[HN Gopher] Show HN: Bike route planner that follows almost only...
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Show HN: Bike route planner that follows almost only official bike
trails
Hey guys, I built a route planner that is mostly focused on bike
touring and using existing bike infrastructure. For each request
you're shown what bike tracks/trails your route uses and can
further explore them by showing them on map or going to the
official trail route. The main idea for the app is to have a
friendly and easy to use planner that would make heavy use of
official bike trails data (mainly from OpenStreetMap) and make it
easy to plan a longer trip using the best possible bike routes out
there. Currently the app only works for the Euro region but I'm
planning to add North America very soon and then rest of the world.
Technical overview: Route finding - Graphhopper sitting in a docker
container on a Hetzner server somewhere in Germany. It has 38 GB of
graph data(Europe) loaded into RAM for a fast graph traversal. Web
App - Next.js 14 with Typescript, backend on the newest version of
.NET Map tiles - right now I'm using MapTiler their free tier but
planning to switch to my own home server soon and host the maps on
it.
Author : allg12
Score : 192 points
Date : 2024-11-20 20:23 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (trailimap.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (trailimap.com)
| NowhereMan wrote:
| The menu takes up the entire screen on my phone and it is not
| clear how to close it.
| doublehelix1020 wrote:
| Additionally, even when holding my phone sideways so that I can
| see the map, it doesn't appear that hitting "add new point"
| does anything
| perpil wrote:
| Typo on the menu: Acitvity->Activity
| allg12 wrote:
| Damn, that's a bit embarrassing. Thanks for pointing this out!
| amarcheschi wrote:
| It has a few graphical issues but it's definitely cool, here in
| Tuscany I just grab the car recommended track on maps because if
| I select to go by bike it suggests off-road, which is a no no for
| road bikes
| nodehopper42 wrote:
| Are you aware of "brouter"? Depending on the routing rules (upper
| left selector) you can choose multiple trail preferences.
|
| https://brouter.de/essbee/
| Heliosmaster wrote:
| And it's forked frontend https://bikerouter.de
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Unusable for me as it won't let me force a specific route. Yes,
| a car can't drive through that gate, but I can walk through it
| with my bike. Auto routing is neat and all, but in the real
| world, cyclists need more flexibility.
| 0l wrote:
| That link seems to be for an older version from 2021, the
| latest version is here: https://brouter.de/brouter-web
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Nice!
|
| I added a similar feature to cycle.travel (my site) a few months
| back. 5% of the work was writing the code to route only on
| waymarked routes, 95% was writing code to "heal" the accidental
| breaks in OSM bike route data...
| PrismCrystal wrote:
| What does "waymarked routes" mean, exactly? And same question
| for the OP.
|
| Doing OSM editing from Mapillary imagery in various US states,
| I find that the roads that have roadside signage as "official
| bike routes", predate modern safe(r) bike infrastructure. These
| are often highways that frankly look like death traps: no
| shoulder, high speed limits. Especially when so many North
| American long-haul cyclists now are riding "bikepacking"
| setups, it may be preferable for a router to prioritize quiet
| agricultural tracks and other unpaved terrain over the
| supposedly official bike route.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Yeah, waymarked routes in much of the US are an absolute
| embarrassment. Last time I went cycling in NY State the worst
| part of the whole route was the official State Bicycle Route.
| The quiet roads were lovely.
|
| cycle.travel treats routes in the States differently to those
| in Europe for precisely this reason, and there are some
| routes which get absolutely zero uplift because many of them
| are so bad (looking at you, East Coast Greenway).
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Your site doesn't appear to have waypoints? As an avid cyclist,
| I couldn't imagine just using some calculated route between two
| points. I ride for fun, not transportation.
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| Sure, you can add up to 200 waypoints - if you want to do
| that via the old-school click-click-click there's a toggle,
| or you can just drag the route. I ride for fun too which is
| why I built a routeplanner that likes quiet and scenic roads!
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Have you seen www.cycle.travel? It's an excellent bike route
| planner made by an indie developer. Your GUI is much more
| pleasant, and the official bike trails idea is good. What you're
| missing is writing start and destination points instead of
| clicking on the map. Maybe you could get together and make a
| killer product.
|
| Edit: I see now that the cycle.travel developer is here in the
| thread :)
| ollybee wrote:
| What I really want form a bike route planner is a map style that
| shows smaller roads as you zoom out. When planning a cycling I'm
| interested in tiny back back roads but they are hidden as soon as
| I zoom out on any map enough to be useful for route planning.
| jMyles wrote:
| Yep. This is the a crucial cycling feature that's missing.
|
| Ideally, I'd also like to highlight roads with diverters,
| circles, chicanes, bumps, tables, etc.
| david-gpu wrote:
| In OpenStreetMap, which is the data source used by most of
| these navigation apps, the relevant key is _traffic_calming_.
