Routing is a lot more than just traffic and lodging.
Amen to that! People ask me weekly for route advice saying I want to go from X to Y. I am usually happy to help if I can but it can take a while in which case some get mad at me that it may take a month or two to get to them. And I do it for free. I have over a thousand routes in various stages of development and have learned it takes about an 3 hours on average to come up with 10 miles of a cue-sheeted route (less west of Mississippi River, more to east).
In order to do a decent route, you have to research:
- Traffic counts (compare to state AADT maps, Strava heat maps, etc.)
- Road conditions (shoulders, rumble strips, line of site, bike lanes/trails, etc.)
- Services, including but not limited to campgrounds, restaurants, hotels, grocery stores, convenience stores, dollar stores, points of interest, major climbs, major bridges (if safe to cross), paved route vs. mostly paved but saves a bunch of miles, entertainment, laundry, major general merchandise stores (Walmart), bicycle shops, airports, trains, car rentals, bus stations, hospitals, etc.
Once that is all done, you have to put it onto a GPS (I use Garmin's BaseCamp) and then write up a cue sheet for each direction and then put it onto RWGPS.
ACA maps are a bargain if you wanted to plan it yourself. A lot of people contact me mid-tour saying they have been following someone else's route but realized that person has a much different outlook on what makes a good route, i.e. they want the shortest paved route even if lots of traffic or conversely they want no traffic even if much much longer. Or perhaps the original route was for a person who only used hotels vs the follower wanted camping.
Unless you are going to go somewhere already unmapped, I suggest people buy a map from ACA (even if used on eBay).
I will now get off my soap box.
Tailwinds, John
