Morning all! I'm relatively new to road biking, and stumbled across this site for route planning - it is excellent. I have some questions on the symbols used for predefined cycle routes, and was hoping for some insight into those I don't understand.
The red rectangular boxes I understand are NCN routes, with more info on sustrans.org.uk
The some of the light blue rectangular boxes are labelled 'NB', which I understand is 'National Byway'. But some contain a number, for example '52' near Maidenhead. What are the numbered routes, and is there a reference site for these numbered routes ?
Finally, there are dark blue boxes with Euro style gold stars, some numbered, others with letters. Again, if someone could point me at a site that gives more detail on those routes I would be most grateful.
Thanks in advance for any help!
Comments
I think (nothe the use of "think"!) that the blue boxes denote designated cycle ways, not just the National Byway. Sometimes if you include the "mystery" route in your planning and click on it, CT will give the name of the route. Otherwise Google is your friend.
I only recall seeing the EV routes (EU flag) denoted with a number, not a letter but there are variations so perhaps a letter is one variation of a numbered EV route?
Just on EV routes not all are created equal and if you visit the EV website or download its (not particularly useful) app you will see that in some areas the "route" is little more than an idea with zero infrastructure.
The EV website now has "official" gpx files to download of the completed sections.
In my experience CT will often not "choose" an EV route automatically - and there are normally reasons for that :-)
Many thanks for the reply HobbesOnTour, much appreciated!
I've looked at the EV website, very useful, thanks. Some of the EU Flag routes appear to be things like the 'Tour de Manche', as I understand it a Euro funded route that takes in part of Dorset, Devon, the Channel Islands and France. It is not a numbered EV route, and I'm not sure of the process by which it has ended up on the map. I think my assumption that all 'Euro' routes would be collected under a single website is invalid, which is fine.
The blue boxes do appear to be Regional Cycle Routes, but it seems there is no way to get a full list of the routes, I think a lot of them may have been added by cyclists to OSM, as a service to others (but I'm not 100% on this).
Either way, it seems the best way to investigate any route is Google, some have lots on info available, not so much on others.
Thanks again for your help!
No problem.
If you use the Osmand App and select bicycle it normally shows all bike routes in q different colour and most (in my experience) are named. That may help you. However, not all of them are suitable for all bikes! :-)
Just to clarify about the EV routes. Most (if not all of them) are using already existing bike routes in the different countries. What the EV people do is to link them together to make transcontinental routes. Hence two (or more) names, the EV name and the local one(s).
It's a good idea but can lead to anomalies in terms of signage and quality as we are actually following a sequence of local routes.
I'm not familiar with the "Tour de Manche" route but it seems to make use of both EV1 & EV4. I think those are the flags you are seeing and are only applicable to the parts of the route that are on the EV network.
In any case these are only lines on a map. You won't see the full picture until you're there with your eyes open and heart beating. One of the best things I learned was to treat a route as a guide only, not something to be slavishly followed.
Good luck!
I am trying to figure this out too. Many places I see acronyms for cycle routes but it takes sleuthing to find further information.
For example, TJS in the Jura region of France -- I eventually determined that it is the "Tour du Jura Sport".
But if the source information contains the full name it would be helpful to expose it to us somehow. Thanks!
The name information is currently in the route-planner but not the maps.
So if you plan a journey that takes in the routes you’re interested in, you’ll see the names appear in the turn-by-turn directions. This one, for example, has the Tour du Jura à Vélo Sportif (TJS).
I’d like to include the names on the maps when you’re fully zoomed in. But OpenStreetMap’s route name information is a bit of a curate’s egg and it requires a bit of massaging to get it into a usable state. I’ve done that for the route-planner, but it’ll require a bit of tech work to do it for the maps too.
The other thing you can do is switch to the CyclOSM basemap – this does show route names (in really tiny writing!) when you’re zoomed in.
Thanks Richard, this is helpful. I am so impressed by what you've built here 🙌
I noticed that on some established cycle routes, I can click on a routed segment to reveal the name. But not on others. (E.g. Tour du Jura à Vélo Sportif, mentioned above, does show the name, but Ruta del Ter does not).
I guess this is down to the OSM data inconsistency you mentioned.
I think this might be because cycle.travel chooses one route name for any given road/path. So on a route like this, you’ll see the latter stages marked as Ruta del Ter, but the earlier ones as PirineXus, even though both are part of the Ruta del Ter.