What route planning software/website for 3-ish week bike tour?

I've no direct experience of the Explore but have used Edge's from the 705 onwards to the 1040.

I plan in Ride With GPS which is both Web based and has an app. Functionally they're similar but not identical and sometimes you can do stuff via the Web interface that is a PIA in the app. Additionally, the paid for version has functions and features not available in the freebie and you may need those during your trip.

I don't combine days into one long file as it can cause the Edges to be a bit temperamental. I'm assuming, processing all that data can make it a bit unstable. Keep your day files for the Edge and mebbies use the combined one in the app on your phone if you want to view/manipulate the entire thing?

I also keep local copies of the GPX files on my phone with something that doesn't need a signal to access them in case I need to view the route files outside of the Edge whilst out if signal.

For long distance stuff, I've been using komoot to get a rough route, and Strava to find tune it For short deviations on the fly, I just use Strava (or Google maps if I don't think I'll need to send it to my head unit). Not sure I'll continue to use komoot after the recent acquisition. You'll definitely want to split it into smaller sections, probably up to about 300k would be okay - make sure your head unit can calculate directions before heading off. You might want to watch out for off-road sections.

If you have an Android phone I would recommend the OSMand+ app, as it doesn't rely on data service, you can download all the region maps you need before/as you go. It's a bit of a clunky interface but works very well once you get used to it!

Assuming you on road cycle.travel hands down, plus it's free. It's easy to plan and send routes to Garmin connect on the fly, but I always use the web interface rather than the app.

On our Easter trip I used the Garmin navigation to get us to decathlon, it took us over a motorway junction. Going back I used cycle.travel, it took us along decent cycle paths.

It's not so great off road, but has a pretty decent gravel option. 

Basically any planner relies on open street map data, unless it tries to be fancy and use heat map data like komoot or Strava, which ime never seems to work.

I'd use maps.me . Download the relevant maps for the regions you'll travel through and then just ride. 

Got to be easier than 30 years ago when paper maps were all the rage! Just aim for the rivers or canals and ride the roads parallel in the direction of Barcelona. I did a fair distance along the Loire and it was great. Made the miles drift away. 

Would I bother doing turn by turn navigation on a gps unit? No, because it's not the way I roll! 😉

Posted by: nealc

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cycle.travel hands down, plus it's free

2nd'd , but i also use gpx.studio for reviewing and fine tuning the routes. Its track editing capabilities are the best I've come across. it also allows you to display several gpx's on one may and colour code them - handy for multi day routes

Surprised by the cycle.travel recommendations - I tried it and couldn't get on with it.

I guess it's okay for shorter routes if you're happy to follow whatever it spits out, but I found it fairly sub-optimal for longer things where I want to tweak it a fair amount and play with different options. Particularly absent is elevation - so no telling where the climbs are, or if there's any ways around them.

@aidy is that the app? The website is much better, has elevation, editing, can suggest accomodation and camp sites. Plus it can link through to street view images, and geograph photos along the route.

I'm on the website - I don't see elevation (at all, it doesn't even give me a number, let alone the a route profile).

I'm probably asking a bit much of it, and testing it by trying to plot some very long routes. Kinda want multi-step undo/redo to compare going different ways, and better granularity - the way the map is presented makes it harder to spot viable alternates (Strava's global heatmap helps a lot with this).

I don't mean to be too negative about it - I'm aware that cycle.travel is a side project of an individual, and honestly, I'm impressed with it - but I reckon there are better tools for distances which you measure in countries.

If you aren't planning specific, definite overnight stops and/or are expecting to make detours, I don't see how you can "plan" a single GPX to follow.

And I'm sceptical that the Garmin Edge Explore 2 would be able to "flawlessly" follow a single 1800km route even if you had one (I have an Edge Explore 2 but have never tried following such a long route).

I'd approach this as a series of "stages" and just load up all the courses you have the unit, and when you reach the end of "Stage 1" just switch the Garmin to follow "Stage 2" etc...the switch over does not need to coincide with an overnight stop. And you can easily follow multiple courses in a single ride (eg if you want everything to load up to Strava as a single ride, assuming you can keep the Garmin charged).

Just make sure you name the courses in a meaningful way so you can identify them easily in the list of courses.

For any off-route deviations, stop the existing navigation and allow the Garmin to do routing to the desired point then re-start the prior route (but don't try to start course from the beginning!).

Sanity check any Garmin ad-hoc navigation against Komoot and/or Strava on your phone and adjust if needed then send to the Garmin and follow that course instead.

(Recently Komoot made sending new courses from app to Garmin a paid option but prior users can still do it, so check you can send routes from your phone or consider a monthly subscription)

TL;DR Edge Explore 2 can follow a series of courses so don't worry about needing to have a single GPX to follow

Another fan of cycle travel here. Can be a bit convoluted at times taking you round the houses to avoid 200m of busy road, but no problem if you keep an eye on it.

Elevation data is there if you press the mountain icon in route tools.

It tries to keep you away from climbs, but I think it's priority is road busyness, so if you're climbing it is sometimes to avoid a busy section.

I don't find turn by turn navigation necessary on long tours either, and it significantly increases battery use on my old GPS.

As Vlad says definitely split up into stages. They load up so much quicker.

Label them like "S1_a_to_b', 's2_b_to_c', It makes ordering them easy and finding the next.

Thank you to everyone for the suggestions and advice - super helpful. Here's what I did:

- downloaded GPX files for the EuroVelo and other routes I am intending to follow

- Loaded them all into gpx.studio (HT @slackboy) which allowed me to edit out the bits I don't need, and merge them into a single route

- Split them into chunks of 100-200km, and extract each one into a "Track" (as opposed to a segment, since that confuses Komoot). Gave each Track a meaningful name

- Imported each Track into Komoot which let me see elevation profile, estimated speed, etc. For reasons I don't understand, Komoot seems to have synchronised these to my Garmin despite me not being a premium subscriber.

- Imported the whole file into Google Maps (which does understand multiple Tracks in a single file), and added all the campsites I could find that are near the route

- Backed up the gpx file on google Drive

I'm on the website - I don't see elevation (at all, it doesn't even give me a number, let alone the a route profile).

on the left, click the mountains under 'Route Tools' to get both a number and the route profile

the way the map is presented makes it harder to spot viable alternates

Not sure if this is what you're after, but click the little 'tiles' looking icon in the top right to get a choice of about 10 different map styles, including OS maps, satellite images, OpenStreetMap, etc