Hi! I just tried out cycle.travel because usually I use bbbike, but that ends at the city limits of Berlin, so if I want to go on a longer bike tour, I need something else. However, I immediately noticed something: The route I tried out happens to go almost exactly past my old workplace, so I know the nice, quieter routes until that point very well. I was surprised that cycle.travel suggested a route that ignores any possibilities to use routes through parks and city greens that are away from car traffic and instead suggest that I ride along streets with heavy traffic instead. Even if riding through the park would be shorter. And I'm not talking about tiny paths through little parks, but about broad, paved ways that many people in Berlin frequently use as bike routes and still cycle.travel ignores them. As an example: We have a former airport, Tempelhofer Feld, as a large park where you can ride your bike over the former runways. Every cyclist in Berlin knows it, lots of people cycle there, but cycle.travel suggest that I go around it instead of across it along a large busy street. That's not a quieter route. That's a noisy one. And more far. If I ask bbbike instead and use the "green routes" setting, it gives me much quieter and more pleasant routes through Berlin than cycle.travel does. Can that be improved, maybe by looking at how bbbike does it?
Comments
Can you give an example of your start and end points?
Welcome, Zorra, to the world of CycleTravel.
It's a pity that you haven't supplied us with any of the suggested information: Are you using the app or website? nor included a route example. (Create a route, save it, copy the url and post it here.)
I can plot a route in the Tempelhofer Feld, but have noticed that CT doesn't like to use it if going from one side to another. (I tried one on BBBike and they avoided it too!)
I note that you registered today so perhaps you're not aware of the different routing options:
'Any' will plot a route on a mix of gravel and paved surfaces, while Paved will avoid anything that isn't ... paved. ´Gravel´ is probably more suited to a rural environment and 'Routes' is designed to help us follow 'official' routes.
'Round Trip' does as it suggests, bringing us back to the start point, normally by a different route. It can be useful to find a different route.
'Find alternative' is useful if we don't like the first suggestion from CT.
Of course, adding some viapoints can direct the route to go the way you want.
I suggest you become familiar with the different options.
BBbike is a service dedicated to a limited number of specific cities. A focused service such as this will always have an advantage over a service that covers a much wider area incorporating urban & rural landscapes. They offer a far larger number of options, for example, something that is relatively economical (and quick!) for a city but gets very expensive very quickly (and very, very slow) on a national level.
A disadvantage of navigating through parks and similar is that they can often have closing times. Arrive at the wrong time and you have a problem! Not a problem for locals who are familiar with the rules and location, a bigger issue for tourists. Been there, done that.
If you want to explore further afield on two wheels then my experience is that CT is ahead of any other planner that I have tried. No planner is 100% infallible, but CT is more reliable than the rest.
It is always a good idea to have a few options that we are familiar with - some planners work better than others in certain situations. Cities are always tricky for bikes and bike route planners but CT has guided me in and out of many crazy cities relatively safely when other planners wanted to kill me.
In the meantime here's some more info on how CT works:
Website: https://cycle.travel/advice/map
App: Look under 'Settings' for 'Help'.