24
votes
Is 17 miles (27km) each way a lot for a newbie cyclist?
As a one-off, that should be completely doable. Your fitness from running and the gym should be plenty enough, especially as the route is pretty flat. Bear in mind that it will be tiring, since ...
- 17k
17
votes
Choosing parallel side or main road when route mapping
This is a difficult question to answer with anything other than "It depends." but I will give my criteria for choosing between alternative routes, and then the example of my typical ...
- 16.2k
16
votes
How to mitigate the risk of riding on highways
Google is probably not the best tool for this, it's not tailored to the needs of cyclists. I would always use BRouter, here is the route it produces when I ask it to give me a safe route. The route is ...
14
votes
Is 17 miles (27km) each way a lot for a newbie cyclist?
Man, just do it! There isn't much that can go wrong. If you feel tired, turn around midway. Take a mobile phone with you in case something happens, look up the weather forecast, take something to eat ...
12
votes
How to find routes
For Germany, the go-to answer is to buy the ADFC-Radtourenkarte for your region, and use that to get ideas where nice bike routes are located. The advantages of these cards are numerous:
They use a ...
10
votes
How to mitigate the risk of riding on highways
If you go to OpenStreetMap ("Cycle Map" layer), there appears to be some kind of cycle lane for the roads heading down the east coast. I did some quick checks with Google Street View and ...
- 21.6k
10
votes
Choosing parallel side or main road when route mapping
I would add to Gary.Ray's excellent answer the following thoughts:
If you're entering an area on a main road and will be exiting it on the same road, it rarely makes sense to detour onto a side road ...
- 29.1k
9
votes
Accepted
Which mapping/route planning source should I trust for elevation?
The people at Audax UK have given this some thought. They regard the gold standard as counting contours on an Ordnance Survey map (for those not in the UK, the output of our national mapping agency ...
- 57.2k
9
votes
Accepted
How to find routes
You could use Komoot, which is an app and a website which can give you recommended rides around your area and you can plan your own.
On the discover page of Komoot you can search routes in your area ...
- 158
8
votes
Is 17 miles (27km) each way a lot for a newbie cyclist?
Nope - go for it. Here are two suggested routes from Strava, which were generated at https://www.strava.com/routes/new and then clicking a start and end point, and changing some options.
This first ...
- 121k
8
votes
Accepted
is biking lower wacker drive in Chicago a good/feasable idea?
Answer (tl;dr) Find another route.
I checked around using google street view to get the image in the question. Some observations...
There are no cyclists visible anywhere. There are also no ...
- 121k
8
votes
How to find routes
An approach that works well if you have a good memory.
Just go out and ride. Memorize the route while riding. When you feel like you don't want to ride more than the same distance again, just turn ...
- 18k
8
votes
How to find routes
I don't know about Germany specifically, but I used to use Strava for finding places to ride.
If you have an account, you can go to Explore and select Segment Explore.
You can move around the map and ...
- 378
7
votes
Which mapping/route planning source should I trust for elevation?
None of them will be "right"
Strava may throw away your elevation data depending on the device used to record it. So for any phone-based app the height is ignored, and your track is placed on a ...
- 121k
7
votes
How rideable is the Long Island Expressway service road?
I would avoid the LIE Service Road At all costs during rush hour.
A couple of friends of mine have actually been issued tickets for riding on the service road. It seems to be illegal according to the ...
7
votes
Choosing parallel side or main road when route mapping
I think this depends on a ton of factors.
Even if statistics would show that one type is safer than the other: I’m not sure it would apply to your individual case since a whole lot depends on the ...
- 26k
6
votes
Accepted
I generally commute along four-lane 30 mph [50 km/h] main streets. Is this wise?
You need to exercise judgment based on your circumstances.
I generally agree with the advice to ride on arterial roads rather than side streets. But in my own town, there are some arterials I'll ...
- 29.1k
6
votes
How to find routes
I would like to add CyclOSM to the recommendations:
https://www.cyclosm.org/
This layer for Open Street Maps will show you a lot of useful information for planning your own bike tours.
If you also ...
- 161
6
votes
Accepted
Suitability of UK National Cycle Route 4 for road bike
The Bath end is close to home for me, and I've ridden quite a bit of the rest.
The Kennet and Avon towpath isn't impossible on a road bike, but in winter it gets rather muddy especially west of ...
- 57.2k
5
votes
is biking lower wacker drive in Chicago a good/feasable idea?
No, it's not a good idea
If you said that you see many cyclists every time you drive there, then that would be a route to consider.
But you see only a few cyclists. The Wikipedia page says
the ...
- 17.2k
5
votes
How to mitigate the risk of riding on highways
There usually is a way to avoid major highways, but it will just take longer. However, it usually is worth it to avoid really unsafe roads or major highways.
The best pieces of advice that has worked ...
- 2,517
5
votes
How to mitigate the risk of riding on highways
I've actually ridden in Florida on numerous roads built very similarly to the stretch of US 192 you're concerned about, in addition to thousands of miles of sometimes very busy highway and even ...
- 1,243
5
votes
Accepted
"Private" roads in Virginia
The "not publicly maintained" part of the sign is interesting. Who is the intended audience? If it's for the owner and the owner's friends, there wouldn't be a need to tell themselves that, ...
- 234
5
votes
Choosing parallel side or main road when route mapping
It depends on the ride you want to do, and when you want to do it.
I've found Strava's heatmaps near cities to show a lot of use on main roads. That's probably selection bias: commuters who log with ...
- 57.2k
4
votes
Is 17 miles (27km) each way a lot for a newbie cyclist?
Our LBS has a Saturday morning ride for which we often get beginners. Many are no longer young and not particularly fit. They can do 17 miles of flat ride before lunch. I wouldn't worry about the ...
- 2,708
4
votes
Is 17 miles (27km) each way a lot for a newbie cyclist?
I typically tell people that any normal healthy novice can get on a bicycle and do 10 miles per hour without difficulty, so if you can walk for two hours stop for lunch and walk back, then you can do ...
- 440
3
votes
Route planners with route avoidance features
https://brouter.de/brouter-web/
Allows you to draw no-go areas.
Allows you to specify cost for ascents or descents. I’m not sure it’s possible to tell it to completely avoid streets above a certain ...
- 26k
3
votes
is biking lower wacker drive in Chicago a good/feasable idea?
About me - I live in downtown Chicago and have been riding seriously in the city for 10 plus years, for most of the year, multiple days per week.
For the last 2 years, I have been walking to and fro ...
- 5,486
3
votes
Topography aware route planning
For the BRouter-web frontend and BRouter Android application, there is also many script based custom routing profiles that calculate with SRTM based elevation of supposed routes.
The fully offline ...
- 141
3
votes
Topography aware route planning
https://bikeroll.net shows you a nicely colored altitude profile where you can easily spot out the difficult part of the route.
- 31
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible