[Talk-GB] difference between bicycle and MTB cycle routes

[Jon Pennycook]

Thanks Richard.

Great North Trail looks like it's tagged as an mtb route now. King Alfred
Way is not signposted anywhere I have seen (unlike, say, the Cycling
Discoveries in North Hampshire, or the Surrey Hills routes).

I propose that it should be changed to an mtb relation and removing the
National Byway tagging. Removing the relation completely would cause too
much controversy I think.

The journey planner I use does use surface and tracktype tags, but there
will be people planning to do a section of a route they see on a map
without looking at the rags, and routers will probably try to prioritise
routes tagged as route=bicycle for road bikes and hybrid, whilst
prioritising route=mtb for mountain bikes. This prioritisation might
override some of the negatives provided by the surface tagging for a
bicycle route.


Jon


On Tue, 15 Jun 2021, 18:06 Richard Fairhurst, <richard at systemed.net> wrote:

> Jon Pennycook wrote:
> > In my opinion, unless there's a clear definition of the difference, a
> route=bicycle relation should be suitable for almost all bikes, leaving MTB
> for routes requiring off-road bikes.  I certainly wouldn't take a road bike
> on a "gravel or cross-country" route!
>
> Yes, fully agree. I've done about half of KAW so far; it's a stretch on a
> hybrid, definitely best suited for a gravel bike or MTB. It is much more
> homogenous with route=mtb routes than route=bicycle.
>
> > That particular relation is also tagged ref=NB, implying it's part of
> the National Byway
>
> That's just a tagging mistake. KAW is certainly not part of the National
> Byway.
>
> To be honest KAW shouldn't really be in OSM anyway - it's not signposted,
> and as such little different from n gazillion other routes in guidebooks
> and magazines. (Even though it is a cracking route.) There was a bit of
> discussion about Cycling UK's other long-distance bikepacking route, the
> Great North Trail, here:
>
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/74330916
> https://www.openstreetmap.org/changeset/87757341
>
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2020-July/024834.html
> et seq, particularly
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2020-July/024849.html
>  and
> https://lists.openstreetmap.org/pipermail/talk-gb/2020-July/024857.html
>
>
> Chris Hodges wrote:
> > In an ideal world the tracktype and surface tags would help end users,
> but they're rarely picked up.
>
> Of course, anyone using a map/router which doesn't pick up these tags
> should probably consider switching to one that does. ;)
>
> Richard
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