would you say Garmin Connect compares? What features does Garmin have that strava doesn’t and vice versa? I’m not really interested in paying for a strava membership at this point and would rather maximize what I have. Thanks in advance for any responses!
I've been struggling to make routes. I was hoping this was actually going to teach me how. But what I'm noticing in this video is it has to be on a desktop? Like can I use my phone? Maybe this is why I haven't figured out how. Another thing is how do I make a file so I can then move it to my cycling computer?
Given I live on a relatively small island (Oahu) with the longest loop being about 117mi and two mountain ranges really restricting options, pondering how this applies.... lol 🚲😄
What do you look for when planning a route? Hills, distance, coffee stops? Let us know 👇
I need the same route planning feature from an app that offers that function for free, something that Strava doesn’t do.
The best option is to find a friendly local citizen to advise you on the route. For example, in Idaho Falls we have 5th West, 5th East, and 15th East going north to south. 5th West is wealthy people who cycle a lot themselves, but almost no shoulders to no shoulder. 5th East is straight with shoulders on the entire route, but large trucks and rush hour traffic. 15th East is curvy, without shoulders, generally nobody who lives on 15th East has ridden a bicycle in a decade, and it has rush hour traffic and trucks carrying gravel and potatoes, which end up in the road for a cyclist to dodge because there isn't a shoulder. Google maps sends cyclists down 15th East as the primary, 5th East as the secondary, and 5th West which is almost perfect, isn't suggested. Google maps wants to kill cyclists?
Safety. Living in a metropolitan area, there are many roads that are just plain too dangerous for cycling (because of the cars, not because the road itself is dangerous, as Si is very wise to point out). Heat maps are super helpful for this, but sometimes not enough -- Gmaps Street View almost always helps fill in the gaps. Maybe Strava would consider teaming up with G to embed Street View into Strava's mapping feature. :-)
DM MCEscher, he’ll sort it out for you
@@maraorem3347 👍
For circle routs it makes sense to make them clockwise if you live in a country with right-lane drive and counter-clockwise for islanders. Key reason that in this case you will have less uncomfortable turns on a road when you need to cross the traffic.
Came here to say exactly this. Surprised more people are not aware of this.
Can you show how to do a nice 30 mile circular route that's all downhill with no climbs 🤔😂
With coffee shops every 5 miles?
Thats easy, but requires some preparation. You start with finding a plane and a pilot, that can fly at 15 miles height and then you just need to jump out and land in the airport. Total distance 30 miles, all downhill (or just down, not even a hill) and is a round loop. As a bonus, while doing loops in the plane, you could ask for some drinks.
Give MCEscher a line, he’ll illustrate the steps.
Come and ride the fens in Cambridgeshire. FLAT
@@sn0tkore I did spend a few days somewhere in Cambridgeshire and to be honest I found riding on the flat hard work. I do prefer ups and downs, maybe it's just what I'm used to to.
Top 3 tips for a great cycling route planning experience?
1) Use Komoot
2) Use Komoot
3) Use Komoot
Komoot good for planning hiking routes, RidewithGPS for planning cycling routes …. Definitely not Strava
Good call on making a ‘shortcut’ if things don’t go to plan! Couple times I set off thinking I was fine but was actually brewing an illness and it feels like a real failure to have to completely stop and turn around.
Thanks Connor for another great video!
Last week I had a route planned and all was going well, met a flock of geese, saw a bald eagle fishing in the river, nice urban/riverside scenery and it all came to a grinding halt when I came across surprise roadwork a third of the way in that veered me off on a miserable paved wasteland of scrap yards, truck garages and searing heat.
I guess I had to pay for the really solid one I did the day before!!!
Nice video. I have one thing to add. Do a wrong turn in a junction and you will discover a road you havnt thougt about. I did this trick in June and arrived 1,5 hours later on my destination, absolutely tired, but i discovered an absolutely beautiful and nice gravel forestroad that wasnt even on the map (outdated map from 2018), this road I have used four times the last month :)
“What’s down that road?” Is a common question I ask whilst out riding
I just bought my first road bike a Cervelo S1 I got it for 300 quid. I am excited to start cycling
Let us know if you have any questions. Enjoy the ride!
@gcn what do you recommend me buying? I can't really afford much I am only 16 but if there is anything what will improve my experience can you recommend anything like a good lycra brand etc
Check the weather, particularly the wind direction. Try to have the wind behind you on the 2nd half of the ride. Plan to ride downhill into the wind and uphill with the wind helping.
I also love to make use of Strava's personal heat map to explore--ride every road in an area. Great for relaxed zone 2 type rides, and this falls into Conor's tip about finding new places. I've found things I didn't know about even though I've lived my entire life in the same area.
