Discovering routes to ride ??

[Link]

Hi,

What sort of app/website are people using to find routes to ride ?, i think Garmin do something ?, or do people somehow share routes on a specific forum etc ?

Thanks !

 

[JoeBlow]

I find TrailForks the most useful for finding bike park and single track, down hill, style routes and Komoot and OS Maps for longer, more exploratory stuff. There are routes on Strava but it's far too orientated to social media and performance measuring for my tastes. There is also an app called ViewRanger but that feels more geared towards walkers.

Al

 

[Link]

thanks, i had a quick look in Garmin and a couple on there not a huge selection. I am right near the Surrey hills so am sure there are loads of rides, just need to find them

 

[Zimmerframe]

thanks, i had a quick look in Garmin and a couple on there not a huge selection. I am right near the Surrey hills so am sure there are loads of rides, just need to find them

Strava can be awful for "exploring" and "searching" it often won't show all the routes/segments in areas so you're often none the wiser.

However, if you know the strava ID/name of someone who rides in the area you're interested in, you can look at their rides and see where they've been - this is often an excellent way of finding trails. Once you've found some rides in the areas you're interested in, you can then click on the "show full leaderboard" option of segments they've ridden to see other riders who've ridden those segments - then click on the "time" for a segment and it will show you that persons ride - even if they're a locked down user. Hence, you can easily find more routes.

 

[GMLS]

thanks, i had a quick look in Garmin and a couple on there not a huge selection. I am right near the Surrey hills so am sure there are loads of rides, just need to find them

I'm in the Surrey Hills and there are excellent rides in Peaslake, Holmbury St Mary, Leith Hill and Redlands for starters. If you download Trailforks and download a map for that area (I think you get 1 free area to download without a paid subscription) and you'll see the different trails. For starters get yourself up to Leith Hill tower and then have a go at Summer Lightning. Its one of the few waymarked trails in the area. Another good option is Swinley Forest in Ascot. Nivarna in Wescott do an organised ride out on a Wednesday at 10am

 

[Link]

Many thanks, yes spent much time in swinley over the years racing and having fun, really want to find rides i can start from home and loop back to. (in just outside Woking area). Do you export gpx data from trail fork and use that in a Garmin for example ?

 

[GMLS]

I'm not a Techie so all I did was buy a silicone handle bar mount to hold my phone and used Trailforks to find the beginning of each trail.You'll soon find your way around and be able to link them together. Try Yougurt Pots and then onto Telegraph Road for starters.Trailforks does allow you to plan routes

 

[Bumpy]

I use a mixture of Trail Forks, All Trails and Komoot. There's some overlapping data of course, but depending on where you are in the world there's often a unique trail on each one.

 

[Link]

I have never tried it but Garmin reckons it can generate off-road routes for you given a distance and direction, might spin up a few routes and see how useful they are.

 

[Konanige]

You can't beat just getting out there with an OS map and exploring, its more fun than just using everyone else's routes.

 

[JoeBlow]

You can't beat just getting out there with an OS map and exploring, its more fun than just using everyone else's routes.

Only if that's your "thing". I've lost track of the number of times I've gone exploring and had a miserable time. Trails that are virtually none existent, fences, gates, low hanging branches, nettles and thorns. I like to let rip down fast, flowy trails with a few jumps, drop offs and berms. Most of the times I've gone looking for new trails I've felt as though I've wasted a day. It's not very often that I've been rewarded with a good discovery.

Al

 

[Link]

Only if that's your "thing". I've lost track of the number of times I've gone exploring and had a miserable time. Trails that are virtually none existent, fences, gates, low hanging branches, nettles and thorns. I like to let rip down fast, flowy trails with a few jumps, drop offs and berms. Most of the times I've gone looking for new trails I've felt as though I've wasted a day. It's not very often that I've been rewarded with a good discovery.

Al

I tend to agree, I have tried exploring and as Al has said just ended up not going very far and burning a days riding. If I had enough spare time I wouldn't mind doing a bit of that but much prefer having a guaranteed productive route in the time I have.

 

[Trig]

I generally just look at maps and see if i can make a route, have a google for any mentions on forums, and check trailforks/komoot to see if anything is listed. Then go ride it. Quite often it leads to me standing in a bog wondering how long ago the path disappeared.

I did 30 miles on Sunday to check out 2 different paths i spotted on the map, which came to maybe 2 miles long in total.
28 miles road/cycle path, and 2 miles plodding in the rain and hauling my bike through muck and cow crap on a non existant path.

I have had days ruined also where there is no way through at all, and the route is ruined and got to turn back. But for me, the exploration is why i cycle. Though i would enjoy it more if it always was cyclable...

 

[R120]

Trailforks has some of the main trails in the Surrey Hills, but there are so many here that the best way to get to know them is to go out with someone who knows the area, as its easy to get lost, and the key to a fun day out there is being able to do a loop that links in the fun stuff - we have lots of members around the area, stick a post up in one of the existing rideout threads or start a new one

 

[R120]

I'm in the Surrey Hills and there are excellent rides in Peaslake, Holmbury St Mary, Leith Hill and Redlands for starters. If you download Trailforks and download a map for that area (I think you get 1 free area to download without a paid subscription) and you'll see the different trails. For starters get yourself up to Leith Hill tower and then have a go at Summer Lightning. Its one of the few waymarked trails in the area. Another good option is Swinley Forest in Ascot. Nivarna in Wescott do an organised ride out on a Wednesday at 10am

Yes the Nirvana ride with Simon is a good one (though I would say if you are new to MTB in general I would make that clear to him so you don't find yourself following him down terrain you are not confident on), his knowledge of the area is so great that he will take you on a lot of trails you haven't got a hope of finding again! Been out with him a few times and he's taken me to areas where I could have sworn I knew most of the trails only to be riding something I had no idea was there!

 

[GMLS]

I generally just look at maps and see if i can make a route, have a google for any mentions on forums, and check trailforks/komoot to see if anything is listed. Then go ride it. Quite often it leads to me standing in a bog wondering how long ago the path disappeared.

I did 30 miles on Sunday to check out 2 different paths i spotted on the map, which came to maybe 2 miles long in total.
28 miles road/cycle path, and 2 miles plodding in the rain and hauling my bike through muck and cow crap on a non existant path.

I have had days ruined also where there is no way through at all, and the route is ruined and got to turn back. But for me, the exploration is why i cycle. Though i would enjoy it more if it always was cyclable...

Agreed and that feeling of disappointment is 10x worse on an analogue bike lol

 

[GMLS]

Only if that's your "thing". I've lost track of the number of times I've gone exploring and had a miserable time. Trails that are virtually none existent, fences, gates, low hanging branches, nettles and thorns. I like to let rip down fast, flowy trails with a few jumps, drop offs and berms. Most of the times I've gone looking for new trails I've felt as though I've wasted a day. It's not very often that I've been rewarded with a good discovery.

Al

Agree totally

 

[The Hodge]

I like a good map...but wouldn't just head out without doing a bit of research first ..at the moment I'm having fun just revisiting old routes on an ebike .
A good tool to use if you want to know how rideable a path / bridleway is before going in blind is Geograph..which aims to give a photograph of every O.S map location in the U.K....Ive found some great tracks in the past using this ..and also saved myself a bit of grief too ...

Geograph Britain and Ireland - photograph every grid square!

Geograph Britain and Ireland is a web-based project to collect and reference geographically representative images of every square kilometre of the British Isles.

m.geograph.org.uk