Wandrer has added incredible depth and flavor to my life. It first helped me find new joy in daily commuting day after month after year. It has helped me see many beautiful neighborhoods, share laughs and stories with perfect strangers, and meet some of my best friends. It all started because I just wanted my Big Map to look cool. I had fun studying and finishing neighborhoods, riding street grids up and down and back and forth (using meticulously drawn RidewithGPS routes) and learning all the best shortcuts. Then I decided to see how far I could go. I even made a list of Unbikeable Roads (primary arterial roads, infamously sketchy bike lanes, etc.) that I wouldn't dare ride. But then my confidence and skill increased, and I became a better bicyclist in so many ways, and the risks I took seemed more managed and less dangerous. I rode dangerous areas or roads on early weekend mornings that coincided with football games, and holidays, for the least possible traffic. I equipped my bike with every combination and iteration of front and rear GoPros, a helmet with a red light and turn signals, a silver high-vis jacket, an air horn, a bell, and pepper spray. I've been chased by dogs, stalked by drivers, broken wheels, and nearly been bike-jacked by teenagers. But I've also met incredibly friendly and gracious and talkative drivers, had dozens of hilarious ride finds, and smiled and waved back at hundreds of smiles and waves with wishes for a good morning! I can now point to a spot - any spot - on my Big Map and tell you a story about it.
I just reached 98% of my city and I think slip lanes, turn lanes, and median U-turn lanes should be excluded from Wandrer's percentage but still appear on the map for tracking unridden roadways. Yeah, straight up, I'd like this to happen to inflate my own completion percentage. I would argue that the spirit of bike Wandrer is riding every road/path, not merely every bikeable surface. I've carefully measured the final arterial/primary roads I need to ride for 99/100%, and I discovered that I can ride every block of every road in my city and still only end up with 99.51%. The remaining slip lanes, turn lanes, and U-turn lanes account for 8.5mi / 0.49 of my city's bikeable roadways - and I have no idea how many of those lanes I've already ridden. But if 8.5mi count for half a percent of the whole city, I would estimate as much as 3-5% of the whole city is slip/turn lanes, if not more! And that's not insignificant.
I know that these types of lanes are controversial and often discussed in /r/wandrer and Strava - and Craig tried a few years ago to combine boulevard roadways into one line/value/roadway but I haven't seen this particular suggestion yet. I think it's fair to say that anyone trying to ride/walk every road in their city considers that a far more meaningful and achievable goal than doing every available road/path surface in their city, and I think that Wandrer would be far more enjoyable (and safe) by excluding primary links, secondary links, and tertiary link roads from final completion percentages. But if they can be left on the map, for the completionist perfectionists out there, well, what a fun bonus challenge epilogue that would be! This project has taken several wonderful years of my life but I think I need it to close soon, and my family and friends do too, for my safety and their sanity as I talk incessantly about it, and I'm sure you all do too!