Yet Another Cycling Forum
General Category => Rides and Touring => Topic started by: nikki on 15 December, 2014, 09:34:42 am
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Prompted by Dibdib's twitching completionist tendencies (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=86698.msg1781097#msg1781097) - which, I have to say, I also seem to be prone to - what obvious gaps are there in your cumulative
GPX tracks that are calling out to be filled in?
(https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8659/15404323214_606ea09b26_z.jpg)
Feeding my last couple of years' Strava tracks into http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php strongly suggests I should be planning either a Tewkesbury to Bristol Channel or a Banbury to Stockbridge to join up some coasts.
How about you?
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I think my geography O level tendencies demand that you complete the Exe/Tees line, Nikki.
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I too was
Prompted by Dibdib's twitching completionist tendencies (https://yacf.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=86698.msg1781097#msg1781097)
but although I don't (much) use GPX, I can draw some routes ridden on a map!
Thanks to DibDib, ive realised I can join Anglesey-to-Southend (via Chepstow). So that's nice.
However ... I have also ridden about 900 miles Durness -to- Ventor,Isle-of-Wight. APART FROM 7 feckin miles across Edinburgh.
It would look a bit like this:
http://goo.gl/maps/S9ufb
.. if it wasn't for those s e v e n miles between Dalkeith and Edinburgh station ...
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(I love stuff like this BTW - I do look at heatmaps and think "where can I fill some gaps?")
http://www.strava.com/athletes/990191/heatmaps/1a65cfb6#6/55.23920/-2.96082
I can get from Penzance to about Banchory - if I could just link up the Mille Alba 1000 and the HGWI 1300, I'd be up to Durness as well.
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.. if it wasn't for those s e v e n miles between Dalkeith and Edinburgh station ...
Summer 2015 touring plans sorted then!
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Heh! I was trying to make it more platform agnostic by not mentioning Strava in the thread title, but I see we need something more technology agnostic. Thread re-named accordingly.
I think my geography O level tendencies demand that you complete the Exe/Tees line, Nikki.
Yes, that option was begging to be heard as I tried to name an end point for that line. It's got to go all the way down to the south coast, hasn't it </resigned voice>
I have also ridden about 900 miles Durness -to- Ventor,Isle-of-Wight. APART FROM 7 feckin miles across Edinburgh.
It would look a bit like this:
http://goo.gl/maps/S9ufb
.. if it wasn't for those s e v e n miles between Dalkeith and Edinburgh station ...
Nice not-quite-a-line-yet. ARGH!
(I love stuff like this BTW - I do look at heatmaps and think "where can I fill some gaps?")
http://www.strava.com/athletes/990191/heatmaps/1a65cfb6#6/55.23920/-2.96082
I can get from Penzance to about Banchory - if I could just link up the Mille Alba 1000 and the HGWI 1300, I'd be up to Durness as well.
No shortage of lines there! I feel you also need some cross-wise action: maybe Pembroke to Scarborough or something (although I suspect you'd happily tackle that in one go!)
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Mine's rubbish: http://www.strava.com/athletes/2224010/heatmaps/17419c17#6/55.87531/-4.39453
I seem to just ride the same roads over and over... ::-)
Edit: I clearly need to do a Glasgow-Carlisle ride. And Carlisle-Penrith.
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I don't go far, normally, and I don't have a heat map, but I've been over most within about thirty miles of home. Sometimes I find a new one. Sometimes it's just failing memory. :-\
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Here's my 2014 map:
(http://www.ductilebiscuit.net/maps/2014-heatmap.png)
Some obvious lines that need connecting, some of which would be connected (Brum-Oxford, Stoke-Manchester) if I bothered to upload previous years' data into Strava.
I think I need to ride to Bristol.
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Of course all our gaps are just signs of weakness - before the steam engine came along we would have just ridden to every segment.
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I should be planning either a Tewkesbury to Bristol Channel
I think I need to ride to Bristol.
You're both right! :D
I shall be ignoring this thread, as I don't want any excuses to buy a GPS.
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Of course all our gaps are just signs of weakness - before the steam engine came along we would have just ridden to every segment.
Or, more likely, we'd just have ridden closer to home. They're signs of opportunity.
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(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7523/15840677470_66542c702f_z.jpg)
There are still a few roads I've yet to colour in around Solihull and Wythall, although I might give the M42 and M40 a miss...
Riding to Bristol's been discussed a few times, even to the extent that I did a recce drive back along the A38. Don't fancy that much. >:(
Kim, presumably that would then link up with an Exmouth Exodus and you get a Wowbagger-pleasing composite line?
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(https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7523/15840677470_66542c702f_z.jpg)
There are still a few roads I've yet to colour in around Solihull and Wythall, although I might give the M42 and M40 a miss...
