What I want to do is set a start and end point, and drag a bunch of markers to indicate the overall way I wish to go. Then I just need it to tell me the distance.

I used to use Google Maps but since they updated it, it’s too slow and too irritating trying to drag a route around. The place markers keep going to the wrong roads, it refuses to go some ways, etc.

So any ideas? ❓ ta

Bikehike is good, doesn’t quite work as you say – you click and it adds waypoints, including ‘snap to’ on roads.

mapmyride

+1 for bike hike. Been using is quite successfully for plan some sum me touring routes. Shows you elevation charts as well, which is nice. And you can download GPX files, for your garmin, or to save and upload them again when you want to reference them.

I use Strava, but it’s not brilliant, and it’s particularly good for editing once you’ve made the route, and can get very frustrating. Almost pointless for off road.

I’ve also been using getamap – the OS software – which works quite well, better for off road, but doesn’t snap to the roads or anything fancy like that.

GPSies also works fine if you get the route right first time, but isn’t easy to edit afterwards.

Garmin Connect…pretty similar to the above.

All of them are a little bit slow and ponderous, I’m not aware of any that I could heartily recommend.

pretty much any of the sites that let you log rides etc. will let you draw one by hand, and let you export it.
most probably export as a track though, not a route, which can be annoying (I just convert in gpsbabel if need be)
endomondo does, mapmyride/mapmyrun too, etc.

gmap-pedometer which is now caller milermeter is the one I used to use, but seems to be a bit buggy at the moment (mile/km markers don’t line up with route).

most of the above probably all give choice of snap-to-road or just waypoints.

outdoorsgps seems ok, just registered today to put a route together for someone, not tried sending to GPS, but was easy to route create.

http://ridewithgps.com/ is what you seek 🙂 Added bonus is that you switch between follow roads and just drawing lines midway through a route to take in off-road sections. It snaps to quite a lot of the bridleways and tracks too as it uses OpenStreetMap data.

There are lots but ridewithgps is by far the best out of those I’ve tried.

ridewithgps for me too.

Bikehike here too though I’m not convinced by the elevation data. Compared with my old Anquet which I think uses OS digital terrain data it’s a good 10% low.

You can revert to the old google maps fairly easily.
This website adds a lot of useful info to google maps without needing to sign up for anything: http://www.doogal.co.uk/

More geared towards motorbikes but were quite proud of this one:

https://www.motogoloco.com/map/

bikeroutetoaster.com

Another vote for Ride with GPS, now has an Android app too. Useful for checking your location along your route (or how far away from it you are).

Cue points are pretty useful too if you’re using a Garmin or something…

Use BikeHike here and it does the job. Does have a few frustrating quirks though. May check out some of the others here.