|
| I have not found any navigation app that preferentially
| chooses streets with _traffic_calming_ features, such as
| speed humps. I recently suggested that in OSMAnd and got no
| traction [0].
|
| [0] https://github.com/osmandapp/OsmAnd/issues/21320
| pajko wrote:
| Have you tried https://brouter.de/ ? If that feature is
| neither supported here, it worth trying to request it.
| jMyles wrote:
| Interesting - I'd love to know more about this, and perhaps
| assist with the data model.
|
| While purpose-built traffic calming infra is super nice to
| have, I'm somewhat more interested in the much more
| prevalent (at least, outside Europe and Asia) and also muc
| less expensive roadways which are traffic-calm by default,
| owing to natural chicanes, unimproved areas, one-lane
| bridges, etc.
|
| Bogota, for example, has a fairly elegant network of
| unimproved roads connecting the parks. If you take a ride
| with a local, you see the bike infra much more acutely than
| what is expressed on gmaps, or even theoretically by
| looking at `traffic_calming==true`. A much more granular
| data type is required.
| qwertox wrote:
| OpenTopoMap is what solves that issue for me. The contrast on
| that map is excellent.
|
| It's a mostly a style for OSM with hillshading applied. The
| Friedrich-Alexander-Universitat Erlangen-Nurnberg is hosting a
| web-based "preview" of it at https://opentopomap.org.
| https://brouter.de/brouter-web and https://bikerouter.de also
| have it as a selectable map layer, and it can also be added to
| OsmAnd.
| qrohlf wrote:
| Not sure if you're looking for paved or unpaved backroads, but
| if it's the latter I recently shipped a feature at my day job
| (https://ridewithgps.com) that highlights all unpaved
| backroads, visible up to zoom level 8 (above zoom 8 we start
| running into tile size/data limitations).
|
| May be useful to you or others in this thread. We lean pretty
| heavily into the "cycling power user" market segment, the
| feature set isn't always the most discoverable but it's quite
| comprehensive if you put in the up-front time to learn the
| tooling (similar to a lot of other specialty mapping apps out
| there - caltopo, fatmap (rip) etc)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| A subscription? $10 a month?? That's the cost of a music
| streaming service!!
|
| I'd spend up to a $100 once on a killer tool that meets all
| my needs in this space.
|
| This subscription first crap is way out of hand.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Since this is getting downvoted, I'd sure like to hear why
| you think an app like this justifies a $10/mo sub.
| vanilla_nut wrote:
| I've used ridewithGPS for multiple bike tours, the
| longest being a full month of unsupported riding. I also
| use it to scout out routes when I want to create a new
| ride somewhere in my area on roads I don't know already.
| ridwithGPS has a few features that really stand out, IMO:
|
| * excellent, almost entirely bug-free routing on mobile
|
| * heatmap data, because maps aren't entirely up-to-date
|
| * multiple map styles, so you can pick what works best
| for your workflow and the country you're in
|
| * easy GPX file export, I use it all the time with the
| bike computer (every day on tours)
|
| * collection management, especially useful when I make
| per-day routes for a tour
|
| * a healthy trial period so you can actually test it out
| and learn it
|
| Basically it's just an excellent app (and site) that
| works reliably across every supported platform, that
| isn't full of spammy upselling garbage, that is clearly
| made by a competent team of developers who care deeply
| about the product they make.
|
| Every tech product should be made like this. A lot of
| tech products _used_ to be like this before
| enshittification really took off in the last 5-10 years.
|
| I'm more than happy to support a great product like this,
| as a bicycle tourist and frequent router over
| unfrequented trails and dirt roads in the mountains
| around me. For road riders in cities, it's probably a
| whole lot less useful. But there are a lot of bicycle
| riding use cases outside of 'road riders in cities' :-)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >frequent router over unfrequented trails and dirt roads
| in the mountains around me
|
| This is me as well. Thanks much for your perspective, it
| was helpful in me making the decision to jump in.
|
| I do like the idea of supporting products and services
| that are staving off enshitificaiton.
| dx-800 wrote:
| It's for serious cyclists, for whom $10 a month is barely
| noticeable, considering how much you can spend on the
| bicycling hobby. For example, I do bicycle touring,
| weeks-long or months-long trips every year, and the
| RideWithGps route planner/navigation tools are extremely
| useful when riding thousands of miles by yourself in
| places you aren't familiar with.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| $10 per month is the minimum price that you should use
| for any software or digital product. People who are
| unwilling to pay $10 per month are also unwilling to pay
| $5 per month or $1 per month - regardless of how much
| value they get from the product. Ten dollars is the
| bottom.
|
| Why should it be a subscription instead of a pay-once
| app? Maps have to update as the real world updates, and
| probably they have other features that can't be on-
| device.
| Moru wrote:
| $10 per month might be the minimum price that is
| acceptable in US. This looks very different depending on
| your salary and if you can choose not to pay tax for
| health care and such. Have seen cases where different
| prices for different areas in the world when I was
| younger, not sure how that looks now.
