Hi everyone! What app do you recommend for planning tour routes?
Google Maps and Apple Maps are just terrible obviously. On multiple occasions I’ve had them put me in borderline dangerous positions, trying to take me to trails that no longer existed, up extremely graded landscapes difficult even for experienced riders, etc.
I have started experimenting with [Bikemap.net](https://Bikemap.net) as well as strava, ridewithgps, and a couple of others. They all seem to be lacking in terms of one thing or another.
So what are your favorites? How do you plan your routes?
by taste_fart
5 Comments
Komoot, combined with street view and strava heatmap.
On the expert side I’ve heard good things about brouter for expert users.
Pointz works pretty well in cities. Terrible name, but I find it useful.
RideWithGPS all the way. Flipping between the Google hybrid layer and the OSM Cycle layer and using street view will give you about the best overview of a route you can get without actually being there.
And don’t let any app do too much work. They can make broad suggestions but you’ll be better off doing the detail yourself most of the time.
> are just terrible obviously. On multiple occasions I’ve had them put me in borderline dangerous positions, trying to take me to trails that no longer existed, up extremely graded landscapes difficult even for experienced riders, etc.
No map is perfect, this can happen with whatever map you use, but sure Google sucks, in general an OSM based map app is best.
> They all seem to be lacking in terms of one thing or another.
Nothing is perfect and yes every app has its own advantages and disadvantages, which is best is highly subjective. Personally mostly use Garmin Basecamp, but it has its shortcomings too. Nevertheless I think as an app it is among the best, but finding the best maps to install can be a pain, as different providers have different renderings and/or a limited scope. I’ve not yet found one that provides global coverage, good and clear rendering and contains correct elevation data. Also, it is a desktop app, so there is some data transferring involved too. If you just want to plan a route quickly and are not too concerned about first creating a repository of sights and other poi along the route I probably would prefer ridewithgps.
>Google Maps and Apple Maps are just terrible obviously. On multiple occasions I’ve had them put me in borderline dangerous positions, trying to take me to trails that no longer existed, up extremely graded landscapes difficult even for experienced riders, etc.
If you think Google and Apple maps are putting you in dangerous situations don´t even bother with Komoot.
I think it´s actively trying to kill me.
It´s a love/hate relationship because it brings me to awesome places but sometimes I´m just not sure I´m gonna make it out of there alive.