Who plans their routes?

[voodoo_simon]

I’m struggling to think the last time I planned a route, set it up digitally and then followed my GPS. Really can’t remember the last time I’ve done this*.

Sure, I look at maps and and have ideas where I want to ride but that’s about the extent of my planning. I may stop mid ride to get my whereabouts (via phone or a map).

Looking at Instagram (I know) I feel I must be in the minority with this approach (komoot this, strava that...).

How do most people plan their ride?

*C19 not the cause of this either

[Bearbonesnorm]

I'm very much with you Simon. I usually go as far as having (a) likely duration (b) rough direction. Sometimes there might be a spot I want to visit but generally whim, fortune and fancy are my guide. IMO too much planning removes the likelihood of anything we could consider 'adventure' from taking place.

Even with some form of plan in place, there's no guarantee it'll happen. I recall setting off with Mike with the aim of visiting the Berwyns for the Wayfarer do. I think we made it 5 miles before someone said "I wonder where that goes?". Suffice we say, we never made it

[Lazarus]

Plan as I have limited time so might as well be somewhere nice and riding the most suitable trail /route / option

[ScotRoutes]

Day rides? Rarely. But then my knowledge of my locality and a lot of the wider area is pretty extensive.

Further afield? Multi-day? Almost always. River crossings, shops, impassable obstacles etc are all issues. Frankly, I find the idea of heading off into some of our own "wilderness" with no plan pretty irresponsible, especially when conditions are sub-optimal. Like MRTs say - tell someone where you are going.

And then there's the whole Veloviewer thing....

[Borderer]

Further afield? Multi-day? Almost always. River crossings, shops, impassable obstacles etc are all issues. Frankly, I find the idea of heading off into some of our own "wilderness" with no plan pretty irresponsible, especially when conditions are sub-optimal. Like MRTs say - tell someone where you are going.

I agree with this. Also planning a ride is one of the best ways you can pass time when not on a bike. I usually plan for variations to take into account weather or finding a route too difficult to complete in the time available. I always leave details with a friend and this includes the alternatives. That way mountain rescue could find me much more easily - better all round - I don't want them to have to spend hours and drag a lot of volunteers away from their homes combing the countryside for me if something goes wrong.

[Karl]

I agree with this. Also planning a ride is one of the best ways you can pass time when not on a bike. I usually plan for variations to take into account weather or finding a route too difficult to complete in the time available. I always leave details with a friend and this includes the alternatives. That way mountain rescue could find me much more easily - better all round - I don't want them to have to spend hours and drag a lot of volunteers away from their homes combing the countryside for me if something goes wrong.

This the benefit of spot trackers and such like. You might not know where you are but everyone else does.

I've lost the art of adventure a little due to time constraints and wanting to ride good routes, though I try to find new trails when I go out.

[PaulB2]

Up until recently I've not had a mapping gps unit so I'd often plan a route out at home, upload it to the phone, put the phone in a bag and then use what I planned in my head as a rough guideline to the direction to go in. Every now and then I'd check on the phone to see how far off plan I was and adjust if I needed to.

[Alan63]

I always plan my routes. Whether I am bikepacking or hill walking, I will have one or other son with me. I like to plan routes with bad weather alternatives and bail out options.

Apart from spending hours poring over maps, part of the fun of researching any route is to read up other folks accounts. Living in Scotland, Borderer's, Scotroutes and HT rider's blogs are a great sources of information.

[ton]

i plot a route on OS maps. but dont follow it on a gps or anything. i usually have a pretty good idea of where i am heading.
i love spending time plotting routes, part of the fun of cycling for me. i dont want to spend time riding up and down dead ends or dragging my bike over shyte moorland goat tracks.

[fatbikephil]

Real mix for me. Locally I now know pretty much everything locally (i.e up to about 50 miles radius) so tend to sit the night before with a beer or two thinking where / what will I ride tomorrow. If I go further afield I'll do some more prep but more often than not this goes out the window as I follow my nose / whim. Oft times when I'm out trying to follow a specific route I think "should have bunged this on the GPS to save hassle" The odd times I remember I nearly always end up going off route.....

