finding routes in areas you dont know

[cheeky_chops]

Hi, off to Liverpool to see the inlaws this weekend and hoping to take the road bikes and crack a 50-60m route sunday am.

The problem is i (and my wife is clueless even though she lived there for 25 years...) dont know any of the surrounding countryside or areas. I dont want to get stuck on a major A road and be lost or pulling out my phone/map every 10 mins.

What do other do? I have looked at "mapmyride" but again, seems i will be getting lost or need a print out in my hand

[GBDG]

Liverpool > Southport would be a nice 20 miles along the coast. Also quite flat. Going the other way, you could head for North Wales/Chester. Both will be well sign posted.

I just pick a place i want to go to and ride there. I'm not bothered about busy roads or getting lost. Adds to the fun

[Rouleur]

See if a local club do a suitable ride, most of them accept non members on weekend easy rides. Just make sure no-one nicks your wheels

[MadDad]

Checkout ridewithgps.com quite often there are routes posted on there that you can follow when out of your 'home territory'.

[CoolC]

Not sure if this link will work unless you're a Strava user.

http://app.strava.com/activities/search?utf8=%E2%9...

Edited by CoolC on Thursday 2nd August 20:01

[Gizmoish]

Bikely can give good ideas too.

[cheeky_chops]

Thanks for the pointers - just update for anyone who might come accross this...

I used www.bikeroutetoaster.com to create a route around Delamere/Cheshire in about 15 minutes. It is a bit fiddly if you decide to make the middle of the route longer but eventually I exported a 89km route out as a gpx file starting/ending in Frodsham.

After some googling I then downloaded "Osmand" to my android. There are lots of templates /maps for all over the world available, so i got Wales/England for now and "EN" voice

I copied the file over to my android and had to make a folder in sdcard\osmand called tracks (you will need a android explorer app for this). It unfortunately said it was corrupt - thought screw it i am off to bed and will have to use the inlaws OS map!

At 7am i decided i wasnt going to be beaten and had another crack... ended up at www.gpsies.com and converted it to a "gpx" file - not sure of the diff?? - anyway this was half the size (150k) and worked showing the route overlay in Osmand!

On the road i couldnt hear the directions as phone was in back pocket but would check every 10/15 mins and "turn left in 4.3km" etc was on the screen. Took a few wrong turns but got back with 58miles on my wifes garmin. Significantly, i reckon less than 2miles were on A roads and we went thru one town for a couple of miles too. I hadnt a clue where we were going but weather and lanes were fantastic!! With a little more time i could of created a route with even less urbanisation.

Great stuff

[crisisjez]

Garmin 800

[whatleytom]

you can follow routes on an edge 500 too. Pretty useful imho

[cheeky_chops]

i think i can upload routes to my wifes garmin forerunner 305 too!