jeneralist 

So today I was riding around Manchester, NH, on the way from Dover to Greenfield State Park. At least, that was the plan. The weather forecast was for possible thunderstorms in the afternoon, so I got under way early and kept my breaks short. I was following a route provided by RideWithGPS, and heading out of Manchester I had these directions:

Turn right onto Piscataquog Trail.
Go 1.1 miles, then turn left.
Go 0.2 miles, then turn right towards Agnes Street.
Go 0.2 miles, then turn right onto Agnes Street.

Simple enough. The trail was paved (much appreciated after the Rockingham recreational trail earlier in the day, dirt and big gravel). I saw a turn-off up ahead, the app tweedled happily and told me to turn... And a few feet later I was at a dead-end. So I looked at my screen (I general ride audio only to save battery), and was astonished to see the do-this line wrapping behind two nearby baseball fields, into some woods, over a bridge, through more woods...

I tried to follow it. The path was overthrown with weeds, and while I couldn't go counterclockwise around the fields I could go clockwise and get to the same point. I found the bridge, crossed it, and at that point was rewarded with "turn right" in my ear. Only question: which of the three poorly maintained ruts was the right turn the app wanted?

And did I mention by now it was raining?

The first attempt at a right turn took me along the stream bank to a well-stocked, unoccupied tent. (Too big for stealth camping, I think.) Look at the screen -- yep, the app wanted a more gentle right turn. Backtrack, try again, push bike up weed-infested embankment, over the fallen log, slide down steep muddy slope.

I should be able to tell you by tomorrow whether that was poison ivy.

Eventually give it up as a bad game of silly buggers. Backtrack to the baseball fields in a worsening downpour, grateful for advice I've seen here about using a dugout as shelter when needed. Wash the maybe-it's-poison-ivy off my legs in the rain with camp soap.

And then take the time to look at the app, and realize the whole crazy mess of instructions could have been replaced with:
- stay on Piscataquog Trail to Pinard Street
- left on Pinard
- Right on Agnes

Grrr.

Pics will get posted when I have more than just my cell phone.

bikenh

One reason I stick to road riding..the only thing you ever have to really deal with from ridewithgps is the occasional bumping into bicycles prohibited signs...just happened a little bit ago here in SW Ohio...darn now I'm going to have to search out a new campsite since I can't get to the one I thought I was going to camp out at.

Yeah, dugouts can make awful nice campsites when the weather turns crappy. I had that happen to me in...I think it was Baraboo, WI several weeks ago. Nothing else looked good that I had looked at earlier and by the time I headed for the campsite the lightning was already flashing in the west and I knew I had to give it a try. Worked great.

spinnaker

I believe ridewithgps uses the Google Maps API so it is their fault not ridewithgps. This is a common problem with a lot of mapping software, especially when it comes to mapping for bicycles.

iamclaus

Google Maps isn't much better. It routed me along a footpath for (thankfully only) 10 minutes, then told me to take the rather long flight of stairs through the bushes to continue on...

DropBarFan

Once on Google Maps I saw a walking path that looked good for a local bike shortcut. Turned out terrible, even for walkers. I can't blame Google Maps too much since conditions can change quickly. I've recently seen local walking trails with decreased maintenance, underbrush invading large sections that were always previously easily walked.

I think that if one is doing hiking or off-road biking in unfamiliar areas (at least in the east), long sleeve shirts & long pants are the way to go, even in summer. Too many thorny plants & such.

StephenH

I was just plotting out a route up northeast from the Dallas area. RideWithGPS keeps trying to route me onto a bike trail, the only problem being that the bike trail is unpaved and ungraveled (ie, it's railroad minus the rails and ties). But it'll route me out of the way trying to put me on that thing.

I use RWGPS to work out routes, so if you start searching for routes, you'll find some of my potential routes that have never been ridden, and who knows what they're like?

jimincalif

Helping my daughter get driving directions to a friend's home a while back, Google maps had the route crossing a high school football field. And this was for a car, not a bike!

LesterOfPuppets

I plotted my last trip out on RWG and Google Maps. After the routes were drawn, I zoomed WAY in to double check things. There are a lot of odd loops, and it would jump off route quite a bit, so I had to put in new handles and drag them in to place. I'd have to turn off the auto route to get it to go where I wanted. It took a few hours but the resulting cue sheets were quite helpful - I printed out RWG and Google Maps' cue sheets. I also notate what the general heading is of the road at each turn. For instance :

2.09 Turn right onto Cedar Creek Road (NNW)

This helps me feel more confident that I'm taking the correct turn in that I can glance at my compass and corroborate the heading.

I never do audible or visual Nav while riding. Just cue sheets and compass. I was planning on printing out some maps but I didn't get around to it for that last trip.

rhm

For some real fun, I recommend using just about any GPS or GPS program down in New Jersey's Pinelands. There are some perfectly good roads down there that have apparently never been mapped; and many others that, despite having been reconquered by nature in decades past, have been uploaded to the GPS maps. But the real problem, for the cyclist, is distinguishing roads that are passable (as in, passable from one end to the other) from roads that are passable only as far as some certain spot (such as a pond, or someone's house, or a shooting range).

Oh, and of course there are military bases down there. Most GPS programs (Google Maps, RideWithGPS, etc) will route you straight through them without hesitation. The MP's, however, will stop you.