Given the places I go I don't bother telling others my route as you are generally in fairly benign environments (i.e not the Cairngorm plateau) and mostly places where there are plenty of others. Since getting back into hill walking this has occurred to me a bit more as I go well off the beaten track, but I don't bother, primarily as I wouldn't know who to tell! Plus any attempt I make to set up a check in procedure with friends would go wrong and likely end up with a false alarm. I'm generally of the view that if Joe Simpson can crawl out of a crevasse / Andean mountain, I can extricate myself from anywhere in the Scottish Highlands regardless of injury (unless I'm dead). Plus if no one know I'm missing then they aren't going to come looking for me

PS cheers Alan!

[benp1]

This past year, not at all. I often don't even have a plan of where I'm going, I make it up as I go along. Since the first lockdown pretty much all my riding has been from the front door

But I'll be in a new area soon, suspect I'll do a mix of route planning and playing it by ear

[summittoppler]

I've never been on a ride and followed the line of a GPS, partly because I've never owned one! (I''ve just bought one but we'll see). I do love looking at maps and all the things that come with planning, nearest shop, ROW, never been on that track etc.
When riding around Snowdonia I mostly just follow the front wheel as the chances are I've been there before or if it's a new bit I'll make sure I've done my 'homework' on it prior to leaving.
When riding somewhere new, I've either had a paper based map with me or relied on OS mapping on my phone.
However imo you can't beat going down a new bit of track with no idea whats around the corner...

[benp1]

For big rides, I nearly always follow a line. Route planning in advance is part of the fun, I don't always stick to it but in most cases do

In some cases someone else is leading so I just follow them!

[lune ranger]

I plan the hell out of it.
Distances, timings, resupply, tyres, kit, food, etc
1) I enjoy it
2)I have limited time to ride & want to extract everything I can out of it
3) After years in the forces my Mrs wants to know when to expect me home or where to find me if I don’t make it back

[Bearbonesnorm]

I would just like to say - whilst I don't go in much for planning, I do love looking at maps because they give me the inspiration to go and look. Also, I don't worry much about running into a boggy stretch or something else I'm required to push. I dont see them as time wasted. I genuinely look at it as part of the experience and those bits often make the best stories. I probably don't have a love of cycling but a love of exploring and a bicycle is the perfect way to do it.

[lune ranger]

I would just like to say - whilst I don't go in much for planning, I do love looking at maps because they give me the inspiration to go and look. Also, I don't worry much about running into a boggy stretch or something else I'm required to push. I dont see them as time wasted. I genuinely look at it as part of the experience and those bits often make the best stories. I probably don't have a love of cycling but a love of exploring and a bicycle is the perfect way to do it.

Playing devils advocate here..:
That looking at maps you do, isn’t that planning of sorts? One can certainly absorb a lot of information about an area that way.
Even the information you hold on your head provides a framework for a trip - a plan of sorts - whether consciously or unconsciously.

[Chew]

Theres a difference between having an outline of a trip in your head and i'm going on an adventure.

vs

Planning out every detail of a trip and then going out and actioning it.


I do a bit of both, but the best trips have always been on the winging it approach

[RIP]

"Plan" = "a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something" or "an intention or decision about what one is going to do". I'll do the latter, it's vaguer, but not the former. Clear as mud .

A "plan" generally doesn't imply "happy to change things on a whim", so I'm in Stu's camp.

[frogatthefarriers]

I plan anything that's not local. That's because I can't trust my goldfish memory (Ooh look, there's a castle.) to remember even the next turn, never mind the 3/4/5 after that. I put my routes on the etrex, and because the screen is so small, it's easiest is to follow the line. I have a fair few OS paper maps, but find it easier using MemoryMap/Viewranger/Where's the Path. That's not to say I don't like looking at paper maps: OS maps are a thing of beauty, but it's just easier on-screen.

