Road bike route planner

Does anyone know of a route planning thing that I can put in a starting location and a distance i want to ride and it spits out a number of suggestions?

I know komoot will let you pick a start and finish destination but I would like a number of suggestions

Strava (maps) will do that if you have the paid account

https://www.cyclestreets.net/journey/

this is good. gives you 3 routes.

My route planner of choice https://cycle.travel has the ability, although I’ve not used that function.

If you have a Garmin device then use Garmin Connect. You can pick lots of different options for a route.

Komoot.

Strava but only on the paid up version and mobile app. It is apparently coming to the web version at some point.

GCN did a video on it when the feature was first released.

Another vote for cycle.travel – I’ve used it to plan routes locally and when away with work and its been pretty good.

Only caveat is that you need to check the route as it really really wants to avoid some roads so will divert you off down side streets for 100yds rather than staying on the same road, and it’ll gravitate towards cycle paths around roundabouts etc when staying on the road makes more sense. Takes a few mins of checking before finalising the route – it also has a direct link to street view so you can easily check out junctions etc

ETA – garmin and strava have both tried to take me down local busy main roads that I wouldn’t choose to ride. I think they run from heatmap data so plenty must ride them, but I prefer to stick to quieter lanes

Cycle travel, but thepurist is spot on, take a few mins to double check the route.

I use Strava as I have a subscription, but usually plan my own route manually rather than use the suggested ones. This usually involves 20-30 mins on the laptop with Strava and Google Maps side by side, use Strava to plot the route and Google Maps in street view to make sure it’s a country lane and not a farmers track. Once it’s done, just sync it to Wahoo head unit and off you go. I usually prepare a route the night before.

Sounds like all of these apps suffer from a similar issue where they’ll route you down somewhere unexpected, you can influence this with options in Strava though. For instance on Monday I did a long gravel route and didn’t pay too much attention to the routing on the road sections, it ended up taking me on a 500m diversion to take me down an un-made road. I think this was probably because I had “prefer dirt roads” selected as it’s never done that before. Also, be wary of “maximise elevation” as it can sometimes take it to the extreme and detour to get an extra 5m of climbing! Don’t think this is particular to Strava though.

If you’ll make use of other paid for features the Strava is a good option, otherwise some good free suggestions above.

If you have a Garmin device then use Garmin Connect. You can pick lots of different options for a route.

I used to have a Garmin device but got fed up with the terrible battery life so sold it and bought a wahoo.

I still use the Garmin connect app (free) on my phone to plan my rides, I then export a gpx and upload to my wahoo via my phone.

Garmin has a really good heat map so you can plan rides on where other riders have gone which I find useful when planning a ride somewhere I’m not familiar with.

Although you can pick road, gravel or mtb it sometimes takes me down cheeky footpaths others have used.

It will generate you a ride based on your choices or you can click somewhere on the map and it will plot you a route following roads and bridleways etc.