Google Map Listing All Great UK Roads

[Daaave]

Guys,

I have spent a while browsing through this part of the forum looking for good local roads, but it's a bit of a pain in the arse to have to dig through all the various threads. So I thought that maybe a Google map with all the roads highlighted might be useful...

Great Driving Roads - UK

See the roads listed on the bottom left hand side, I've added a couple of roads on there. You can click each one and it highlights where it is on the map. You then zoom in to have a closer look around. This way you can see what roads have been highlighted in your vicinity or along a route that you plan to travel along. This saves trauling through pages of threads hopefully.

I've set it so that anyone can edit the map - not sure if this is a great idea as anyone can also delete anything they like, but I'm not interested in being some sort of administrator for it. I'll start the ball rolling and then hopefully everyone will join in to make a comprehensive map.

All you need is an account with Google I think. So please join in, it'll only work if you all add a little bit.

I did the Beaufort - Llangynidr road this Sunday and it was great.


ETA:
Can anyone who adds anything try to follow these guidelines:
- Try to keep the lines that highlight the roads fairly accurate so that it's obvious which road you are referring to.
- Name each line that you add, preferably with the 'From' and 'To' place names in the title and the roads number(s) in the description.

Process for adding roads to the map:

• Login to Google
• Go to the map link on the first post
• Click on the grey edit button on the left of the map
• Browse the map to wherever the road you want to add is
• Select the line tool from the top left of the map
• Click on top of the road and keep clicking points in to draw a line which roughly matches the shape of the road
• Double click the last point where the road ends to end the line
• Type in a name and description in the box that pops up
• Delete any trial and error lines or mistakes...

Edited by Daaave on Wednesday 12th March 23:01

Edited by Daaave on Thursday 13th March 18:03

[mmm-five]

I used to work in Ebbw Vale and my accommodation was in Crickhowell, so that road used to be my daily drive route. The sheep almost caught me out a couple of times, and some of the blind crests/turns are scary even when you know they're there!

[Slippydiff]

Not wishing to rain on your parade Daaave, but personally I'm not convinced that highlighting "good" driving roads in such a transparent way on a public forum is a smart idea.
We'll never know if the relevant authorities study these forums, but if they do, you've just made their job a lot easier.
I'd suggest a request for good driving roads via PM rather than telling all and sundry on the forum itself.

Having lived near to the Evo triangle for several years I've made lots of recommendations WRT good driving roads. If someone requested info on them I'd happily Email the detils through to them rather than make them public.

All IMHO of course.

[Chris71]

Slippydiff said:

Not wishing to rain on your parade Daaave, but personally I'm not convinced that highlighting "good" driving roads in such a transparent way on a public forum is a smart idea.
We'll never know if the relevant authorities study these forums, but if they do, you've just made their job a lot easier.
I'd suggest a request for good driving roads via PM rather than telling all and sundry on the forum itself.

Having lived near to the Evo triangle for several years I've made lots of recommendations WRT good driving roads. If someone requested info on them I'd happily Email the detils through to them rather than make them public.

All IMHO of course.

Hmm, I was kind of thinking the same thing.

.....but now I've noticed there's a road near me and I'm all in favour of it.

(The B158 that is - still haven't checked it out, must do soon)

Back on topic it's a difficult one I suppose, I'd like to think the police and the cardigan wearers with rented speed guns have better things to do with their time, but maybe not.

[millband]

Oi! You git, it was always an idle business idea of mine to program up Google maps with top driving roads, hang a forum off of it, etc etc and make a bit of petrol money from ads.

Serves me right for being a lazy bugger.

Thats excellent though, and I personally don't think it's a problem being in public - the BIB will know exactly what their local roads are used for anyway and bikers have been sharing route info for years.

Steve

Edited by millband on Thursday 13th March 12:56

[Chris71]

Dave,

For the purposes of the truly stupid amongst us (me) can you explain how to add a road? I'll stick the B184 (Gt Dumnow to Safron Walden) on there.

[Daaave]

Slippydiff said:

Not wishing to rain on your parade Daaave, but personally I'm not convinced that highlighting "good" driving roads in such a transparent way on a public forum is a smart idea.
We'll never know if the relevant authorities study these forums, but if they do, you've just made their job a lot easier.
I'd suggest a request for good driving roads via PM rather than telling all and sundry on the forum itself.

