Hi Stephen, I recently watched a talk by the creator of cycle.travel Richard Fairhurst where he explains at length how it works. It has a few different plotting modes but generally speaking It priorities quiet lanes with scenic views. He admits that sometimes this means you end up doing a little more climbing than you would otherwise but that is (at least in my experience) where the best views are!
https://youtu.be/MB-Rvt5qBFo?si=FcSZW0Q_FHD1_L1r The whole video is worth watching but the bits about how the algorithm uses scenery data are at 18:00 and 52:45. It also allows you to check the scenery using Google street view and a trail view feature I forget the name of. Happy riding, Ant On Sunday, 14 September 2025 at 05:02:10 UTC+1 [email protected] wrote: > In the old days you'd get a copy of the appropriate Michelin maps and > there'd be highlights along the routes that indicate that the road is > scenic (green highlight for Michelin maps, purple for Kummerly+Frey). > There's also a very nice cheat code that I've used successfully in the > past, which is to contact the local touring club in the area and ask (I > know you mentioned local cycling clubs only publishing group ride routes > --- but those are usually not touring clubs). They usually have lots of > rides in their ride database or worse comes to worse you can find someone > who's led rides who can share their GPS tracks with you. > > For various places I've discovered that certain people (e.g., the late > Jobst Brandt) write detailed trip reports that reward careful reading and > hence allow me to find "new to me" scenic routes that have ideal conditions > for riding (e.g., shade or tailwinds in the afternoon, amazing descents, > great places to eat or stay). By and large though most people aren't very > good at writing good trip reports. And I've discovered that on certain > websites they will post pictures of their bicycle tour only to tell me when > I ask about their routes that because they paid someone to design their > route they couldn't share their routes, which flabbergasted me, coming from > the old school "share and share alike" ethic towards touring knowledge and > route sharing. > > For foreign countries my favorite go-to are the Rough Stuff Fellowship and > Cyclists Touring Club (CTC) in England. Those clubs have been all over the > world and have very good routes and are very happy to share for the price > of membership (which years ago was only about $30/year). The OCD cycle > touring club also has excellent guides to the Alps whose suggestions are > never wrong. > > I'll plug my book: Independent Cycle Touring (https://amzn.to/46Bc1EC) > which has an entire chapter devoted to route design and map reading for > bicycle touring. In these days of GPS and Google Maps nobody's buying that > book but you may find it helpful even though it's filled with maps of > places you'll never go. > > On Saturday, September 13, 2025 at 3:01:47 PM UTC-7 [email protected] > wrote: > >> I'm looking for things like: tree cover, natural beauty, rolling hills, >> country roads and stops along the way for great snacks/coffee/adventures. >> >> RideWithGPS and Strava don't have a filter/metric for *scenic*. >> Heatmaps only tell you a route is trafficked, not the *quality*. >> Local cycling clubs only publish group ride routes (not what I'm after). >> >> What's worked for me so far is sticking to dedicated cycling paths, using >> google earth on RideWithGPS and my local knowledge of fun stops - but this >> seems hard to replicate outside of your own city. >> >> I'd love to ride in an adjacent town or take a trip a few hours away for >> a fun ride, but I haven't found a resource that's big, searchable list of >> *scenic* rides across the US or globe. >> >> RideWithGPS offers Ride Reports <https://ridewithgps.com/ride_reports>. >> This feels *almost* what I'm looking for except there's no way to filter >> by location, length or type of ride. >> >> Has anyone found a better option? >> >> - Stephen in Dallas >> > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/bb2ce620-c2e0-48a2-a398-32422bd95762n%40googlegroups.com.
