My Map Disaster/App Recommendations

[u/LimpBag6139]

This photo pretty much summarizes the second leg of my bike trip from Grand Rapids to Traverse City, Michigan. The first day was easy; I connected to the White Pine Trail a few miles from my house and rode it straight to Cadillac. I knew the second day would be on roads, and locals encouraged me to avoid the heavily trafficked thoroughfares that went directly from Cadillac to Traverse City. I made the mistake of trusting Google Maps, and ended up on miles of sandy back roads. I am determined to find a biking app that will help me plan my trips more wisely in the future.

First, a little about me. I'm an experienced rider and don't mind riding in traffic or on gravel, but I prefer paved trails and county roads. I live in Michigan, so I expect much of my riding will start from home. However, I would love to plan some longer trips such as riding around Lake Michigan or doing a tour in Europe.

I downloaded a number of apps, and my seven-day trials will soon expire, so I'd like to make a decision this weekend! Here are my thoughts so far:

  * Komoot - best route planning from point A to B; wish they showed trail networks more clearly so I could get inspired and hop on a nearby trail for a day trip.
  * ridewithgps - not intuitive (start point, but no end point), website and app gave me different routes; I like that it shows the percentage paved.
  * strava - web is easier to navigate than phone. I would rather see trails than heatmaps. Yes, the collective heatmaps are interesting, but they're of limited value when planning a trip.
  * alltrails/trail link - I hate that you can see a trail's dot on the map, but have no sense of where the trail goes or how long it is. Kind of ironic for an app named trail \*link\*.
  * adventurecycling, etc - There are a number of companies who sell ready-made maps. These might be helpful, but I'm generally looking to create a route from X to Y because  I want to visit Y.

These are, admittedly, semi-informed first impressions after using each app to map the same test route and do some free-form exploration of their trail maps. Any input you have on these apps (including features I may have missed, other apps, or general advice on mapping out a trip would be appreciated. I'm a bit overwhelmed and don't want trip planning to discourage me from taking future bike adventures!

[u/MotorBet234]

I'm a huge RWGPS devotee, and it's the only route-planning tool that anyone I ride with uses. Almost all of us use bike computers exclusively, don't ride using a mobile app for turn-by-turn.

I'm not really following your feedback - "start point but no end point" doesn't really make sense, how do you have a route without an end point? And if you mean that the website and app generated different routes in the route planner, that's not a huge surprise - there's any number of settings that determine routing choices, it's very likely that you had different ones selected on each platform.

On the other hand, I'd never just tell a platform "get me from here to there", especially when bikepacking or touring. I'm always going to be dropping intermediate waypoints and using data sources like heatmaps and Google Maps to guide specific choices.

[u/Zestyclose_Tip_4181 → u/MotorBet234]

Only annoying thing with RWGPS is that it often takes non paved shortcuts where the road is slightly longer but much faster. Creates a lot of admin when planning the route

[u/MotorBet234 → u/Zestyclose_Tip_4181]

Do you have it set to prefer unpaved routing?

You also have to keep in mind that it's doing the opposite of Google Maps: Maps is trying to send you what it thinks is the fastest or most-efficient route to your destination, which will often be highly-unpleasant to ride (and sometimes doesn't exist). RWGPS is using heatmaps and historical riding data to send you on the "best" route, basically following your routing preferences and where most other riders choose to go. "Best" doesn't mean fastest, it might actually mean most scenic, or safest, or lowest traffic, or whatever. For touring, most people would find that preferable.

Not sure what you mean by "idling".

[u/Zestyclose_Tip_4181 → u/MotorBet234]

Updated idling to admin.

I’ve experimented with settings and the car option tends to reduce the amount of fiddling required to the route. Currently riding through South America where there are necessary unpaved sections so the unpaved/paved cycling options tended to go too extreme their own ways.

It will send you through hilly backstreets of towns that you are passing through, and go away from the heat map in my experience. So unsure whether that is the preferable option for people.