That sort of implies that you're always going to go to these roads to break the law. When I went out on Sunday and did the Beaufort - Llangynidr road I don't think I probably got close to the speed limit at any point (shhh at the back, I'm sure Sabine in a transit would be long gone). But I really, really enjoyed it. So in that sense, I'd rather not have to reply on PMing good natured members of the forum (who might not be able to answer anyway).

millband said:

Oi! You git, it was always an idle business idea of mine to program up Google maps with top driving roads, hang a forum off of it, etc etc and make a bit of petrol money from ads.

Serves me right for being a lazy bugger.

Indeed it does. Personally I think there's probably already enough forums dedicated to the subject, but this is a handy pot to throw all of the ideas into.

It's a pity that Google Maps isn't quite clever enough (or rather I'm being the dumb operator...). It would be great to take it a stage further and save routes instead of having to draw noddy lines. Then format and organise them in some way. Then an easy process to save to sat-nav.

millband said:

Thats excellent though, and I personally don't think it's a problem being in public - the BIB will know exactly what their local roads are used for anyway and bikers have been sharing route info for years.

I agree, they aren't stupid after all. A slightly different take on the problem is the potential for increased usage of said routes by idiots as the knowledge may be much easier to access. A bit like the complaints of resident in small villages to have to put up with a massive increase in traffic past their houses since the introduction and popularisation of sat-nav.

Chris71 said:

Dave,

For the purposes of the truly stupid amongst us (me) can you explain how to add a road? I'll stick the B184 (Gt Dumnow to Safron Walden) on there.

I've edited my first post to include some guidelines - does that help?

[rsv gone!]

There is quite a good site for this - intended for bikers but equally applicable to cars

http://www.bestbikingroads.com/

[Daaave]

rsv gone! said:

There is quite a good site for this - intended for bikers but equally applicable to cars

http://www.bestbikingroads.com/

Their map does look pretty good and have a lot of the features I mentioned earlier... hmmm. A very quick look shows that it's not totally comprehensive of the routes that I've picked up on from here, but then I suppose any map like this will take hundreds of contributors to have every good road listed.

Because they have imbedded the map in their site it seems a bit clunky to operate though. Missing the nice zoom function with the roll of the mouse wheel. Also there doesn't seem to be a way to plan a normal route then have it highlight the nearby interesting roads.

Maybe this is pretty much what Millband was talking about above!

[millband]

Daaave said:

Maybe this is pretty much what Millband was talking about above!

Damn! Yes it is. Said it was an idle idea....

You CAN put routes on Google maps, but only one route per map. Would be very hard to manage without integrating with a database.

Here's an example: Birker Fell

Steve

[ian in lancs]

can anyone put these on?

http://www.bafam.org.uk/driversroutes.html

[Slippydiff]

Daaave said:

Slippydiff said:

Not wishing to rain on your parade Daaave, but personally I'm not convinced that highlighting "good" driving roads in such a transparent way on a public forum is a smart idea.
We'll never know if the relevant authorities study these forums, but if they do, you've just made their job a lot easier.
I'd suggest a request for good driving roads via PM rather than telling all and sundry on the forum itself.

That sort of implies that you're always going to go to these roads to break the law.

Well it's pointless traipsing all the way out there just for the view but then my idea of enjoying a good road doesn't include sharing it with ten, twenty or thirty other motorists at the same time . . . .

Still, if you really wish to publicize the great driving roads to all and sundry, on your own head be it.
The majority of speed traps set up around North Wales on a bank holiday weekend will have been placed to catch bikers (who seem to be hell bent on passing off this mortal coil somewhat sooner than really necessary)
Regretably car drivers will tend to get caught in these speeding net.
The more the roads are publicized and their locations made common knowlege the more people will use/abuse them.

This in turn will lead to complaints from the local residents which in turn will result in a greater police presence on the roads that are causing the locals concern.

I know of a section of road in North Wales that is actually far better and more lightly trafficed than those around the Evo Triangle.
I've used it frequently over the past four years and yet never seen a performance bike or car on there.

If a comment comes up on a thread asking for good driving roads around N.Wales I respond (as I have done on numerous occasions to fellow PHers) by sending a PM with full details of a route that takes in what I consider to be the best routes around the area. In every instance I've requested that the recipient of the message does not mention specific sections of road if they should subsequently decide to post a report back to other PHers on their drive.

Surely it's better if only those few in the know (rather than every Tom, Dick and Harry who will most likely view your map) make use of the roads ?

I'd take the view (maybe incorrectly) that any routes shown on a well publicized map such as yours, will be well known to the police and will be monitored/targeted accordingly. I'd thus avoid them like the plague !

