12
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 scale that's suitable to biking, 1:150'000. A bike is about 5 times as fast as a pedestrian, and a car is 3 to 4 times faster than a bike. As such, car maps are ...
11
I don't know that you can do this with the apps you are talking about.
However there is hope. Going back to first principles, you have a pc on which you want to create your route, and you have an android device which you want to stick on your bike and use for navigation. Correct?
If you accept that you need to abandon Google Maps altogether, there are ...
10
Easy bit - Touch screens don't usually work when wet, you can easily test it, sprinkle some water on the screen and see how it goes.
Because phones are high volume consumer goods designed as life style toys, not outdoor equipment, as far as IP ratings, I personally believe the claimed IP ratings are based on marketing need for a bigger number than the ...
9
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 and/or filter by region and categories (seasons, type of biking, etc...)
8
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 back and ride the same route in reverse to your home.
Next time, you can start in the same route but turn differently in some turn.
Gradually you'll start to build ...
8
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 it will show you segments that people have uploaded.
Its a good way of finding popular places for cycling, although they can often be places where people go to ...
7
Yes.
The Garmin Edge 530/830/1030 can be loaded up with extensive map data, and can give you live routing, even without a cellular connection.
Wahoo's ELEMNT ROAM can also do routing on the fly.
The Sigma Rox 12 also has extensive navigation functions.
Probably others.
There are some smartphone apps that can do this—I think the best-known are Ride with GPS ...
6
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 want this layer paired with a router you can use:
https://bikerouter.de/
A router is a program that finds a route according to your preferences. Here you can read ...
5
Inkatlas lets you create printable PDF maps with GPS tracks and waypoints (on multiple pages if needed). You can select a map style with terrain. Smaller PDFs (6 pages or fewer) are free.
Full disclosure: this is my project.
5
I use a Sony Xperia z3 compact as my bike computer/GPS, in all UK weather. It's described by the manufacturer as waterproof, but not for immersion, and I've never had any water ingress issues (even washing it up). You do have to be careful the seal is tight on the sim card slot.
As for using it in the rain, the touchscreen isn't completely useless, but it ...
5
I use the Garmin 800 and an external battery with USB output.
The Garmin will keep running for days like that, with no backlight BUT the data recording
cannot cope with a 24 hour bike ride.
On my last two 24 hour cycle events, the Garmin corrupted the activity file at around 23 hours which was somewhat 'annoying'.
I have tested it on distance, with car ...
5
My guess is that "popularity routing" is weighted quite heavily in the choice of route, and "minimise time" is a secondary weighting.
I see Google has routed you on the A541, which is definitely more direct, but may be less "compatible" with cyclists and therefore less popular. The Strava route has used B5429 which is even ...
4
I just completed a 300K brevet last weekend and my Garmin 500 ran out of juice about 2 miles from the end of the 190 miles. 18 hours. I just tried to plug it into an external battery that will charge phones and the Garmin 500, but the Garmin will not operate while plugged in and charging. Note this is the Garmin 500, not the 510.
A friend used an 810 on the ...
4
Yes you can charge the Edge 500 whilst riding at the same time, and record your ride as well.
http://www.joewein.net/blog/2013/03/04/garmin-edge-usb-power-hack/
Summary: an OTG adapter cable will charge the Garmin 500 using the rear port and allow it to keep recording. The Garmin tests one of the pins to see if it should go into PC Storage device mode, ...
3
I highly recommend https://brouter.de/brouter-web for bicycle route planning. It also calculates elevation gain/loss and tries to avoid elevation changes.
Keep in mind that elevation data can be inaccurate since it’s usually using Digital Elevation Models which are based on satellite data. For example it might miss things like bridges entirely and display a ...
3
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 incline. You could set the cost very high and set the cutoff to whatever you like. Disadvantage of this approach is that inclines below the cutoff are not ...
