Hello everyone. I thought I’d tap the SUF mind hive for some advice.
I have a few work related trips coming up over the next 12 months, to various places in Europe (and perhaps further afield). I intend to take the bike with me and tack on a couple of days to make the most of it.
How do people search out interesting rides in places they really don’t know?
Nearer home I am a great one for ‘just riding’ and am happy to see what comes up, but with limited time and in a brand new area I want to make the most of my time there.
Strava’s auto-routebuilder and segment searcher is all very well but doesn’t necessarily hit what one might want to (how do I know what I might want to?). I used RideWithGPS for planning routes for my head unit, but I’m not sure that it will suggest routes for me.
You can search for routes others have made in Ride with GPS. What I’ve done in the past is use the segment finder in strava to find a few popular segments in the area, then use the leader board to look at what else they rode when they got that segment and build routes from there. I don’t typically take the top riders, I try and get a smattering of them because sometimes the top guys got it off a 2 mile ride, warmup, smash it, cool down and that’s not what I’m interested in. I find in the 30’s or lower I tend to find longerish rides. Ymmv on that. Gets you a starting point at least.
Another possibility would be to post subject lines on here to exactly where you are going e.g. “Heading to ride in Place X - suggested routes?” I’ve certainly seen people pick up routes through this forum before and you may even pick up a riding buddy (or 3). I can assure you that if you were heading to Tasmania I’d certainly welcome you as a riding buddy and show you some great rides (obviously we’d do OL’s kunanyi/ Mt Wellington!).
I find Komoot to be quite good - Strava route builder seems to go off of what’s been ridden most, rather than what’s beautiful and/or safe.
@Craig.Quarmby has a good point - looking at the knights honour roll, Sufferlandrians are well spread over the world, I’m sure you’d get some great ideas