It all seems a bit like the RAC rally. When I first spectated in '83 it was a navigational challenge, the general public didn't know where the stages were (the locals did mind) information came from the likes of Motoring News and Car and Car Conversions ie not mainstream publications.

With a bit of planning you could find superb places to spectate (often without massive walks) and on arrival at your chosen corner you might have found five or ten fellow spectators.

Fast forward to the current WRC Rally of Wales (with all it's publicity) and the masses decend on one area (which the police then use as a speeding cash cow . . . )
The resultant spectating is useless 'cos several thousand people are all trying to spectate at the same location. Knowing this the authorities make sure the areas that are good for spectaing are cordoned off and heavily marshalled. Result ? you can't get close to the cars you've come to watch. . . .

To my mind exactly the same will happen to the roads you choose to make the general public aware of with your map.
Again all IM(Humble)O.

[millband]

Have to respectfully disagree with you there Slippydiff. Local roads for local people? The sort of people who will look at sites like this to get ideas for drives are so small as to be irrelevant. It won't suddenly mean a quiet road will now be crowded. Hoons and club-meets might have a local impact, but these are public roads so that'll happen anyway.

Your Rally GB reference does not stack up either. The crowding is nothing to do with publicity (it had more spectators in the past) but is due to the FIA making it a compact sprint event instead on one that roamed the whole country. You can still apply your own map skills to find decent spots even now.

Steve

Edited by millband on Thursday 13th March 22:58

[Slippydiff]

millband said:

Have to respectfully disagree with you there Slippydiff. Local roads for local people? The sort of people who will look at sites like this to get ideas for drives are so small as to be irrelevant. It won't suddenly mean a quiet road will now be crowded. Hoons and club-meets might have a local impact, but these are public roads so that'll happen anyway.

Your Rally GB reference does not stack up either. The crowding is nothing to do with publicity (it had more spectators in the past) but is due to the FIA making it a compact sprint event instead on one that roamed the whole country. You can still apply your own map skills to find decent spots even now.

Steve

Edited by millband on Thursday 13th March 22:58

Not suggesting local roads remain the preserve of locals at all, just that those only "in the know" use them (if that means registering on a forum such as this and then receiving the information somewhat surreptitiously so much the better IMO)

I agree it won't mean a previously quiet road becoming crowded overnight, These things take time to escalate. However, once the ball is rolling it only takes a few incidents (or idiots) to attract the attention of the locals and the police to act accordingly.

On the subject of the RAC/Rally GB, whilst I agree that the FIAs cloverleaf servicing has been a major contributory factor in overcrowding, its publicising of the stages has no doubt contributed to the problem further
I regret to say I gave up spectating on Rally GB/Wales 8 years ago (too much of the yob element being attracted to the stages)
Whilst they're undoubtedly more expensive, I find the European WRC events far more pleasant to spectate on.

[Chris71]

Daaave said:

Chris71 said:

Dave,

For the purposes of the truly stupid amongst us (me) can you explain how to add a road? I'll stick the B184 (Gt Dumnow to Safron Walden) on there.

I've edited my first post to include some guidelines - does that help?

Yep, that's perfect! Added a few.

It's annoying me because there are some really great ones I've done in the past I can't quite remember. That and a few roads on Dartmoor and the New Forest that err, would be good if there wasn't a blanket 40mph limit across them (for environmental/conservation reasons I hasten to add, not safety as far as I can see). We are of course all too law abiding to go hooning there.

[Planet Claire]

I've just added one: Tan Hill to Hawes via the Buttertubs. Best going in that direction, in my opinion.

[Chris71]

Added another couple in the Herts area (hasten to add they're untested so any feedback welcome!)

Is there a way to change the colour of the routes? Blue blends in a bit too well with the rest of the map.

[Daaave]

Chris71 said:

Is there a way to change the colour of the routes? Blue blends in a bit too well with the rest of the map.

I think there is a way, but it's a bit beyond me. I looked when I set the map up and as soon as I read something to do with javascript programming I gave up.

[robstvr]

Unfortunately car drivers get caught in spped traps set up for bikers? WTF? Speeding is speeding. I do it in both my car, and on my bike, so I'm not pontificating about speeding, just that if your in a car it's no different an offence - actually it's potentially far more dangerous for others.

Rant over.

[Chris71]

Just added a few more in the South East - the road to Bradwell-on-Sea in Essex and Much Hadham to Bishops Stortford in, erm, whichever county that is - Herts?