Strava also has an add on called "Wandrer" which is specifically for this and gives you achievements for covering new roads.
My favourite is the Garmin Edge which has round trip routing functionality, which, as the name suggests, calculates a route from, and back to the starting point, based on whatever distance you give it.
Always nice to plan new routes but sometimes it's fun just to go out and ride. Last time we had high winds forecast I just went out, tried to keep the wind on my back and roughly followed a train line to get home before the yellow warning came in to effect.
Nice, go out and let the wind guide you. Ride safely when the conditions are not the best, though 🚴♀
I’ve tried using Strava’s ‘easy’ auto-routing function several times. It almost always tries to route me on roads that aren’t suitable for cycling (like 70 mph DCs), or maybe I’m just too scared…. Komoot for planning/routing. Strava for recording/fitness.
Can't beat OS maps in the UK though. For gravel planning its essential for rights of way (avoiding footpaths!) but for road you can see the grade and elevation of road easily. Plan on OS, plot on Strava/Garmin/whatever...
FYI openstreetmap differentiates between footpaths and bridleways but not a lot of routing software using that data bothers to draw them differently. Which is where the opencyclemap comes in, drawing footpaths in brown and bridleways in green, which you can specify as a layer in both komoot and ridewithgps. So you have those two as an alternative to flicking back and forth between the ordnance survey map and whatever you use for plotting.
The other thing about OS maps is it shows things of interest on the route (PH 😂) like viewpoints and ancient sites. What would be nice for all these route planning apps is to be able to add points of interest and get reminders on the navigation unit as they come up...
@@thrawed You don't have to fllick back and forth you plan the route on OS then export the GPX to whatever i use Komoot personally, Trying to use the OS app for navigation is a big mistake though it's terrible.
Pretty sure Strava's "ready made routes" are actually dynamically invented on the spot by the app. Either that or there's a ton of people that like starting their routes from my front door!
Ah, I think I know you. You are the guy next door, aren’t you?
Isn't it possible it takes the routes others take and just connects it to our homes?
It's generated spontaneously but it still considers popularity of the routes along the route it creates from where you currently are. When I use it, it always suggests popular local route loops that then happen to just intersect where I was using the app, so most of the spontaneous part is from where you currently are towards a popular route.
Conor always struggle hard with the videos! He always give his best!
It's to add a dramatic effect
I live in the Netherlands, and I like to take a train to a far-off location and then ride my bike back home to Amsterdam. As a shortcut, I can always take a train from somewhere nearby.
I learned this from a mistake I made once: I went from Amsterdam to Groningen to take a train back home, but I was too late and had to wait for a train until the morning :D
I do this quite often as well, but in Japan. I basically take a train and go to a remote station from Tokyo. Then cycle around there before going back to another near station to go home. Allows me to ride in the countryside and see pretty good mountain views despite living in a bustling city like Tokyo. Even did this once, cycling from Tokyo to Osaka on a multi-day trip then taking the Shinkansen home.
To plan my routes i use komoot and wind forecast app. :)
Wind is key. Too many people forget about this.
My wife and I are coming from the US and planning a bike trip starting in Bath next summer. I would love to know what some of your favorite routes are. We will be on a tandem, so some of the really steep climbs may be out of our range. 50K-60K ride is what what we like to do. Maybe we will stop by HQ and you can take some pictures with us Yanks. :)
I was surprised to not hear about checking with Local Clubs & Bike shops. They can often give some really good pointers like hidden sights or issues to avoid. Such as roads with bad traffic or seriously bad pavement. Near me are several roads that appear to be great and popular, but are a nightmare with skinny pavement, heavy weekend traffic & cars pulling Boats. In fact some of their 'Weekend' rides may be great introduction to an area you might want to explore.
Google Street View is an indispensable tool to my route planning. You can also click the little yellow guy when on the normal or terrain view, and all of the roads with street view available will be traced in blue -- kind of like a heat map overlay, but in this case, you get an instant broad overview of where you can ride on the road and (maybe 95% of the time; still have to be a bit careful) not end up faced with a private property gate you can't get through, or some type of impasse. In this mode (with the street view "highlight"), all you need to do is click somewhere on a blue line and you'll instantly enter street view at that location (i.e. no need to drag the little guy from bottom/right to where you'd like to see). Super useful.
It sounds like a half day job to plan a 3 hour ride.
Switch to satellite layer view to inspect certain roads up close. Sometimes Strava will dump you on a major roadway just because it's the shortest link or some local group rides frequently early morning, yet later in the day it's too busy.
