I went to Metsker Maps today to find some maps to plan an upcoming trip, but it turns out, I really have no idea what I'm looking for/at when it comes to this. Is there anybody in the group that would be willing to sit down with me for an hour or two over coffee and help me route plan with paper maps? I've grown up with electronics and am sorely lacking this skill.
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Drain
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 2:38 pm
Joined: 22 Feb 2010Posts: 902Location: Seattle
I have my Orienteering Merit Badge, send me a PM. I live in the CD.
Joined: 31 Jul 2007Posts: 3092Location: Pos, aya, por la Corona-Alta-Madera y que no.
Like.. how to read/use paper maps or how to find bicycle style route maps and resources for usage in planning?
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Marley
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 2:56 pm
Joined: 08 Sep 2014Posts: 428
Rogelio wrote:
Like.. how to read/use paper maps or how to find bicycle style route maps and resources for usage in planning?
More the latter. Done plenty of road navigating on paper, but more how to find bicycle style route maps and resources. Specifically if I want to go from Point A to Point B over 3 days- how do I locate camp grounds that will be 60ish miles apart, give or take each day? What does elevation look like? Etc.
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Andrew_Squirrel
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 3:01 pm
Joined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 2098Location: Greenwood
The thing I found most difficult to understand was government/private land use and how that impacts travel through different portions of land.
I would say I still don't fully understand all the rules of each.
DNR land seems to be the least bound by rules and most welcoming to bikes.
Stay away from "Watersheds" which are illegal to enter in a post 9/11 world.
It is currently illegal to enter Federally designated "Wilderness" on bicycle.
Ride With GPS is going to be your best best for drawing the route once you have done the research http://ridewithgps.com/ (Free to sign up but seriously consider becoming a member because they are an amazing resource to support. Bonus for membership unlocks turn-by-turn navigation from your smartphone per your pre-planned map)
There are a bunch of instructional videos that show you how to plot your map (either by using a cycling algorithm that sticks to established roads or draw point-to-point for known trail systems that don't show up on the provided maps). You can drop POI (points of interest) on your map for campgrounds, water and food resupply, bars. The website also shows you total mileage and elevation profile (with +/- numbers), you can even zoom into segments while hovering over corresponding elevation profile for % grades!
For planning you can use http://caltopo.com/ which allows you to overlay a bunch of different maps and change how translucent they are. These are helpful if one map has better road info while another shows land ownership and a third one has better topography lines. Note that the website isn't naturally intuitive IME, you might need to watch a couple videos to understand some basic functionality.
Last edited by Andrew_Squirrel on Mon Aug 17, 2015 3:39 pm; edited 1 time in total
Drain
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 3:31 pm
Joined: 22 Feb 2010Posts: 902Location: Seattle
When I planned my tour a couple summers ago I just used Ride With GPS and Google. Google is even better now because you can turn on terrain and bike routes at the same time.
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Andrew_Squirrel
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 3:34 pm
Joined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 2098Location: Greenwood
Drain wrote:
Google is even better now because you can turn on terrain and bike routes at the same time.
I was super excited to discover this a few weeks ago. I also like that they now allow further zooming-in instead of locking you out because of Terrain pixelation fear.
For those that don't know: click the triple horizontal bar left of the search box. Click Terrain and Bicycle
axel
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 9:28 pm
Joined: 15 Feb 2013Posts: 1654Location: St Johns PDX
I've owned the Benchmark Road & Recreation Atlas for Oregon for several years and can confirm that it is excellent as a planning tool, especially for finding campgrounds and other landmarks that don't always shown up on Google Maps.
in addition to all the resources already mentioned, I frequently run a Google search for results only from strava.com - lots of people publicly upload their rides and it's just a matter of a few keywords to see who's been riding and what roads they took to get there.
crazyguyonabike.com has a lot of trip reports and rider diaries. it's fairly well-organized by region.
the Adventure Cycling Association maintains and publishes a whole network of detailed bike maps. Moira is currently borrowing my copy of their Olympic Penninsula route.
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langston
Posted: Mon Aug 17, 2015 10:20 pm
Joined: 25 Jul 2005Posts: 5547Location: Columbia City
Andrew_Squirrel wrote:
For those that don't know: click the triple horizontal bar left of the search box. Click Terrain and Bicycle
well goddamn. That's neat.
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Dan
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 7:15 am
Shut UpJoined: 03 Aug 2014Posts: 566Location: Beacon Hill
langston wrote:
Andrew_Squirrel wrote:
For those that don't know: click the triple horizontal bar left of the search box. Click Terrain and Bicycle
well goddamn. That's neat.
Who says you can't teach an old man new tricks?
blasdelf
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:17 am
BAD NAVIGATORJoined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 1505
axel wrote:
I've owned the Benchmark Road & Recreation Atlas for Oregon for several years and can confirm that it is excellent as a planning tool, especially for finding campgrounds and other landmarks that don't always shown up on Google Maps.
But they still aren't particularly good for actually navigating or routefinding, it's more of a simplified fisher-price overview that'll give you some inspiration without drowning you in detail.
blasdelf
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 11:23 am
BAD NAVIGATORJoined: 01 Mar 2010Posts: 1505
Andrew_Squirrel wrote:
For planning you can use http://caltopo.com/ which allows you to overlay a bunch of different maps and change how translucent they are. These are helpful if one map has better road info while another shows land ownership and a third one has better topography lines. Note that the website isn't naturally intuitive IME, you might need to watch a couple videos to understand some basic functionality.
Yep every fussy little task in Donnie's Oregon Bikepacking article is fully automated by CalTopo but he hates it for some reason. Even his preferred hillmap.com has a "View in CalTopo" button!
And if you really want paper maps, it has a fantastic interface for preparing PDFs
Alex
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 12:12 pm
Joined: 18 May 2006Posts: 3128Location: Roosevelt
I love paper maps, but my main use for them these days is finding old abandoned campgrounds. Those make great destinations.
Marley
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 12:38 pm
Joined: 08 Sep 2014Posts: 428
Last night I had a lot of fun planning out a 3 day route with all the suggestions from you all, and a super helpful chat with Ian (Drain.) When it was all said and done, I realized I had basically done a way slowed down Ben Country X over 3 days while visiting different campgrounds along the way. Here's what I ended up with: http://ridewithgps.com/routes/9883130
Definitely still considering it, however, I might reroute some of it tonight and go up through Port Townsend for Day 2 and then ferry back. Would be up for suggestions to make it more interesting. Aiming for 30-50 miles per day.
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ride bikes
Posted: Tue Aug 18, 2015 4:28 pm
Joined: 12 Oct 2012Posts: 1493Location: Pundercover
langston wrote:
Andrew_Squirrel wrote:
For those that don't know: click the triple horizontal bar left of the search box. Click Terrain and Bicycle
well goddamn. That's neat.
... and it was an original feature of the previous major version of Google Maps. I was more than a little irate when they foolishly removed that functionality... but not irate enough to switch to Bing Maps (or is that Uber Maps now :P).
One online mapping tool I absolutely swear by is Hillmap. It's the most useful tool I've come across when planning out ski tours and it's got a bunch of trail + topo map data, too.
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