The best tour portals for cyclists

Are you planning your next cycling holiday in Bavaria? Or in the Black Forest? No problem! If you google "cycle tours Bavaria", you get 301,000 search results. The search term "cycle tours Black Forest" produces 149,000. What is striking is that tour portals such as Outdooractive, Komoot, Radkompass and, in Bavaria, the Bayernnetz for cyclists are often at the top of the list. And these portals now offer an all-round planning service. The tour suggestions are optimally described with length, route characteristics and degree of difficulty. The exact route is shown on a zoomable map. The track is available in the most common download formats anyway. And the most important sights and cycle-friendly hospitality establishments are included with all the information. If you are looking for longer routes and tour suggestions lasting several weeks, you will find good service at Radreise-Wiki and of course the detailed cycle tour tips at trekkingbike.com

Outdooractive

The top dog among the tour portals operates 2000 partner sites worldwide.

Handwritten and stapled climbing guides were the origin of the tour portal over 20 years ago. Today, more than 100 employees work at six locations in Germany, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, France and Sweden.
Some of the tours on the portal come from registered members of the Outdooractive community. They can describe their own planned tours on the portal, add photos and publish them under their own name. All maps are based on official map data from the Federal Agency for Cartography. This means that you will only find the official network of trails on Outdooractive and you will always be travelling on approved trails.

However, the majority of the tours are created in cooperation with tourist regions. They can use the Outdooractive portal to publish tour suggestions from their region. Users benefit from this official content when they are looking for tour suggestions for their next cycling holiday.

Sights and tourist infrastructure are displayed interactively on a map or in clearly organised galleries. Content can be saved as a PDF or downloaded as GPX tracks, and accommodation and offers can be booked directly.
www.outdooractive.com

Wheel compass

The Radkompass.de portal offers elaborate tour suggestions for around 100 regions throughout Germany.

"Our users led us to develop the Radkompass tour portal," says Managing Director Helge Lägler. "The Hiking Compass had already been around since 2006 and the desire for similarly organised tour suggestions for cyclists was the decisive factor in founding the Cycling Compass portal in 2014." The tour suggestions on Radkompass.de come almost exclusively from tourism regions or smaller regional associations. This means that you can find all official cycle routes and tested long-distance cycle routes in the respective regions here.

Anyone interested in a tour will receive a detailed description, zoomable map and elevation profile. The route is available to download free of charge as a .kml or .gpx file. In addition, there are suggestions for a stage classification and under the heading Accommodation, hotels, holiday flats and guesthouses along the cycle route are directly linked with detailed descriptions.

In addition to specific tour suggestions, radkompass.de also offers package deals for cycling holidays and a blog on current cycling-related topics. www.radkompass.de

ADFC tour portal

Over 450,000 kilometres of cycle routes are currently stored on the ADFC tour portal and can be used by registered users.

Let's get one thing straight from the start. You don't have to be an ADFC member to use the ADFC tour portal. There are also free tours available on the portal that are sponsored by regions or companies. To download other tours, non-members must at least register with an e-mail address and password. In this case, a tour costs 2 cents per kilometre. New customers receive 100 free kilometres when they register for the first time. ADFC members receive 500 free kilometres per year.

Once you have decided on a tour, you will receive a detailed description with information on the nature of the route, level of difficulty and traffic congestion. The route is shown on a zoomable map and the Bett+Bike establishments along the route are marked. User ratings are also helpful, providing further valuable tips or up-to-date information on individual sections of the route.

How does the ADFC get its extensive network of routes? The cycle routes are travelled throughout Germany by ADFC scouts and new routes are added to the existing network. Members can also submit new routes. These are then thoroughly checked by ADFC editors and added to the network.
www.adfc-tourenportal.de

Bavarian network for cyclists

The Free State of Bavaria has developed the long-distance cycle route network especially for leisure cyclists, tourists and families.

The Bavarian network, which now consists of 9,000 kilometres of premium cycle routes, has been continuously developed since 1997 on the basis of existing cycle routes. The criteria for inclusion in the Bavarian network are family-friendly routes with rest areas, a route through attractive landscapes and interesting sights as well as good public transport connections. Each cycle route is shown on a zoomable map with elevation profile and can be downloaded as a gpx track. Possible connecting cycle routes are also shown. In addition, there are direct links to the most important sights along the cycle route and to cycle-friendly restaurants, which can also be shown on the map. With the free Bayernnetz-für-Radler app, you also have access to all the important information on the go. Cycle paths and routes can be called up directly and offline under Favourites. Routes on which bikes can be taken on public transport can also be identified. bayerninfo.de/rad

Komoot

The navigation app is very successful and is used by many cyclists. But the tour portal is also becoming more and more extensive.

The makers of Komoot are clever. Because they make perfect use of the information provided by the more than three million app users. In the past six years since Komoot was founded, the app has been the driving force. "In the last two years, offering ready-made tours has become the main digital component," says Tobias Hallermann, PR man at Komoot. "We have realised that cyclists prefer concrete tour suggestions rather than planning a tour themselves."

An algorithm has therefore been developed that recognises popular routes on which several app users regularly travel and automatically converts them into a tour suggestion. With zoomable map, elevation profile, route characteristics and free GPX track. The system works really well in the Ruhr region. There are a large number of tour suggestions here because there are a lot of users out and about. A team of around 30 editors creates editorial content for each tour, such as information on places of interest along the cycle route. You can also find specific tips here, such as the best ice cream parlour in town. What Komoot lacks are recommendations for places to stay along the cycle route. However, the information content should be improved in the future.

Cycling Wiki

In the big encyclopaedia for cycle travellers, you might even discover an insider tip.

The tour suggestions on Radreise Wiki are provided exclusively by the members of the Radreise Forum, from which the Wiki emerged in 2004. Route descriptions and GPS tracks are based on their experience. These are not primarily official cycle routes from tourist regions, but mostly individually created routes. These are primarily intended to be of interest to other cycle travellers, i.e. continuous routes that you would cycle as part of a multi-day trip.

In addition to river cycle routes, lesser-known cross-connections between major long-distance cycle routes are also listed, for example, as well as cycle-friendly direct connections between major cities. The tracks are available as kmz files for free download. The track verification section shows which parts of the route have actually been cycled and how up-to-date the route description is. www.radreise-wiki.de

Trekking bike tour portal

The Trekkingbike travel editors are travelling the world. All tours are available to follow to the metre on the Trekking bike tour portal.

Away from the beaten track. That is the motto of the Trekkingbike travel editors. They put together their cycle tours with this premise in mind. Often based on existing routes, they are supplemented or combined to create new, unknown tours. These and many other tour tips are available for free download on the Trekkingbike tour portal with all the information, zoomable map, elevation profile and the exact GPX track.

This is how the track gets onto the GPS device:
Trekkingbike GPS expert Matthias Schwindt provides detailed instructions on how to transfer the tour to your navigation device in a detailed video tutorial. gpsradler.de/tb2017-2

The complete article was published in Trekkingbike issue 3/2017. You can download the issue in the Trekkingbike app (iTunes and Google Play) or in the DK-Shop order.