Great video Conner I do this already
Has studio Connor got a wedding or a court appearance to get to? His hair looks, well, smart. It caught me off guard!
Great advice.. veloviewer is excellent for viewing your route profile 😊 Pete 🚴♀️🚴🏻👍
great video, I was hoping to find some new techniques, but it seems like I'm already doing what you listed. These techniques are all great for anyone looking to start making their own routes. I have noticed that Strava will sometimes list gravel as paved and vice versa,
Your man’s planning with Warbasse is always spot on lol…
I just watched the Slow Pro Canary Islands the other day. Planning a route and forgetting the head unit is not recommended
Based in the Netherlands one of the first things I take into account when planning a route is the expected wind direction. Ignoring this could make your ride pretty hard.
Strava hasonly one issue, the same as all route planning apps. We have a lot of great cycling routed in Europe. And all of them are missing.
Garmin also has a feature like that. Lots of fun!
Yes it does; but Strava will show you where the gravel sections are. Garmin won't.
Apart from elevation, I rely on wind direction and strength to know when and where I want the ride to be tougher/easier.
Most important is to start towards the wind.
On longer rides I’ll make a circle around my home as a central point. So it can be a really long ride … but only 7-8 miles from home if I run into issues. Especially as I’ve a heart condition.
I love to correct OSM data. Please take a moment to improve the maps, especially with surfaces, bike lanes, etc. to help the next riders
The most fun routes I’ve cycled are the ones that have ZERO planning whatsoever. The overall distance needs to be monitored of course so a bonk can be avoided, or avoid the wrath of the Mrs but other than that it’s all good!
Route planning has great benefits. Back when I used to race, I had several canned routes I'd ride. Just to mix things up, I reversed the routes and started passing this woman rider. Our first date was Valentine's Day 1989. We've been together ever since.
I find most route planning apps don't differentiate between footpaths and bridleways. I use OS Maps app when planning gravel routes, either that or have Bing Maps up with the OS layer showing to double check which tracks we have legal access through
No cars 👍
gravel or off peak time?
1. Dedicated cycling paths
2. Off peak
3. Gravel
Komoot for planning rides cos it’s free. Cycling is expensive enough already!
Do you actually prefer Strava for planning your routes? I’m more of a Komoot fan.
Following your nose is much more fun!! (but taking snacks for contingencies)
By golly, England is breathtaking.
How would you say Garmin Connect compares? What features does Garmin have that strava doesn’t and vice versa? I’m not really interested in paying for a strava membership at this point and would rather maximize what I have. Thanks in advance for any responses!
I usually plan a route by maximizing elevation gain and steep sections.... hills4ever.
Black velvet! If on any ride you come upon a road, newly paved, you are obligated to ride it!
Squadrats!
Is this subscription Strava or the free bit ?
This is an ad for the route planner, a feature of the paid subscription to strava
The subscription bit
@@galenkehler cheers, I see that now.
I only use free Strava
@@idjles as do I now, dropped the sub last month.
I don't look at hills unless I want to climb a specific one.
I've been struggling to make routes. I was hoping this was actually going to teach me how. But what I'm noticing in this video is it has to be on a desktop? Like can I use my phone? Maybe this is why I haven't figured out how. Another thing is how do I make a file so I can then move it to my cycling computer?
Sponsored by Strava. Pretty sure Strava will do almost anything for you if you pay for premium.
Construction closed roads are the worst. Would be great if Strava supported some live data like regular Google or Apple maps
were you and Larry national champions the same year?
Conor, can you plan stops where there's a publi water tap/font available .... sorry, the joke lives on 😂
Komoot is better for planning
Given I live on a relatively small island (Oahu) with the longest loop being about 117mi and two mountain ranges really restricting options, pondering how this applies.... lol 🚲😄
Really? Thats fascinating.
You can always do the route in reverse and feel like it's a completely different path
I could say i am sorry for you but i don't! 😂 Greetings from Germany
@@headofmyself5663 🤣 Hope ur enjoying ur rides too!
@@headofmyself5663 You can visit other countries from your door step, so awesome! I just ride in circles. LOL
09:41 Biggest red flag 🚩: When the route pictures include cows...
🐄
but everybody loves them 🐮
@@gcn Yes, but are a bit frightening 🐄😅
Building a route with google maps and converting that kmz kml (?) to gpx file so i can upload it to my computer is a pain. There must be a better way
free cycling clothes?
Goole maps, talk to locals, pack food. Strava is for suckers who are easily separated from their money.
Give me a good paper map of the area any day! I can't stand trying to follow routes as you move from screen to screen.