|
| I'm paying for $1 and $5 subscriptions (ko-fi) for things
| I like and use. But $10 is getting too high for a thing
| even though I use it every day. Within five months I'm
| already past the value of my bike. I need that money to
| change parts to be able to continue biking.
|
| What I ususally do is a one-month subscription to
| support. Then I turn it off for the rest of the year.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| You are the exception. Very few people who wouldn't pay
| $10 would pay $5 or $1, no matter which region. If your
| salary level makes $10 an important amount of money, then
| priorities should be food, shelter and such. And if you
| need five months to save up for bike parts, then you have
| to urgently try to fix your economic situation, before
| you put your own health and future at risk.
| macintux wrote:
| I think your price analysis is predicated on the amount
| of friction.
|
| For me to sign up with a 3rd party service to pay a
| subscription: yes, $10/month is probably the smallest fee
| I'd bother with.
|
| To add a subscription through my Apple devices, where I
| can manage my apps in a single pane of glass and
| start/stop subscriptions at will, I'm fine with paying
| $10/year, $2/month, whatever.
| cullenking wrote:
| I didn't downvote you FYI, but to answer your question, I
| run ridewithgps and as a result have a pretty in depth
| understanding of all the costs involved.
|
| We have 14 machines in a rack at a datacenter in PDX, and
| have focused on low hosting costs since we have
| historically been bootstrapped and margin sensitive.
| Redundant switches, 2 firewall/load balancers, 4 compute
| machines, 3 database machines, 5 storage servers. Single
| upstream network provider, about to be two sometime next
| year. Rack space + power + redundant network is about
| $3500 a month. Machines have an average service life of
| about 5 years.
|
| Database machines cost about $45k for a set of three.
|
| Storing user data is non-trivial - GPS track files add up
| when you get close to a billion of them, photos are also
| very large. We use a self-hosted ceph object storage
| cluster of 5 machines, about $100k of hardware. it's
| cheaper than 20k a month in S3 bills.
|
| Our rack all-in is probably about $250k of equipment. 5
| year service life, probably $5k a month amortized out.
| So, doing things as cheap as possible (I buy nvme SSDs
| for storage cluster off ebay, and am about to buy a
| couple arista 100gbe switches from ebay as well) we are
| somewhere around $8500 a month on hosting.
|
| We use both google maps as well as self-hosted OSM based
| map and routing services. About half our map usage goes
| to google, by user preference, and we pay them about
| $20,000 per month for that. Our self-hosted OSM map stuff
| require 1tb of ram, fast disks, a ton of CPU cores. We
| host 10 different planet scale routing profiles via
| graphhopper, which take 3 days to build every week with
| updated data. They also host a vector maps stack which is
| much more efficient, taking about 3 hours a week to
| build.
|
| My last estimate of an AWS bill for all the above was
| $30k a month, assuming some discounts. We have grown
| since then and I'd napkin us to be > $40k a month at this
| point.
|
| We strive to minimize any costs for third party
| platforms. We do use amplitude for analytics, that's >
| $30k a year at this point. We do use an external email
| service for easy marketing emails, but the majority of
| our millions of emails a month are sent from our own mail
| servers, using an in-house system we made a decade ago
| that still works well. We try to minimize vendor lockin
| and costs, where it makes sense.
|
| Most expensive part of the entire company of course is
| salaries, with of course an eye to developer and related
| salaries. We run pretty bare bones where possible, with a
| flat management structure with minimal overhead. Our
| total staff size is 32, of which 6 are full-time end user
| support.
|
| A bit of a ramble, sorry, but there's a large amount of
| overhead to run a system like ours. We don't just make a
| one-time use desktop application, we have to continually
| provide storage and compute for all users. If we stopped
| that, the entire service would fall apart. So yes, a
| subscription makes sense in a case like ours. You can't
| do what we do with a desktop app. Plus, the entire world
| has switched to mobile for this sort of consumer
| application, which is an entire rat race of it's own. You
| can't just release a single purchase app and expect it to
| be maintained, it's a massive effort to keep up with
| mobile development just to maintain features, much less
| build anything new.
| dx-800 wrote:
| Thanks for your interesting comment. I'm a happy customer
| of ridewithgps, and run a small B2B SaaS, so I love
| hearing details like this.
|
| One comment: I hope you don't start emphasizing the
| "social media" aspects, like Strava has done, to their
| detriment, in my opinion. That's what prompted me to
| finally delete my Strava account (after uploading my
| thousands of activities to ridewithgps.)
| kemotep wrote:
| Always great to see a successful "Single Rack of Failure"
| project out in the wild. And I don't mean this as a
| negative. By being able to contain and control all the
| business into a single rack, you can more easily set up
| redundancy than trying to replicate your AWS environment
| between availability zones or worst, try recreating it in
| Azure or Google with all the different services,
| footguns, and so on. Just get another rack in a different
| datacenter and you're set.
|
| Congratulations to your team on keeping costs low and
| running a successful business out of a single rack.
| cullenking wrote:
| We are just about finished with a total hoist into a
| self-hosted k8s cluster. We've gone slow due to my
| concerns about k8s and the additional complexity, but
| it's actually been pretty smooth and enjoyable. The end
| goal is the ability to point our helm charts at any cloud
| provider and have the entire infra stood up in less than
| a day. We already do offsite backups to rsync.net. We
| don't need crazy redundancy and are OK with a certain
| amount of risk to availability and < 1 day of data loss.
| Only thing that would take a long time is some GIS search
| data. We use elasticsearch and h3 hex strings encoded to
| guarantee prefix searching works for different zoom
| levels, which is a couple terabytes of derived data that
| takes a while to compute.
|
| I have been enjoying this on-prem renaissance that we've
| seen over the last couple of years, makes my stubbornness
| around self-hosting feel smart in hindsight ;)
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| I sincerely appreciate your serious answer to my serious
| question. I am quite surprised at all these costs
| considering that OSM is free, but you explained them very
| thoroughly and I am impressed. You have adequately
| justified the subscription requirement.
|
| This post, combined with the fact that your planner
| actually allows me to force a path has won me as a
| customer. I'll also note that setting your yearly at 75%
| of the monthly is wise considering very low winter time
| usage.
|
| For me, churn or not is going to come down to whether I
| can read critical details on your mobile app without
| having to put reading glasses on. (which is a factor that
| not even a $2t company like Apple can address properly)
| cullenking wrote:
| Unfortunately we still have work to do there. We have
| dabbled in a separate map style, but it's really
| difficult to get any roadnames to show up when you start
| increasing font sizes in map styles. It's a sort of pick-
| your-poison - big maps where you can see the roads with
| almost no road names, or maps with smaller details with
| road names. The app itself should mostly scale well with
| increased system font sizes, but we are still carving out
| a couple of webviews in the app which have funky
| behavior. I do like to joke that with our average staff
| age passing 40 in the next year or two, we'll solve all
| readability issues....
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| Well, at least you are aware and considering oldster
| eyes. Apple regularly makes incredibly bad UI choices
| that would be easy to avoid.
|
| Serious cyclists tend to be on the older side...
| Moru wrote:
| You forget one thing. RWGPS is (I think) one of the few
| training apps that can record and display all the data on
| the free tier. And it doesn't nag you every 5 minutes to
| upgrade to Pro or whatever. I really appreciate that and
| try to buy a one-month subscription once per year when I
| can afford it.
|
| I have also worked with gps data and run my own map
| server (for a small country) so I know it costs money,
| time and effort. And thanks for the breakdown!
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Except that if you're a serious cyclist, spending $10/month
| on a really good road mapping service is worth more to you
| than spending $10/month on a music streaming service (or 2
| coffees at Starbucks).
| Moru wrote:
| Don't compare RWGPS to Starbucks please... The coffee
| isn't really worth that kind of money. But $10 is a lot
| in different parts of the world. For me that is more than
| what I pay for my mobile internet connection that works
| out in the nowhere.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| > But $10 is a lot in different parts of the world
|
| of course; this is primarily a US audience (maybe parts
| of Europe)
| Doctor_Fegg wrote:
| cycle.travel (my site) aims to do that - the advantage of
| developing your own cartography! Minor roads in rural areas are
| shown earlier than in most other styles, but in urban areas
| they kick in later to avoid cluttering the map too much.
| 113 wrote:
| It's a good app, I was happy to subscribe once I used it a
| couple of times to find new routes about the city.
| hn_user82179 wrote:
| is that your site? I love it! I used it on an 800 mile bike
| ride 2 years go.
| RankingMember wrote:
| Just wanted to pop in and let you know I use your site all
| the time and it's still the best (and I've tried _everything_
| ) at creating routes to avoid dangerous roads. Thank you for
| the awesome app.
|
| One little feature that's great is the quick link to view
| Google Streetview images, and the only thing I'd change is to
| have it let me do that anywhere on the map (not just on the
| route) so that I can look at alternatives without dragging
| the route there first.
| Moru wrote:
| Wow, first bike router that chooses the same route I would to
| and from work. The others all take the steepest hill in the
| area instead of the slightly longer around the hill.
| topher515 wrote:
| This is sort of what the Strava "heatmap" map is when you
| switch it to cycling mode: https://www.strava.com/maps/global-
| heatmap?sport=Ride&style=....
| kilokilosupa wrote:
| Any plan to make it open source?
| grbi wrote:
| In France, there is
| https://www.francevelotourisme.com/itineraire/gps
|
| UI is not as good but, there is very useful tools like camping,
| train station, the ability to split your trip in steps ect.
| pppone wrote:
| Thank you for this. I personally appreciate the easy to download
| GPX for my Wahoo. For reference, I've been using [0] to get
| around the city since Google Maps sucks here. I also really like
| the routes suggested by [1], but their mobile app is super buggy.
|
| [0] - https://cyclers.app/
|
| [1] - https://www.cyclestreets.net/
| thenewrohirrim wrote:
| hi - if you like the routes suggested by 1, try
| https://cyclema.ps/hello - disclaimer, i'm part of the team
| behind it.
| pppone wrote:
| Looks really nice - congrats on the app :). I can't test it
| since I don't use iOS. But if you ever make an android or web
| browser version - happy to play :)
| thenewrohirrim wrote:
| thank you!
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| As a cyclist, I would never plan routes on a tiny phone
| screen with a crappy UI. I would always plan on a computer
| and then use the phone to keep me on track.
| KomoD wrote:
| > [0] - https://cyclers.app/
|
| This looks interesting and the mobile app seems well made, I
| like that it suggests multiple routes. Currently I just use
| Google Maps and it sucks here as well.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| [0] looked like it would be great, but every time I select an
| origin point, it just shows a bunch of plans which get in the
| way of the route I am trying to build.
|
| So far, every planner I have tried from this thread has just
| been frustrating in one way or another. It seems very hard for
| most to understand things like road+MTB in one ride or that the
| map shows that the road doesn't go through, but I can simply
| walk through a gate that a car can't.
| allg12 wrote:
| Sorry, forgot to mention. The planner is a mess on mobile I
| totally forgot to make it mobile friendly as I didn't think
| anyone would want to plan their trip on a phone.
| ickelbawd wrote:
| Perhaps the number of mobile users would be lower than desktop,
| but I've had to reroute a planned trip from my phone a few
| times now due to unforeseen construction and road obstructions.
| verelo wrote:
| Interesting assumption. My mind goes to to a) Most people are
| mobile first and b) In this category of app, i imagine people
| want the route with them on their phone as they bike (as
| they're probably unfamiliar with the route, hence the need to
| plan it)
|
| Cool idea, i'd love to try it but honestly i'd love it on my
| phone for the aforementioned reasons!
|
| ---
|
| Edit: Some follow up remarks (From Chrome on a Mac)
|
| 1. I found it a bit confusing when creating a route. I assumed
| it would let me do address completion. The UI seems to just be
| naming my route instead, i think if you're going to borrow
| visually from Google maps you should follow their patterns.
|
| 2. I was able to add my first point (my home), but adding a
| second point never worked.
|
| 3. The click mechanic is a bit odd. I expect clicking elsewhere
| when the menu is open (add point/close) that the menu would go
| away - rather than re-appear in my new click location.
|
| 4. The map centred me over Europe, i'm in Canada however. Some
| GeoIP lookup here could give a better experience.
|
| 5. Re:point 2, this seems to work when i selected random
| locations in Europe. I assume this is a data issue? So the real
| issue here (apart from the routing not working) is there's no
| feedback on the UI when the routing fails.
|
| 6. Refreshing my screen loses my route. Any chance you could
| save it to local storage or something? Would be amazing if i
| could create this route on my desktop and then send a link to
| my phone (once mobile is supported?)
| carlosjobim wrote:
| I think the purpose is to export the route to GPX, so that
| you can use it on your phone when you're cycling.
| verelo wrote:
| Yeah, that's fair. I just don't have a habit of doing that
| so for me the GPX thing while good is a change in behaviour
| that limits me from adopting this app / exploring new
| trails. Also on further thought, i could see myself wanting
| to change the route mid-journey and that would be another
| issue with only having the GPX file.
| wintermutestwin wrote:
| >a) Most people are mobile first
|
| I couldn't imagine trying to build a complex route on a tiny
| screen with a crappy phone UI. I am starting to feel like an
| old man yelling at clouds here. Why in the hell wouldn't you
| prefer to use a nice monitor with a mouse for a complex task
| like this?
| verelo wrote:
| I mean, i made the remark and I feel the same as you. I
| think its just the reality of the world we live in. A lot
| of people are mobile first, watching a neighbours kid try
| use a mouse the other day really drilled it home for me.
| Put her on a phone? No issues. But on the laptop the kid
| was as lost as I was when my dad showed me a slide rule
| (i'm 38).
| asdff wrote:
| Because you might plan a route while already out on your
| bike
| 0_____0 wrote:
| I just did this today! I got routed up a cow path and had
| to shoo cows out of my way as I hiked my bike up a
| canyon.
| david-gpu wrote:
| _> I couldn 't imagine trying to build a complex route on a
| tiny screen with a crappy phone UI. _
|
| I nearly always plan routes on my phone. After all, it's
| the device I use for navigation attached to the stem of my
| bike.
|
| _> Why in the hell wouldn 't you prefer to use a nice
| monitor with a mouse for a complex task like this?_
|
| The task isn't very complex with a decent UI. See for
| example the open-source app OSMAnd (Android & iPhone).
| Also, I am rarely at my desk, but I always have my phone on
| me. There can also be the issue of _" Neat, I made a route
| on a big screen; now, how do I get it on my phone for real-
| time navigation?"_ depending on the app you are using.
| antasvara wrote:
| Obviously not a representative sample, but I'd say ~25% of
| the people I know have a monitor and mouse, and the
| majority of that group only use it for work.
|
| Thia isn't to say you're wrong. I much prefer my monitor
| and mouse for anything of reasonable complexity. But I
| increasingly find myself in the minority in that regard
| among people I know. Hell, I even find myself in the
| minority for using a laptop for tasks sometimes.
| qwertox wrote:
| I share your perspective. I use Komoot extensively and I use it
| only on the phone for recording the ride, have it route me
| through the trip I planned on the web interface, and also to
| check where some paths I find during the ride lead to. If I
| then decide to use that unknown path, I either add a new
| waypoint or just ignore it until I'm on the planned track again
| (just seeing the trails is then good enough).
|
| There are simply some things where a phone screen is just too
| small to use efficiently, and the fingers sometimes aren't just
| a good, precise enough input device.
|
| Though I am a bit irritated by the brightness of the route on
| your site, it lacks contrast with respect to the surrounding
| map.
|
| BTW, how is that routing done? Like which is the used routing
| engine and is it done server-side or in the browser?
|
| ---
|
| It does seem to have a bug, where, when deleting a waypoint,
| the mouse still is in "create waypoint mode", and any mouse-
| down on the map, including for panning, results in adding a
| waypoint.
| uoaei wrote:
| When I'm on multi-day trips, planning on my phone is the only
| option. I usually plan only a couple days ahead and refresh the
| route based on that day's detours and activities.
| pppone wrote:
| +1 for mobile. I would use it primarily as a means to plan
| urban routes and cycle touring (I wouldn't be touring with my
| laptop :P)
| Moru wrote:
| I'm so desktop first, it's not even funny. But this is one of
| the few things I do on mobile. When I have the chance to go for
| a long ride I do the routing every few hours or so. This
| because I'm using something called Turfgame.com to explore new
| areas and take zones for a competition. I need to plan the
| route between the zones and maybe change route in case someone
| blocks my path. This will be done on the phone while having a
| break somewhere. I'm using Ride With GPS for the recording of
| the path and Naviki for the routing because that has all the
| turf zones as POI's so very easy to reroute.
| hgomersall wrote:
| Fwiw, mapping is the thing I genuinely value smart phones for
| (vs dumb phones). I've been recently looking at uploading the
| gpx traces to my new Garmin watch, but creating the traces is
| still not perfect. OSMAnd does a reasonable job, but it's a bit
| circuitous to get the trace uploaded.
| jubjubbird wrote:
| Here's a cool demo I saw recently that allows a cyclist to
| specify risk tolerance for busy roads, based on traffic data.
| Take the direct, busy route, or the roundabout way, using bike
| paths where available.
|
| https://rc.nau.edu/cranc/?profile=ibc&layer=OpenStreetMap
| lqet wrote:
| Works very well, it exactly replicated my everyday route to work.
| Mainsail wrote:
| So for me, it doesn't add a second point. Is that because it
| can't find a route or is it just not working?
|
| Boulder, Colorado for reference.
| vulture916 wrote:
| Same in Phoenix.
| KomoD wrote:
| "Currently the app only works for the Euro region but I'm
| planning to add North America very soon and then rest of the
| world."
| jameal wrote:
| Looks interesting! Unfortunately doesn't seem to let me add more
| than one point on my route. In the console I see
|
| `Error fetching route from Graphhopper Error: Network response
| was not ok`
|
| I tried a couple times and got this in the U.S. In Europe I
| picked a couple random points and it worked fine.
| oregoncurtis wrote:
| I'm getting the same, it's a 400 response.
| allg12 wrote:
| So far, I've only generated the graph for Europe(using
| Graphhopper). Even just Europe required 128GB of RAM and
| around 10 hours of computation time (the entire planet would
| likely need 384GB of RAM). I plan to add North America on a
| separate Docker container soon though. I started with Europe
| because I'm familiar with some of the bike trails here, which
| makes it easier for me to check if the routing makes sense.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| You should at least add some kind of error handling so I'm
| not sitting there like a dope clicking over and over with
| no result.
| karussell wrote:
| > the entire planet would likely need 384GB of RAM
|
| Unlikely. Even with turn costs enabled 256GB (or less) are
| sufficient. You could also try to disable CH as for bike
| often no long routes are required (you could disable them).
| Here we have written down a few more details:
| https://www.graphhopper.com/blog/2022/06/27/host-your-own-
| wo...
| Sacco215 wrote:
| Holy shit it's awesome!