I don't mean to complain; in fact I'm getting to be pretty fond of RideWithGPS. But I consider it a descriptive tool, that tells me where I've been, or where I am; not so useful for telling me where to go.

gregf83 

Google maps relies to a large extent on a community of volunteer map editors, particularly for information on trails and lightly traveled roads. If you want to improve the routing used by ridewithgps you can sign up for google mapmaker and edit the maps, adding in the appropriate cycle paths.

There is no way google is going to do this on their own so if you want routing to improve it's up to cyclists to maintain the maps.

cullenking

Hey all, Cullen from Ride With GPS here. I don't intrude on forum conversations too often, but it seemed like a good opportunity to help a few of you out with some route planning tips. You've definitely experienced a few common complaints, but luckily you can solve all these problems with a couple rules to use while planning a route with our software.

- The route planner is designed to draw a route with a series of short clicks, usually no more than a kilometer/half a mile or so apart. If you click your start location and your desired end location, google maps (and Open Street Maps depending on your selected map) might plot you on a pretty crazy route. Instead, click along the way you want to go while zoomed into the map a decent amount. You'll be able to see any weirdness that comes up as a result of google/OSM directions.
- Plan your route while zoomed into the map close enough for side streets to be visible. If you are clicking along while at a "city view" level, side streets wont be visible and your clicks will often land, due to imprecision, 100 meters off the actual road. This can create false cues that look like a spur off the route.
- Never click on intersections. This confuses the directions service. Always click after the turn you want to take. The problem is that when you click the middle of an intersection, the very precise directions service can see that click as being 5 or 10 feet past the turn, so thinks you need to do a 180 to make your turn, which causes that right to present as a left in the cuesheet.
- The map is not always right, you have to double check! This includes the cuesheet, always review your route before heading off!
- Use the walking/cycling/driving modes in the right sidebar. If the planner keeps routing you along unpaved multi-use paths, switch to "driving" mode to route around that particular path segment, then switch back to "cycling" mode. Sometimes you have to switch the map types from "Map" (which is Google Maps) to "RWGPS" or "OSM". They use different route data and software. Practically speaking this means that if you get to an unroutable/wierd section while using google maps, OSM will probably work just fine. You can flip flop between map types seamlessly to get the ideal route.
- If you have any reservations about a multi-use path or a small country road you haven't been on, switch to satellite view to check if it's gravel. Satellite data in most of the world is good enough to detect pavement vs gravel, this can save you a headache! Or, if you are the adventurous type provide you with your gravel grinding fix.

We have been working on expanding our help system with a ton of new articles. As of last month all main articles have screencasts along with them if you are a video/audio sort of person. Here's a link to the basic route planner help:

Route Planning | Ride With GPS Help
Planning Routes | Ride With GPS Help

Finally, we are planning on doing a first time route planner quick walk-through so people get exposed to this information *before* hitting a snag rather than afterward. One of our main points of focus through this year and into the next is cleaning up confusing information and interfaces.

Anyway, sorry to interrupt but hopefully the above info was helpful. If you have any specific questions feel free to email us, info@ridewithgps.com - we now have 2 full time support persons that keep our average responses to less than 12 hours.

Cheers!

FedericoMena

Periodic reminder that OpenStreetMap is easy to contribute to, and has plenty of support for tagging bicycl(abl)e infrastructure.

The general area in question is https://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=1...9253/-71.49520

For each path/trail/whatever you can tag which kind of surface it has ("grass"), the quality of the surface ("needs robust tyres"), etc.

Steve B.

A thanks to Cullen, some info there I never new.

I use RWGPS all the time and only once found an error that was Googles. After reporting it, it took them 9 mos. to issue a fix. Bottom line though was switching to draw a line solved the issues.

Good program, best out there as far as I'm concerned.

bikenh

Cullen,

Since you MAY have more muscle room than most people on here would it be possible to get Google to label road closures as such. I quite often have the route come up taking me around rather than througn a particular area. Whenever I see that happen I always go to the appropriate state DOT website and check to see if that particular stretch of road is closed. Quite often it is. It would be nice to not have to go to the state DOT websites to find out if the road is closed...it answers all the questions with one simple view. They could mark the beginning and the end of the closed stretched. I know a couple of years ago when Memorial Bridge between Portsmouth, NH and Kittery, NH was closed they actually removed the road/grayed it out to indicate it was closed. I realize in a situation like I just ran into today in Indiana, it was a stretch of closed road but I have a feeling it is only closed for a couple of days versus something that is going to be closed for months on end. The months on end are the ones that count the most.

I have had several other ideas over the past few months while on the road,..if I could just remember them now. I'll send an email once I remember them.

DropBarFan

Just don't do "donuts" while driving across the football field & I'm sure the local cops won't mind...

Local bike path used to have steel posts at intersections, they were removed so police cars & maintenance vehicles could drive on the path. However, the path is fairly wide & straight, occasionally a confused motorist would drive down the path.

DropBarFan

Yes, a local Army base has streets that Google Maps make look like OK for civilian car/bike use but they're not. OTOH Google Maps Street View helps to see if roads have shoulders or whatnot for bikers. Satellite view sometimes obscured by trees.

spinnaker

They are called bollards. And they were more than likely removed for liability issues. Believe it or not but people crash into them.