3
I have used bicycle mode of Google Maps for this purpose. Of course Google maps is not available everywhere. The idea is to use the voice prompts for each turn. You may be able to follow a route created in other software, but I haven't tried that.
I've done it two ways. The first time, I arranged a small pocket, pinned to the upper left of my jersey. It ...
3
Yes, you should be able to use a Garmin Oregon that way. A Garmin Oregon can do almost anything that a Garmin Edge (GPS bike computer) can do. The exact details will depend a lot on exactly which Oregon and Edge models you're comparing.
Most of the current Oregon models actually can connect to a heartrate or cadence sensor via ANT or Bluetooth.
They can ...
3
For those still interested, there's a pretty solid map site available now covering the US. Not everything is on there, and you can add more gravel roads as you find them.
https://gravelmap.com/#9.57/36.2029/-86.7234
3
Point 1, hearing the outside world, is mostly easy. If the audio is too-high a volume it can still drown out the background, but that's got to be quite loud.
Point 2, these headphones have to work with your device. If that means bluetooth, then battery life becomes a consideration. If your device has audio-output jack then that's another option.
Do note -...
3
When I got back into cycling, I would find a destination with some reason for going there, and as long as I wasn't moving something large/heavy/fragile, then the bike was a valid solution.
With a start/end and a single waypoint I could then look at the roads joining the two points, and pick out features to avoid (motorways/highways, certain intersections, ...
3
Two websites I use to find routes are RideWithGPS (for road and off-road rides) and TrailForks (for mountain biking). I've also used RideWithGPS to plan my own routes; I'm not sure if TrailForks can do something similar, I just use it to find trails.
I just checked, they both have rides available in Germany. Both websites are also available as mobile apps.
...
3
I suggest you to have a look at brouter.de . Not immediate, but extremely useful and based on OpenStreetMap data, it allows you to correctly consider (possible) heavy traffic and ground quality (tarmac, gravel, bare earth and roots? all these infos can be made available).
3
Openrouteservice has a function for "Round trip routing". This service will suggest a randomly generated (roughly) circular route. The user states where they want to start, how for they want to ride (or hike, drive, or even wheelchair), and optionally configures a random seed (for reproduceability). Openrouteservice then figures out the rest. ...
2
The RideWithGPS Android and iPhone apps now also offers this with subscription payment.
http://ridewithgps.com/app
As mentioned before, the RideWithGPS website is useful for trip planning, you can customize your cue sheets, save maps and route for offline use, etc.
2
as far as i understand it all garmins will charge off any cable/charger combination except for the Edge 500... basically the cable needs to have pins 4 and 5 grounded to earth not just pin 4, so a normal sync cable will not work you need a special charge cable, not content with paying the £12 for a usb cable for this particular use, i made my own by cutting ...
2
A generic USB cable will have the Edge switch to storage mode but I've found the Garmin cables allow charging whilst using. I have an external battery pack which I used on day-long back-country rides in the alps and could plug it in whilst on a chairlift or at a bar without interrupting the tracking. Arguably I didn't need to but it does mean that when I get ...
2
I use the Garmin Oregon 450 as a cycling GPS and I am quite happy with it. I don't have the speed/cadence sensor, but I plan to get it soon. According to the documentation it supports ANT+ sensors like the heart rate meter and the cadence sensor. Apparently it doesn't work with the speed part of the speed/cadence sensor but the cadence part does work. The ...
2
The Oregon series only reads your speed and distance from the GPS which is not always as accurate as classic speed sensors - from my experience the difference can be up to 4-5% depending on the terrain.
And you will probably have to buy a separate handlebar mount, because they are not provided in the box as far as I know.
You can use Garmin Connect, so ...
2
It's possible to get an estimate (rough, but quite possibly better than Google's) using Strava route builder in manual mode. I've checked against a local motorway (where cycling is illegal and would be very dangerous) and figures are not unreasonable. You'll need a (free) login. What you need to do:
without enabling manual mode, click on your start point
...
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