|
| I've been bikepaking for two years now and I wish I had this tool
|
| I've used komoot in the past but I was never satisfied with the
| paths it suggested and had to rely on local guides
|
| I've checked with some of the past trips I id and it guesses
| correctly all of the best paths
| allg12 wrote:
| Thanks man! Really glad to hear that. Actually, I had
| bikepacking and bike touring in mind while working on it as I
| love doing long cross-country bike trips every summer myself.
| greener_grass wrote:
| A great concept, but there's one big problem: many official bike
| trails are crap.
|
| Sometimes it's actually better to take the road, or you end up on
| a windy route that's near impossible to follow, debris
| everywhere, no right of way, etc.
|
| I would like to try this with a "prefer offroad" option.
| rconti wrote:
| There are numerous options available for that; Strava,
| RideWithGPS, Google Maps, etc. I think the point of this
| project is to create something _new_ and different.
| unstyledcontent wrote:
| I spent a minute or two trying to create a route but couldn't
| figure out how to do it. I'm on mobile, using chrome. I didn't
| see anywhere to enter coordinates.
| thenewrohirrim wrote:
| This looks really great! Do you offer an api as well? I'm part of
| the team behind https://cyclema.ps and we'd love to see if we
| could incorporate this as a backend.
| simlevesque wrote:
| Reminds me of a story: two years ago I was riding my bike, doing
| a 45 miles ride from Montreal to Dunham. I was following Google
| Map's directions and it led me inside a Canadian Army base
| (Farnham). I saw modified pickup trucks full of guys with rifles
| about 100 metres from the entrance which said "Keep out" and
| Google wanted me to go there. I didn't. They changed it now.
| sammyo wrote:
| I sent in a report sending bikes through a highway tunnel in
| Boston, took six months but received a message they made the
| correction.
| SonicScrub wrote:
| This is phenomenal! As an avid bike packer, I've always wanted
| this. Eagerly awaiting the expansion to North America. Please
| don't forget about Canada when building ;)
| joshribakoff wrote:
| Constructive feedback: (i am on mobile). The map pulls up
| somewhere in Europe, even though I am in the bay area. I can't
| really see for sure because the side bar covers the whole map. I
| cannot zoom in or out at all. When I clicked to add a point, it
| just adds it in a random location. The map is really zoomed out
| so a few pixels is like 100 km. There is metadata displayed such
| as the length of my route, but it seems I cannot input a length
| and have it create a route for me
|
| I have personally had good luck with my Garmin watch. If I start
| out near a major trail, it tends to suggest routes along that
| trail. I'm able to input a desired length such as 10 miles and
| then it suggests multiple routes that are close to that length
| and use major trails. My biggest complaint with the Garmin is
| that it tends to suggest the same routes every day.
| bagels wrote:
| Are tracks and trails paved? I'm always looking for urban routes,
| which occasionally uses paved "trails", but also bike routes,
| bike lanes and smaller less trafficked roads.
| hermitcrab wrote:
| Thanks for doing this.
|
| BTW Typo: 'Acitvity type' in the UI should be 'Activity type'.
| ghostly_s wrote:
| Seems completely broken on mobile.
| cullenking wrote:
| Nice work! I run ridewithgps.com and am responsible for all our
| mapping and routing. If you ever want to pick my brain about
| anything related to bike software, and of course grapphopper /
| vector tiles, feel free to reach out, email is in my profile. I'm
| actually about to dive into fixing up some custom graphhopper
| routing profiles today for some new route planner updates we are
| about to release!
| wnc3141 wrote:
| You are doing the lord's work. I love this website! -
| particularly that it preserves an in progress route when I exit
| and return to my planning session.
| clementmas wrote:
| It's nice to see so many founders here. I run travelmap.net and
| I can also help out with self-hosting custom map tiles or
| tracing itineraries on Mapbox/Maplibre maps.
| allg12 wrote:
| Thank you, appreciate it! Travelmap looks awesome--I love the
| idea. I will definitely try it out on my next trip.
|
| This morning, I picked up an affordable m920q with 64GB of
| RAM and I'm planning to use it for hosting GH and maybe
| vector tiles too. If I run into any issues I can't figure out
| quickly I'll reach out but I don't want to bug you with basic
| questions.
| cullenking wrote:
| I have a stack of about 10 older dual xeon based supermicro
| 1u machines with 512gb of ram....if you are in the oregon
| area you can have any number of them for free! infini-ram
| makes life easier when dealing with OSM data.
| somic wrote:
| I frequently use RWGPS for planning my bike rides but don't pay
| for it (yet!). Curious - is all routing done by graphhopper or
| do you have some secret sauce on your end? Also graphhopper web
| has regular bike mode and "racing bike", they tend to come up
| with different routes, wondering if it's incorporated on your
| side somehow or if there is a way to influence RWGPS algorithm
| to be more "road cycling" vs casual cycling (I think that's
| what graphhopper means by "racing").
| cullenking wrote:
| We have an update to our web and mobile route planners coming
| out in the next month that adds more specific bike profiles,
| including paved/unpaved preferences and cycling
| infrastructure preferences. Maybe an MTB profile as well.
