Strangely, Street View is very sparse in Germany. I wonder why. It's not as if Google was banned, it is just sparse.

Honestly, I played around with it a little too and was miffed to see it route me on main streets here in Portland instead of on the many bike greenways. You could put the Google maps bicycle overlay on it but then I got too annoyed to continue my exploration of it. It's a work in progress and worth keeping an eye on but it failed the first test for me.

I seem to recall there was quite a strong (state level?) backlash to streetview in Germany and Austria. A lot of the few areas covered are either very old (before it was effectively stopped) or private individuals that uploaded their data to Google maps, rather than the systematic work of the Google camera car.

I tend to use a modification of that 3rd approach: start with other folk's routes and then look at modifying those. Strava and RWGPS let you search all routes stored on them, and Strava's crowdsourcing/heatmap-driven routing essentially does this modified approach out of the box.

A query here, or on BikeForums regional groups or on the Facebook pages of bicycle clubs in those areas will often get up to date suggestions.

Many years ago (like 1994 or so) I published a book "Family Bicycling in the Washington-Baltimore Area" and then free-lanced articles to local parenting magazines. I reused the advice on bike seat/trailers, teaching kids to ride, etc. but for each local magazine I called the local bike club and or bike shop and got some recommendations for family friendly rides. It was kind of funny - I would get email from readers saying "Thanks, I've lived in Birmingham for years, never knew about that route," when all I'd done is make a few phone calls - I never saw the route either!

I never did get the angry email I expected: "Hey, pal - that "family friendly" route took us on the interstate, got off at the local strip club exit and had us looking for a playground at the local dump..."

Thanks Steve for bringing up this important topic. It is interesting to see how popular RWGPS is for route planning with the Cycleblaze group.  I suspected this and that I was odd with my routing methods. Call me crazy, but I use Garmin Basecamp for all my trip planning as well as  Google street view to double check parts of the route. Most of our planning is completed before the tour begins with some minor tinkering as we go along if it is required. 

With Basecamp  I can load any GPX file right on to the open source map and see how it looks.  Entire Eurovelo routes can be loaded or any number of selected GPX files download from RWGPS. The GPX files from cycleblaze users can also be good. Having multiple route sources as well as the designated marked bike routes from the open source map provides a good base of mapping information to make my own personal routing. I find the software easy to build and to manipulate routes, name and store the routings and load them directedly to the Garmin. One other benefit is that I have all the routes that I have every created in one spot organized in an easy to use filing system. My interactions with Basecamp  are all MS windows based but not sure how compatible the software is with other operating systems. 

I doubt that I will convince anyone to take up my routing methods, but appreciate the opportunity to let the readers know that I have good success with basecamp. My touring partner is very picky about route selection and most often I can meet her high standards.

Given your comments, I figured I would give Basecamp a spin. It was crabby at first about my antique Windows 7 laptop, but I did get a version going. It didn't go far though, because it demanded that I buy the underlying map, before I could see any of its basic features.

This talk of Garmin reminded me of our only try with it - a Garmin Edge 800 in 2011. It was really flaky! My favourite photo with it is at a Chevron station, with it trying to send me 6 km away to find a Chevron. I assume their data has improved since!

I hate BaseCamp.  I've tried repeatedly to understand Garmin's dysfunctional / non-intuitive user interface and workflow, but have given up.

You're missing absolutely nothing of value by avoiding it.

My Edge 810 has also been flaky, since new.  I'll be riding along following a route and suddenly it will tell me I have over 5,000 miles (yes, that's right, five THOUSAND miles) before the next turn, even though it correctly shows my current location and the highlighted route.

The rubber cover over the power button dry rotted a while back.  I found a hack on the all-knowing interweb to "fix" it, though: carve a bit of pencil eraser to fit snugly in the opening, and tall enough that it projects slightly above the case so that it can be pushed (thereby pushing the stubby little actuator switch buried inside the case).  Cover the eraser with vinyl tape to discourage the entry of moisture if you're caught in wet conditions.

It works, but I'm still contemplating spending this year's REI dividend on a replacement.  Haven't decided whether to stay with Garmin or switch to Wahoo or some other brand (if there are others, of course).

I'd been using Garmin for kayaking and then biking for many years. A friend bought a Wahoo Element, raved about it and loaned it to me. Pretty much solved every complaint I had with Garmin (mostly ease of use and battery life) and then some. So, I went Wahoo.

The only area I still give Garmin the edge on is a feature I rarely use - on device re-routing.  Wahoo now has that feature, but still seems easier/more reliable on Garmin. But, for my type of riding/touring, I've maybe used that feature once in 5 years.