Route GuidesRoutes City GuidesCities Map Log in

Make like Lance Armstrong with our new 'go direct' option

18 Sep 2018
Find a better bike route. Try our map & route-planner »

Become a supporter

No, we’re not suggesting the use of performance-enhancing substances (apart from cake), but when you absolutely have to take that shortcut…

When you’re planning a route with cycle.travel, sometimes you just want to take the direct route between two points. Maybe there’s a path that (horror of horrors!) is missing from OpenStreetMap, our map data source; maybe cycle.travel is trying fervently to keep you off a busy road, and you’d rather grit your teeth and ride on; or maybe you just want to make like Lance and engage in a bit of accidental cyclocross.

It’s pretty easy. Just plot your via points as normal, then click the one where you want to go off piste, and choose ‘Go direct’:

And voila, routing en direct. As they say on all the best descents in France.

Other new features on our route-planner include PDF ‘cue sheets’ for turn-by-turn directions; coverage of Slovakia and Hungary; improved GPX and TCX export for your GPS unit or phone apps; and dozens of little tweaks to make the routing even better. Head over to the route-planner and try them out for yourself.

Comments

Tue 9 Oct 2018, 00:32

Another useful feature would be a U-turn. Say I want to visit somewhere, then go back the way I came to continue on somewhere else. It could be added to the same menu as the Go Direct option.