We've made some changes to our Auto-Plot routing "By Bike", one of which is to give a higher priority to cycle networks, so it should now follow official cycle routes unless it would lead to a significant detour. Let us know how you get on with it - we can always tweak it a bit further, but it's a balance between directing it onto cycle routes in preference to what might be a shorter or faster route. However, you can always force it to plot along a chosen route by clicking at shorter intervals.
Thanks for that feedback Martin. We'll see if we can further increase the priority given to cycle networks.
Martin,
Yes, routing with OSM is certainly a case of "plotter be aware!" and it's a common issue (ie not just plotaroute). So much depends on the underlying database & the routing engine .......
And note, even autorotuing on the OS map is still using the OSM data .... (I think that's still the case)
Mark
Another vote for this idea... Sometimes the routing away from cycle paths seems almost perverse! Here's one exampe from just outside Norwich
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and a detail:
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Understood.
Example: I've just planned a ride around The Wirral, using NCN 568. This particular route doesn't offer too many alternatives for the auto-routing, but occassionally it plotted along other roads/paths. As this route is so "obvious", I thought it would be cool to be able to restrict the auto-plotting to NCN routes, assuming they were tagged within the OSM database. I wouldn't expect it to only choose "NCN 568" (in this case), rather, only choose "national and regional cycle routes" (as you say).
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Thanks for the suggestion Mark. That's probably not something we'll be able to do I'm afraid - we want to avoid adding more complexity that needs explaining. We might be able to tweak the existing Road Bike option to give more weight to national and regional cycle routes though - we'll have a look at this. Do you have an example of a route where this would apply?
When "By Bike" is selected, would it be possible to have an option to only use NCNs (National Cycle Network) routes?
When planning long rides, it can take some effort to follow an NCN, with lots of very careful plotting.
I appreciate this is a UK-centric thing, although it may also apply to Europe where the equivalents are very commo9n.