On 3/20/2018 10:57 AM, Joerg wrote:
The only Google service I used until recently was Googe maps. However,
now they have made the font so small that it has become almost
unreadable and to me, therefore, useless on any of my computers. From
what I read in online searches that cannot be corrected by the user
because it is supposedly rendered as graphics.

Open Street Map is lacking a lot of information. For example, the whole
long El Dorado Trail singletrack is missing. Yeah, one can edit that as
a user but I don't want to re-invent the wheel.

Mapquest isn't great either anymore. It auto-fills nonsensical stuff
into the search field and so on.

Those among you not using GPS, what do thee consult for cycling maps
outside these three main ones?

Well, my favorite map is a map.

I'm lucky that AAA issues a special "Northeast Ohio" map. It's at a
relatively large scale (1" = 3.5 miles or so) and shows almost all
roads, down to the gravel lanes in Amish country to the north.

I've also got two ancient sets of the bicycle maps put out by the state
back in the 1980s. These are on waterproof paper and show a recommended
road every five miles or so, sort of a rough grid of recommendations for
touring cyclists. I knew the DOT official in charge of generating these
maps back then. She just hired college students for the summer and had
them search data bases showing traffic count and road width for paved
roads. IOW there was little or no on-the-ground testing; but I've found
they still work pretty well.

I have collections of county maps. If I'm heading out on a long ride,
I'll throw the appropriate ones into my bike bag. The three above maps
cover most of my long-distance day ride explorations.

I led a team that produced a bike map for our two county area. We did do
a lot of on-the-road ride testing. The idea was to rate the well-known
or major roads, and to hopefully find nice "beginner" streets and roads
on a roughly one mile grid. I sometimes throw that in my bike bag for
rides to unfamiliar parts of the city.

A few years ago, I planned a cross-Ohio tour for my wife and I plus a
friend by using one of these books:
https://buy.garmin.com/en-US/US/p/575993 It worked well.

I've also referred to USGS maps to plan rides and tours. The 1:24000
series is so detailed it shows individual buildings in less dense areas.
It also shows things like fence lines, railroads, etc. and are quite
beautiful, IMO. I have four of them that cover territory surrounding our
house mounted on a wall for reference or inspiration for local rides.
And I've used the 1:250,000 series to choose roads for rides out of the
area. I appreciate the contour information, especially if I'm going to
try a long ride into a hilly area, like to Pittsburgh.

Trouble is, I think USGS maps are no longer available in paper. I
treasure the ones I have.

If you're setting out on a long tour, the Adventure Cycling maps are
good, as long as you're willing to stick to their routes. We ran into
complications on one tour when we deviated from the route and had a hard
time finding anything more detailed than a state map.

Of course, I'm talking about riding on (shudder!) roads! With CARS!! ;-)

I'm lucky to live in a part of the country that was settled long before
there were cars. Because of that, we have a wonderful network of country
roads. And I'm pretty good at telling, from a map, which roads will have
less traffic (which I prefer). I also use clues like streams and
railroads to find less hilly routes (which I also prefer).

--
- Frank Krygowski