|
| We use graphhopper for everything, with customized profiles.
| We add data to the weekly planet PBF files from the OSM
| project for additional routing data not present in OSM.
| somic wrote:
| Thanks, looking forward! I don't know where most of your
| users are, but coming up with a _safe_ road bike route in
| US suburbia is not a trivial problem. Current RWGPS planner
| routinely wants to take me to very dangerous roads (for a
| road cyclist). I hope your update will make it better.
| acaloiar wrote:
| MTB would be most welcome :)
| allg12 wrote:
| Oh wow, that's amazing - thank you! I really appreciate your
| offer and I love RWGPS. I just read your comment about about
| all the hardware you're using at RWGPS and it's clear you're
| operating on a completely different scale than I am :D Right
| now, I'm just running Graphhopper on a EUR40/month Hetzner
| server and free tiers on Vercel and Maptiler. Though I already
| hit the free-tier limits for Maptiler so I'm quickly setting up
| a Martin server to server Europe mbtiles on some cheap server
| instead. Once the traffic drops after this HN post I think a
| low-cost server should do the trick for now.
|
| As for Graphhopper, I ran into some challenges during the
| Europe-wide import stage. It turns out 64GB of RAM wasn't
| enough, so I ended up spinning up a 128GB instance on AWS.
| After tweaking some config settings and following the
| deployment guide, I finally got it working. I also had to
| change the source code a bit to link each "official bike route"
| edge to its corresponding OSM relation info but I managed to
| get it working in the end(using KVStorage and KValues).
|
| For now, my planner is pretty basic, so I don't want to bombard
| you with beginner-level questions. But if something more
| complex comes up down the road, I'll definitely take you up on
| your offer to reach out. Thanks again--I really appreciate your
| help and generosity!
| chainwax wrote:
| I love where you're going with this, nearly all of my little side
| projects have something to do with maps and bikes. No comment on
| how the routes are as I'm not really familiar with any good
| routes in bigger Euro cities, but as someone who rides around NYC
| a lot this would be really useful in making routes for visitors
| who aren't as keen on riding in NYC traffic.
|
| Mobile needs some work. Are you planning on open sourcing this?
| I'm a mobile dev that might be able to clean that up a little.
| Good candidate for React Native.
| INTPenis wrote:
| Not bad! I'm an avid bike camper and I just tried creating a
| route through Sweden and it does a pretty good job. We are a bit
| spoilt for choice here with bicycle routes.
|
| The only feature I'd want is to be able to print the route on
| paper maps. I wonder if print CSS could be used to create pages
| of the whole route.
| rafram wrote:
| This may not be the site's problem, but why is the OSM map
| showing some place name labels in Gaelic? Montenegro is "Am
| Monadh Neagrach," Greece is "A' Ghreig." Last I checked Gaelic is
| not a widely spoken language in either of those countries (and
| I'm nowhere near Scotland).
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| Nicely done! I use Komoot and RidewithGPS, but this is a nice
| tool if you want to plan a route that relies on bike trails as
| much as possible.
|
| Would be cool to also show the elevation for a given segment
| along with its distance (in the route trail list).
|
| And maybe when you click on a segment in the map, it should
| highlight that segment in the trial list so you see the length of
| that segment.
|
| I realize you're just using existing map data, but some bike
| routes seem to be broken up with very small (couple km) gaps
| (shown in grey) -- is that really the case? (see Loire a Velo 4
| for example)
| allg12 wrote:
| Hey everyone, I spotted a bug with the default routing profile.
| It was set to regular bike routing instead of the touring
| profile, even though the UI suggested otherwise (the Redux state
| didn't match what was shown in the UI :D). I've fixed it, so it
| should work as expected now! Love your feedback, thanks so much!
| The project is in a very early stage so I didn't expect such a
| response.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| "Add new point" button doesn't do anything. Falls over at the
| very first hurdle. 3 error in the console,
| POST https://routes.trailimap.com/route/ 400 (Bad Request)
| Error fetching route from Graphhopper Error: Network response was
| not ok Uncaught (in promise) TypeError: Cannot
| read properties of undefined (reading 'paths') at g
| (page-c19a2a89477d3054.js:1:35496)
| benjiweber wrote:
| This does a much better job than anything I've seen before. Nice
| work. It still doesn't generate routes I'd use as they're too
| circuitous due to the poor cycle infrastructure in the UK.
| However, it does a good job of highlighting good options and
| options I didn't even know about.
| dkga wrote:
| Exciting! For me would be a nice complement or competition to,
| say, Komoot.
|
| Constructive feedback: at least on safari, it was not as smooth
| to navigate as other map apps, and also a bit cumbersome to add
| waypoints, etc.
|
| A small but important thing - there is a typo in the "activity"
| spelling.
|
| Hope that helps, and best of luck with it!
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