[OSM-talk] www.OpenRouteService.org now supports Bicycle Routing with OSM Data

[Christoph Eckert]

Hi,

> This may be unrealistic, but maybe you can include tracktype, surface  
> and the proposed key smoothness in your database, and allow the user  
> to select allowed values for each? Or even weights for each  
> combination? There could be default profiles for road bike or city  
> bike or mountain bike.

I personally would like it, but it would be a usability nightmare; the average 
computer user expects that the machine obeys the "do what I want" 
paradigm :) .

[...]

> I agree. I just used the service to create a route for me and was a  
> little
> disappointed I couldn't download it as gpx.

The problem is that various software and hardware expects it in different 
formats (gpx is not gpx :) .

For example, Maemo Mapper takes a gpx track as a "Route". The waypoints with 
turn by turn recommendations are just trackpoints with a desc-tag set. OTOH, 
it is a bit picky about other (valid) tags. If something appears it didn't 
expect (maybe a waypoint in a track) it denies to accept the file.

Some GPSr devices can use gpx routes, some can use gpx tracks.

I remember that www.radroutenplaner.nrw.de once gave me a track which I 
manually had to edit to make it run on an eTrex Venture Cx. Currently it 
doesn't give me a usable file at all. It's worth a look anyway.

In either case it is a very time consuming task to find a file format that 
provides the most benefit for as many users as possible. I guess the best one 
for starting a download was a track just consisting of the trackpoints.

Best regards,

ce