Cycle Touring / Route Finding & Prep / GPS.

[JackRabbitSlims]

a long way off, but a chance of heading to Europe in the summer of next year for some cycle touring, fully loaded and fully self sufficient

just working through some very basic logistics now and was wondering if any of you with cycle touring experience could assist in route planning and using GPS as a back up guide to physical maps

i would prefer to use a paper map and use that as my primary, but would also like a safety net for just in case
not interested in a garmin or other hand held device

i'll have my macbook air and a smart phone (HTC One) and hoping that will be more than enough to get by on?
google maps seems like the obvious choice, but i doubt i will have wifi coverage whilst riding.....can you download whilst online and use later while out riding? ( apologies if this is a basic tech question that I should know the answer to)
can you preplan a route and download whilst online and then use it to guide you whilst not online??

countries covered will hopefully be The Netherlands, Belgium, France, Spain & Portugal

thanks if you can help me out

cheers.

 

[King Boonen]

Garmin Basecamp is free to download and you can install Open Street Maps in it for free, that's one of the best ways to do it on your laptop. It'll let you view and plot your routes and create the route files for your phone. It can all be done offline too which is the most important part. I've sent them up on my MacBookPro so drop me a line if you need help.

As for the phone, I'm certain there will be apps that will display the OSM maps (which are free) and load the GPX files over the top. I can have a look for you if you need and no-one else pipes up. The OSM maps come in fragments so you would either load the ones you need one at a time to save space or stick them all on there at once (best option). The files are big but not huge, for example the whole of France is 1.5GB, Belgium is 222MB. The main thing is making sure your phone can swap from one to the other as your route moves across them.

There are also OpenFeitMaps which are more MTB specific but I think they contain all the OSM data plus added MTB data. Might be useful if you are planning anything off-road. I don't know if they are routable, which means you'll be able to overlay a route but not use them like a satnav. I don't think that's too important though judging from what you said. I have both on Basecamp. OFM has the benefit of being distributed in bigger chunks and is easily stitched together. All of Europe in OFM is 8.4GB.

I only have the OSM maps on my Garmin as I can't be bother uploading the OFM ones. The OSM maps work brilliantly.

Sounds like a fun trip!

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

Thanks for the great reply KB,

Let me have a play around with what you have suggested over the weekend and I'll see if I can get it working from this end.....if not, perhaps we have a PM discussion where you can assist??

I usually get there in the end, but it can take a while with the IT / Techie stuff

Cheers & have a great weekend.

 

[King Boonen]

Yeah fella, now worries. It all works pretty well. I don't actually use basecamp much as they have an online mapping page linked to their connect tool which I use. I do keep meaning to learn ti though as it's meant to be very good for planning trips.

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

Good stuff.

My ideal set up is a physical map, but, I'd like to have the option of downloading some maps, syncing them with my phone and having the map on the phone guide me to my next location.
Obviously, downloading whilst online to the MBA and syncing to the Phone....but using the phone attached to the handle bars as the GPS device guiding me offline.....does that make sense??

Crap day here and no riding / work, so I will play around with it later.
Have new brake pads, BB, chain to fit on the MTB and new bar tape to role on the Commuter bars.

 

[frenchfry]

I always used maps, no better way to get a feel for what's ahead. Of course back in my touring days maps were all that was available. I welcome cycling tourists through warmshowers and most of them travel only with GPS. They rarely have a good idea of what the overall route possibilities are and I get the feeling that this keeps them to the larger roads.

I suppose that a GPS would come in handy in combination with maps if you program your day and that avoids pulling out the map every 10 minutes when there are a lot of crossroads. Then again, the beauty of travelling by bike is there is no need to stick to a predetermined route - go where the beauty is!

One word of advice - light is better. I find that most cycletourists nowdays have front and rear panniers and tend to fill them up which is really penalising as soon as the road goes up.

 

[JackRabbitSlims]

Re:

I always used maps, no better way to get a feel for what's ahead. Of course back in my touring days maps were all that was available. I welcome cycling tourists through warmshowers and most of them travel only with GPS. They rarely have a good idea of what the overall route possibilities are and I get the feeling that this keeps them to the larger roads.

I suppose that a GPS would come in handy in combination with maps if you program your day and that avoids pulling out the map every 10 minutes when there are a lot of crossroads. Then again, the beauty of travelling by bike is there is no need to stick to a predetermined route - go where the beauty is!

One word of advice - light is better. I find that most cycletourists nowdays have front and rear panniers and tend to fill them up which is really penalising as soon as the road goes up.

thanks for the reply frenchfry

I'll try and use paper maps as much as possible.....GPS / Phone is just the safety net.....arriving somewhere in the dark, cold and wet - I don't want to be f@rting around with a map

Yes, I'm conscious of weight on the bike. I will be touring for up to 6 months fully self supported (Tent and camp kitchen) so I'm looking at front & rear panniers plus a dry back atop the rear rack - with more space, I'd prefer to spread the load over the bike rather than being rear dominant.
I have a guy here who rode from London to NZ on a Koga fully loaded - he is a huge help when it comes to the finer points.

I've done quite a bit of lightweight trekking / hiking in Nepal / India & Europe, but all of that is point to point with a definite bed and shelter at the end of each day....so, it's easy to travel uber light and just wash at the end of the day (clothes and body). Without having to carry tent and camping kitchen, even more simple and light weight
The Bike Touring thing is a new one for me.
I am a bike guy (obviously) so I know bikes quite well.
Having said that, I'm having a ton of fun researching bikes and the equipment needed to bike tour - it's a minefield out there, but slowly narrowing things down.