Wow, even accounting for my westward bias, you have far more patience for this part of the world than I do. In the absence of a plan, I tend to just ride the same roads over and over.
Riding to Bristol's been discussed a few times, even to the extent that I did a recce drive back along the A38. Don't fancy that much. >:(
Kim, presumably that would then link up with an Exmouth Exodus and you get a Wowbagger-pleasing composite line?
Indeed it would. There's also a load of stuff I've ridden to the north-east (Peak District, and obviously the York area) that doesn't appear on this year's map, much of which ought to join up in a pleasing way.
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Wow, even accounting for my westward bias, you have far more patience for this part of the world than I do.
'tis the combined effects of Cycle Solihull and rarely being able to afford the steam engine to more exotic parts.
There're some nice lanes out that way - wish I could better remember which were which!
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Yeah, I should probably do more Cycle Solihull rides. It's the 10km of what can only be described as 'hilly Birmingham' between here and the usual start/end points that puts me off.
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I'm a recent adopter of GPS - only within the last couple of years - so there are loads of gaps, but I think they all would join up in my cycling history.
http://www.strava.com/athletes/1161007/heatmaps/6da33263#8/54.74048/-1.57104
BTW, nikki, I think you've broken the website you linked to..
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Ooh, I do like what I'm seeing.
No. Basil. You do not want GPS thingies. :hand:
And strava? Why would I want to know that I'm the 546th slowest up primrose hill. (I assume that what it does, right?)
Still, I do like those tracks. Oh bugger. :facepalm:
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And strava? Why would I want to know that I'm the 546th slowest up primrose hill. (I assume that what it does, right?)
It does, but you can ignore that in favour of mileage logs, elevation profiles and heatmaps.
(I appear to be 31/41 up Primrose Hill)
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As I'm partly to blame for this thread, I thought I should post my heatmap...
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/20141215Heatmap.PNG)
...along with the bit that's taunting me. Oxford to Cumnor. Three and a half miles. :facepalm:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/20141215Nemesis.PNG)
I'd like to fill some of the other gaps, especially to the Kennet Valley audaxes, but the Oxford one's the most annoying!
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^ No way could I live with that one!
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Ooh, I do like what I'm seeing.
No. Basil. You do not want GPS thingies. :hand:
And strava? Why would I want to know that I'm the 546th slowest up primrose hill. (I assume that what it does, right?)
Still, I do like those tracks. Oh bugger. :facepalm:
You can do it with a smartphone app.
The strava thingie is something you only get when you pay for the premium service, but there are ways around it.
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I'm a recent adopter of GPS - only within the last couple of years - so there are loads of gaps, but I think they all would join up in my cycling history.
Not even a tiny gap that's bugging you?
BTW, nikki, I think you've broken the website you linked to..
Possibly ...I can upload tracks from my account, but it says "no activities found" when I try and upload yours.
^ No way could I live with that one!
*twitches a little bit*
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...along with the bit that's taunting me. Oxford to Cumnor. Three and a half miles. :facepalm:
Only three and a half miles? There's got to be some scope for doing that on a ridiculous cycle of some sort, surely? Penny farthing?
Maybe bunting and a street party, too ;D
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I'm another who doesn't upload route.
But .....
Thinking about where I've been on the trike in the last 5 years ..........
I can join all my together at some point bar one ........
It's the ride I did from Sutton Park.
That the only ride I've driven to and from that I haven't crossed/followed on one of my tours of the UK.
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Have just posted this elsewhere but seems more appropriate here:
I have often thought of trying to ride every road in Dorset in a year. We don't have any motorways and precious few dual carriageways, so it could be done.
There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.
Still trying to decide whether missing out all the conurbations would be cheating or not; not sure I want to spend a fortnight going round all the residential streets of Bournemouth and Poole.
I suppose I could specify 'any road without a 30mph limit'.
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I really like that idea, Charlie.
I'm wondering if that's a possible for me too.
I would think evey road that is not A or M in either Warwickshire or Worcestershire might be a project. I don't think I'd manage it in a year though. I'd just do it until it's done.
Also at the same time I'd have to be doing either Carmarthenshire or Ceredigion. I live right on the border, so I'm not sure which. Whichever one of those it is, its going to hurt a bit.
Yes, great idea. :thumbsup:
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Is this because you've already cycled every road in a ten mile radius of the Country Girl?
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Actually, I'm probably not far off that. This year, I never went anywhere via a direct route in an effort to do my 5000 km solely by utility riding.
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Thinking about where I've been on the trike in the last 5 years ..........
Your tracks would go from side-to-side on a continental scale, wouldn't they? Now that's a map I'd like to see!
There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Do eet!
