LeCollectif

Hi bf/touring.

I'm in a bit of a mapping conundrum here. Doing Eugene to SF next month. I've got a loose itinerary of the trip, but suspect it will change based on a few factors including what kind of elevation we'll be doing. As of right now, I'm going fully loaded with a compact 10 speed drive train, so I'm sure I'm going to run into some really hard climbing. I'd like to base the itinerary more on how hard the days will be, rather than how long in distance. Or at least take the elevation into consideration. Problem is, I'm not sure of a way to create and print maps of the route that include elevation metrics. Mapmyride was the closest thing I got to it, but any plotted distances over 75km deliver an error for elevation.

Because I'm cheap, I'd like to be able to create the map, and print it out as a series of pages and laminating them or something. The end result would have a day of riding per page, with an elevation graph at the bottom. Does anyone have suggestions of a good way to do this? Perhaps someone already has and wants to hook me up?

valygrl

$14.36
https://www.amazon.com/Bicycling-Paci...9833396&sr=8-1

If you paid yourself minimum wage to do the work, it's cheaper to just buy the book.

leftcoast

I've done Florence to Eugene fully loaded and I wouldn't have made it with only 10 gears unless of course they were the 1st ten.

Good Luck

rm -rf

ridewithgps.com is way better for working on a ride and trying alternative routes. Just do one day at a time as separate routes.

For deciding routes based on elevation, pull down the Map menu and select Terrain. If you zoom way in, it shows contour lines every 40 feet, and darker lines every 200 feet. As you draw the route, it updates the red elevation graph at the bottom, and totals on the top right side. You can hover over the red graph to see elevation and grade at any spot on the route. And you can select a smaller part of the route by dragging on the red graph. Then the distance, elevation, and average grade at the top right will show just that section.

It's fast to try a road, then Undo it and try a different one.

Overall, ridewithgps is pretty accurate on grade percentages. But on mountain slopes, it can be off locally, showing a steeper grade than the actual grade. Since google maps guesses the actual elevation between known points, steep hillsides can affect the actual elevation enough to make an exaggerated grade percentage.

For a cue sheet, I usually copy and paste the left side cue listing into a spreadsheet program and edit to suit me. Printed maps are always a problem. I usually make a screen shot and edit the maps. It's hard to get a lot of route on a page and still see the road names. For a long ride like yours, I'd buy some real maps and draw in your route.

For instance, on this Blue Ridge Parkway route, you can drag just the climb starting at 9.4 mile mark, and see that it's 1380 feet in 4.5 miles, average 5.6%. And you can see the local grades as you move the cursor along. (The 18% grade is where the road goes through a tunnel, but google thinks it's going up and over the ridge.)

staehpj1

Adventure Cycling's Trans America section one map covers the route between Florence and Eugene and has all the info you would need for that section. The rest of your route is covered in both AC's Pacific coast route and the book already mentioned by Valygrl (Bicycling The Pacific Coast). The book may be starting to get a little out of date for some of the services since it was last published in 2005.

Alternately you could map the route on mapmyride or biketoaster and could even use AC's gps files (they are a free download). Someone even has google earth files on the web for all of the AC routes. A Google search should turn them up.

LeCollectif

Lots of great help in here. Thanks everyone. The ridewithGPS site is exactly the type of thing I was looking for. I'm going to make maps of the individual days with elevation graph at the bottom. It'll be nice to know what we're up against every day. I'll probably also pick up that book, too. Just for the facility listings.

As for my compact 10 speed setup. I'm buying a long cage Deore derailleur and a larger cassette off of CL today, which should help with the climbs.

Thanks again.

fietsbob

ODOT has a Pac Coast, map Gratis.

You can pick one up at Kiosk right after the bridge from WA,
by the Roundabout on the west end of town..
If you take the train from BC to Eugene, just ask at a Bike Shop , There.

simplygib

Also available for download here.

Unfortunately California makes you work harder by having to contact each Caltrans district you'd be riding through individually for bike maps. I didn't bother, just used the Spring and Kirkendall book.

OP, my Pacific Coast route included most of the route you're interested in, and is here on ridewithgps.com.

big_sean

I do this kind of thing for a living. It could be time-consuming and I'd have to charge you for this. However I can give you some tips for doing this in Google Earth for free.

I recently did a century ride and afterward went in and recreated the path (traced manually). GE has an integrated elevation profile function to display elevation data from overland paths. It looks like this (print screen):



For your purposes, you could do this before hand and manually create a separate path/KMZ file for each day and print that along with the elevation profile on an 8.5x11 page. You would probably want more roads displayed and less satellite imagery as well. I'm not familiar with GE's printing functionality, but surely it can be done.

I can give you some basic guidance if this sounds useful

B. Carfree

I have a bit of route advice. Don't go to Florence from Eugene. That's a so-so trip at best and you'll miss some of the best riding in Lane County by going that way. I suggest you go directly from Eugene to Reedsport via the O&C lands. Once you are twenty miles out of town, your major traffic worries are deer, black bears and birds which are a lot more enjoyable to contend with than drunken ATV folks. Here's the route: https://www.mapmyride.com/routes/view/31073976

Even though it is 90 miles from Eugene to Reedsport, the climbs are all early. (Three climbs between miles 14 and 35.) You can also camp pretty much anywhere along the first half of the Smith River or the Siuslaw River if you want to do it in two days. If you want to stay a little longer, there are other routes through the O&C that are a tad longer or taller if you want more challenging climbs. The only downside is the fact that there are no services between Eugene and about mile 80, so you have to be self-contained.

Ranger Dan

I can't help you with the mapping, but I wanted to second B. Carfree's comments re: picking a route from Eugene to the coast. I used to live near Crow, southwest of Eugene. Even back then, Highway 126 from Eugene to Florence was often very busy with traffic; I'm sure it worse now. I much preferred the ride up Wolf Creek/Smith River Roads to biking Highway 126. [Side note to B. Carfree -- when I first started biking up Wolf Creek, it was only paved for the first 7 miles, and a lot of people still called Hwy 126, Route F, so I guess that dates me. Wolf Ck., etc. has been paved for many years now].