GPX Route Creator - France?

Ffish

Couldn't find this topic anywhere on the forum, so forgive me if it already exists.

I'm organising a road trip from Paris to London next summer for around 15 riders, over three days, and need to create GPXs of the route that we're taking. I've used BikeHike for creating the same in the UK up till now, which is a great site, but I'm not sure that it does France very well.

Can anyone point me in the direction of a good route creating site that covers France? There'd be nothing more embarrassing than starting out from The Arc de Triomphe and the Garmin not recognising where we're going!!

monkimark

Ride with gps should do it and you can search for other people's rides and then tweak them to suit.
http://ridewithgps.com/routes/3253642

marcusjb

Bike route toaster has no issues with riding in France.

kwozzymodo

Openstreetmap are pretty good. They even allow you to highlight which bits of France you actually require, so as to keep file size small. You get a map with a grid overlay, just highlight the grid boxes that follow your route and hey-presto. They Openstreet guys format your map and send you a link to download it when ready. They are pretty busy (as you can imagine) and the bigger the file , the longer it takes to render. You can then programme your route using the Garmin.

I can vouch for the quality as I've used their services before. Got my map of the Perche region in France done in about 3 hours. Dropped it onto a micro SD card and plug in to the Garmin - graphics are very clear.

andymiller

Garmin Basecamp (free) plus the OSM mapping (also free). If you're using a PC you can get it in the Garmin-compatible .img format from three different sources (eg OpenFietsMap or velomaps.org). If you're on a Mac it's a bit trickier - you need the maps in gmapi format .

Ffish

Thanks guys. The mapping stuff I've already got covered - I've been using OSM maps for quite a while now, and creating GPXs using bikehike. It was the creation of GPX files on a web site such as bike route toaster that I was having trouble finding, and that covered France. Thanks to monkimark and marcusjb for the suggestions.
cheers!

FJS

I've not used it myself, but on French forums www.openrunner.com seems to be popular with the locals.

drlodge

marcusjb wrote:

Bike route toaster has no issues with riding in France.

+1 for BRT

davidof

+2 for BRT but take care, sometime it gets its routing in a twist and you have to enter smaller steps. As an example it thinks the nearest route from my house to my neighbour is to turn left and go completely round the block.