I'm reminded of this post Deano made on The Bridges Thread:
I think this demonstrates a level of obsession which merits wider attention, and I don't think there's a better thread for it :D
https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/suspensionstayed/sets/
Basil, could you be tempted to join me for an every-tow-path-in-Worcs-and-Warcs challenge? :demon:
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There would be a large map on the wall which I would colour in.
:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
Do eet!
Oh dear, I might just have to. Just looked and seem to have all the maps already.
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A few years ago I started a thread called "The Yellow Roads of Essex" in which I was attempting to ride along every one of the county's roads marked in yellow on the OS 1:50000. There's a lot more I haven't done than I have, and I've ridden an awful lot of miles in Essex.
I suspect Delthebike is closer to completing them than I am.
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Basil, could you be tempted to join me for an every-tow-path-in-Worcs-and-Warcs challenge? :demon:
Ooh nikki, what a fabulous idea. Let's start planning now.
Oh hang on..
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Hmm, how much towpath would that actually be? You might be able to cover it all in the token three weeks of ridable towpath season...
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<whisper>I don't think he's that keen, Kim</whisper>
I think I'd want to annexe Brum to Warwickshire for the purposes of getting the canal count up.
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Mrs Miggins and I can supply the support boat with added catering.
It's a whole lot better way to travel the canals and you don't get your bike dirty!
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Dunno about these new-fangled GPX thingies. A life-long friend of mine had, as early as 1980, one of the old YHA wall charts of the UK on which he filled in his rides. The whole UK looked more complete than most screen-shots above, even then.
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Dunno about these new-fangled GPX thingies. A life-long friend of mine had, as early as 1980, one of the old YHA wall charts of the UK on which he filled in his rides. The whole UK looked more complete than most screen-shots above, even then.
I suspect that's more about the sample period and our respective cycling habits than the mapping technology, thobut. I only uploaded rides from the start of 2014, which hasn't been a great year for me cycling-wise.
I should have raw GPS logs of all my non-utility rides dating back to 2007, I may get bored enough to combine them into a map at some point...
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I'm a recent adopter of GPS - only within the last couple of years - so there are loads of gaps, but I think they all would join up in my cycling history.
Not even a tiny gap that's bugging you?
Actually, thinking about it, there will be a few bits that won't join up. I've ridden around Edinburgh city centre a couple of times, but my rides through won't join up with that (luckily for Manchester, there was once a train cancellation, so MSeries and I had to ride from Victoria to Hazel Grove). Same is true of Glasgow. I'm still working on a ride from Darlo to our head office in Glasgow.
The annoying one will be around Dorset and Salisbury - I've ridden from Salisbury out to Cranborne Chase and down to the coast, and separately I rode back north from the camping do at Andover, so there'll be just a few miles of road to bridge that gap.
I should also ride KX to home one time, as that would link up some odd rides around central London and out to darkest Kent (I was staying with a mate in Bromley in the nineties, and I took my bike down, but they wouldn't let me take my bike on the tube from KX to London Bridge, and by the time I'd ridden out to London Bridge I thought I may as well ride the rest of the way).
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I'd never thought about filling in gaps like this before, so I blame this thread, ie Niki, for anything to follow. But who knows, it might be good? Anyway, if I were to think about filling in gaps, the most tempting would have to be between Worcester and Tewkesbury, tough Didcot to... where? Newbury, I guess... is also looking at me.
I also like the "every yellow road in X county" idea. But which county?
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Worcester to Tewkesbury? Done that. It involved a good deal of the River Severn, some COR alongside the Avon, camping at Great Malvern and a delightful tea room in Ledbury. Can't remember the precise order though. We did get the train back from Great Malvern as the ride from Worcester to Great Malvern wasn't as inspiring as one might have thought.
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I'd never thought about filling in gaps like this before, so I blame this thread, ie Niki, for anything to follow.
Sor-ry~! ;D
I also like the "every yellow road in X county" idea. But which county?
All of them, of course!
Forum team effort? A different team per county, with, dare I say it, social boundary crossings every now and again?
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What about those of us who don't live in a county? This is the dilemma! :)
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I think you should enrol with the Caithness team, Cudzo.
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Special Post Town residents have to do all the posties' routes.
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I think you should enrol with the Caithness team, Cudzo.
Good idea! I've noticed this year that although I enjoy riding familiar roads, riding somewhere unfamilar is an extra pleasure - as much for the different architecture, landscape, etc, as for the different riding - and having a purpose makes it more so. And I've never been anywhere near Caithness.
Special Post Town residents have to do all the posties' routes.
All the pasty routes? My pleasure!
(I know three posties. All of them ride bikes, but I don't know any of them through cycling.)
