This route is turning  out to be too confusing. In the first 40 miles there are no less than 38 turns onto what are shown as 'minor roads'. These roads must have names yet none provided. If one misses a turn - shown only by miles accumulated - one is lost.

I did think I'd be able to use Google Street View to find identifying way-markers, but without any kind of verification of my actual location, this proved impossible.

Once away from named towns, such as Trethurgy, Luxulyan or East Taphouse, there is no way to know where one actually is. It is disappointing, I had great hopes for Cycle Travel route site.

The road names that cycle.travel uses come from OpenStreetMap data, which is supplied by users (like a wikipedia for roads). Often, roads outside of cities don't have obviously signed names, or the users editing the site don't know them, so the name is left blank.

If you know the road names in the area you're looking at, you can add them yourself by finding the roads on https://www.openstreetmap.org/edit and filling in the "Name" field. This will help other users of all other OpenStreetMap mapping websites in the future!

The advantage of knowing road names is that if one errs and goes the wrong way, pretty soon one will come across a local and ask: Is this 'Johns Street? If the bloke then shakes his head and tells you you are way off, then you will know you are way off.

I think what I will do is to go to RidewithGPS and recapitulate the route copying the Cycle travel as far as I can on that site (I am a premium member)  Road and street name are usually shown on RWGPS.

Ken, a few points.

An example of a route (post the url) is always useful.

Asking people the names of roads or the distance to X place is a guaranteed way to have an interesting journey! :-)

If you're not aware, Google Maps is directly available within CT: Click on a point, right click and select 'Street View'.

Transferring routes from one platform to another should be approached with caution, directly proportional to the remoteness of the route. 

I'm a subscriber, don't really use the PDF function but I can see that I have a choice of 'scales'. I wonder if that might be an issue? I wonder if you have the option of different 'scales' or if that is only for maps and, therefore, subscribers?

I think you're in the U.S.? To my basic way of thinking, there are many things different over there, one obvious one being some very, very long 'streets'.  As Dan suggests, if the information (street names) isn't in the underlying data, CT won't be able to show it. (RWGPS uses the same data, I believe). 

 What system have you used prior to CT? I have always avoided cue sheets for the simple reason that once I'm off course, I'm lost. Is RWGPS offering up street names for the same routes? (That should be a simple check).

In any case, an example route is always helpful to get help.

In the rural UK (Ken’s placenames are in Cornwall, I think) most roads don’t have names, or at least signposted ones. So if cycle.travel says “turn left on minor road” that’s usually because that really is the only information it has. (As Dan says, sometimes the road names might also be missing from OpenStreetMap, which is the source of data for cycle.travel and RideWithGPS and pretty much everything apart from Google. But usually there isn’t a road name.)

To get round this, on a traditional hand-written cuesheet you will often see something like “sp Chadlington” or even “$ Chadlington”, which means “follow the road signposted to Chadlington”. So although the road doesn’t have a name, you can tell which turning to take.

However, that information simply isn’t in OpenStreetMap, so c.t (or RWGPS or whatever) has no way to give you that information. It doesn’t know whether the road is signposted Chadlington or Chipping Norton or whatever.

c.t’s cue-sheets do include the names of upcoming villages: you’ll often see an instruction like “Enter Chadlington on East End”. You can use this at a preceding turn to guess that you probably want the turn for Chadlington, if one is signposted.

But essentially, to use a cue-sheet, you will need an odometer (usually a bike computer these days) and a paper map for backup purposes – relying just on the instructions is always going to be fraught. Most people these days would default to a phone or a GPS and I can see why!

I do have a Wahoo on the front of the bike which I use mainly for distances, so if my cue sheet says something like: R onto minor road at mile 4.9 (taken from the route under discussion) I will have some idea where it is but that is not always to be trusted. When riding unfamiliar routes I like to cover the route before hand on street view and add to the sheets landmarks to be sure that is the correct turn. The issue with attempting to identify way markers using the CT route is when attempting to follow the route on street view, I cannot determine the distances. I know it all sounds outre, but I don't want to wander around the countryside when attempting to cover 100+ miles each day for 10 days.

Is there any reason why CT cannot be anchored on Google rather than OpenStreet? Would it make any difference.

BTW; the simple reason I use cue sheets rather than a GPS route device- apart from my added notes of interesting way markers - is that the screen is not big enough for me to read it. Whereas, attaching a cue sheet (common with us Audax riders) measuring 100" x 6 1/2" to the front of the bike is convenient, easy to read and available for notes.

Ken.

Nope, absolutely no way c.t could be based on Google.

If I’ve understood correctly that what you want is to cross-reference the cue-sheet turns against Street View, then: zoom into your route on c.t; look for the little yellow mile markers; cross-reference these mileage numbers with those on your cue-sheet; then at the appropriate turn, click the route, and choose ‘Street View’ in the little bubble that pops up.

I'll do that, thanks for the primer on how to use your excellent routing system. :-)

Well, very curious. I had naturally assumed the map would correspond to the cues but not so.

Whereas the cue sheet says:

L on Poltair, R onto Tregonisey, L onto Treverbyn Rd, R onto Carclaze Rd. and on up to the town/village of Trethurgy;  

The map shows a different route going along; Polkyth, Sandy Hill, Bethel to Trenowah and missing the town of Trethurgy altogether.

The two routes do converge later by the time they get to Luxulyan and East Taphouse.

This is becoming fun, find the missing streets and towns.

I've discovered that if I want to improve a CT route to eliminate unnecessary detours, I can drag the line on the map to correspond to my new preferred route, then 'save' and the cue sheet then shows the new route.

I think the best way to use CT routes is to use them as a 'suggestion' and then spend time referring to that and other sources to create the optimum route.

Thanks to whomever has provided this excellent routing site.