However, having planned my ride, I've still been stumped by :-

riding up and down dead ends or dragging my bike over shyte moorland goat tracks.

Having said that, a piece-of-crap trail does, with hindsight, definitely add something to a trip. I think I remember those bits more fondly than I do the bivvies.

[Alpinum]

For big rides, I nearly always follow a line. Route planning in advance is part of the fun, I don't always stick to it but in most cases do

In some cases someone else is leading so I just follow them!

Similar here for big rides. Route and alternative routes, planning and all that. I quite like doing the homework too.
I like to say Google Earth is the only computer game I play.

For regular rides or shorter multi day trips, I have a rough area and a few ideas, some of which mostly get covered in sorts. I always try to let my girlfriend know as precisely as possible about where and when, not just because I use my inreach only for truly remote areas (multi day trips in phone signal free areas), but also because I'm not always a careful, responsible rider. Had friends crash in the mountains with nobody knowing where exactly they were. Not fun at all. A minor injury can very quickly lead to a life threatening issue.

[Hamish]

I tend to build up a picture of the places I am interested in by looking at maps and google earth and stuff and scope out a load of routes which I can then use and link together when I’m riding and then see how it all goes and change plans according to mood, weather, distance covered and so on. It does mean lots of checking maps in the tent at the end of some days.

On one evening at home plotted a route from Lochaline to the head of Loch Sunart using maps and Google earth along a line for which there didn’t appear to be a track marked on the map. It turned out to be a brilliant route when I set of to explore it on the spur of the moment as opposed to leaving Mull via a different ferry.

[Verena]

Further afield? Multi-day? Almost always. River crossings, shops, impassable obstacles etc are all issues. Frankly, I find the idea of heading off into some of our own "wilderness" with no plan pretty irresponsible, especially when conditions are sub-optimal. Like MRTs say - tell someone where you are going.

I agree with this. Also planning a ride is one of the best ways you can pass time when not on a bike. I usually plan for variations to take into account weather or finding a route too difficult to complete in the time available. I always leave details with a friend and this includes the alternatives. That way mountain rescue could find me much more easily - better all round - I don't want them to have to spend hours and drag a lot of volunteers away from their homes combing the countryside for me if something goes wrong.

I agree, I enjoy the planning before, and then being able to just follow the line on the etrex. But have the flexibility to vary it or take shortcuts if needed. Have never got round to leaving details of where I am with someone, but think I ought to. I often take a paper map as backup.

[FLV]

Yup. almost always plan a route.

Probably 50% of the time I plan it on a map and put it in a GPS. I probably follow it about 30% of the time but am in the general area and just go where I please. The more road there is in the ride, the more I am likely to follow the route.

The other 50% I plan it in my head. I rarely leave the door without knowing roughly where I am going or roughly how long I will be.

Some of the time I use the komoot or strava and 'pick' my points really far apart. Just to see where it takes me. Maybe I will see something or ride something I haven't seen or ridden before. Which is always nice, even if you would only do it once.

[Gummikuh]

Hi

I tend to plan a general route to include things I consider of interest, not always on a GPS though.

But it really depends where I am, locally not at all, if I was away from my locale then certainly, just as a back up if things go wrong and I need to limp back to a road, or the shortest distance, that way I am able to relax a bit and enjoy being open to "where does that go".

[voodoo_simon]

Could to hear peoples thoughts on this.

Went for a walk last summer in the evening, had Pen Y Ole Wen in mind but once I got to Ogwen, the sun was setting, the rock was warm and Tryfan was too good an opportunity to say no! It was only half way up that I realised I hadn’t told anyone I’d switched hills Quick text and all done, but need to make more of an effort to let Mrs- Voodoo my vague plans.

Have noticed in the last 18 months I’ve been driving all around Cheshire. 80-100 miles per day but always following the sat nav, I have little idea at times where I am but if I drive without the sat nav, I’ll generally always find my way back on the next visit. Guess I pay more attention to the surrounding area