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What about those of us who don't live in a county? This is the dilemma! :)
According to your profile you live in India. That should keep you busy for a few months.
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Oh, I've moved country twice since then! I'd forgotten that profile was even there.
I've remembered, since posting about Tewkesbury to Worcester, that it wouldn't be Tewkesbury - I've actually been as far up as Upton-on-Severn. So an idea is hatching in my branez to take a train to Malvern, visit Elgar's house, buy the Elgar cycling book, look at the Malverns, etc, then ride via Worcester to Upton and hopefully on to Bristol. But not all the way to India. :D Trouble is, the first train on a Saturday doesn't get there till 10:32, so I'd have to take a weekday off, really. Guess I could always cut it short by training home from eg Gloucester, but I'd rather not. It'll wait till spring, anyway.
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my childhood touring covered most of the southern UK,
Surrey, Sussex, Kent, Dorset, Somerset, South Wales, Pembrookshire, Devon and Cornwall, East Anglia the Peak District ...
the gaps are therefore north wales, Yorkshire, Northumberland most of Scotland with the exception of the western isles that I visited in 2012 and the forest of Galloway that I visited in 2011 and the boarders from 2000.
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A few years ago I started a thread called "The Yellow Roads of Essex" in which I was attempting to ride along every one of the county's roads marked in yellow on the OS 1:50000. There's a lot more I haven't done than I have, and I've ridden an awful lot of miles in Essex.
I suspect Delthebike is closer to completing them than I am.
I met someone who reckoned he had ridden all the roads in Hampshire, and then I spoke about Lee on Solent and he revised his expression to North Hampshire. I once thought about achieving this and realised that I hadn't managed it in 20 years of cycling around Hampshire and that to ink in every yellow road was going to take an astronomic mileage, repeating lots of stuff I wasn't that keen on.
On the main topic, although I don't have a GPS log I do have a manual logbook. LEL in 2009 was great at joining up the gaps, but that left a very annoying gap in Somerset. I'd done the Kernow and South West and a few of the Tavistock Audaxes, these linked up the whole of the west country and even the first rides I did growing up on the outskirts of Plymouth. But there was a gap between those and the Denmead addaxes that took in the Wylye valley, and even a mesh permanent that had a Shatesbury to Cheddar leg. But then came the Brimstone in 2013 and joined up the dots about 4 times over. So that has linked Penzance (Kernow & South West), A mesh permanent back to my house (Basingstoke), a Dinner Dart to York from home, intersecting with LEL to Dalkeith, that intersects the Mille Alba (all the way up to Deeside) in just 5 events. There's still an outlier in the Lake District which, since the Pendle is at the wrong time this year won't be fixed
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There's a section between Roubaix and Kluisbergen that is beginning to grate; and also the gap between Taunton Dean Services and Taunton BR.
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There's still an outlier in the Lake District which, since the Pendle is at the wrong time this year won't be fixed, yet.
Fixed that for you ;D
the gap between Taunton Dean Services and Taunton BR.
That sounds awfully like that might be a very short gap ...but also like it might involve being near a motorway :-/
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ISTR an even that controls at Taunton Deane then goes through Taunton. There are several OTP who will put me straight if not.
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Gaps? :smug: Hmmm... Don't start :demon:
http://www.strava.com/athletes/4628735/heatmaps/6ed5ab12#6/52.78217/-3.05930 (http://www.strava.com/athletes/4628735/heatmaps/6ed5ab12#6/52.78217/-3.05930)
Note a few rides around Brittany, including one round a TdF stage, coincidentally won by Cadel Evans, just a few inches ahead of Contador.... (Mur de Bretagne)
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The gaps are huge with me, it would take quite a few trips to close them.
(http://fotoalbum.dds.nl/ivo_m/heatmap/medium/heatmapIvo.jpg)
(I must have a paper map somewhere with the pre-GPS long trips, so even more gaps in reality)
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I think my geography O level tendencies demand that you complete the Exe/Tees line, Nikki.
Yes, that option was begging to be heard as I tried to name an end point for that line. It's got to go all the way down to the south coast, hasn't it </resigned voice>
If you pass through Bristol, I assume it'd be mandatory to stop off at the shop I saw this afternoon in St James' Arcade which was basically just full of maps and nothing else. Annoyingly I can't find them on the interwebs, or I would have taken a picture.
Edit: aaah, it's just a pop-up shop which explains why it's not on their website. Some cool pictures here (https://twitter.com/PAULFIS52668030/status/536062835353481216/photo/1) (twitter) and here (https://www.facebook.com/286686704875947/photos/pb.286686704875947.-2207520000.1419277386./293244660886818/?type=1&theater) (facebook) though.
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Gaps?
You've omitted Norfolk. Slacker.
mmmmm, Proper Maps...
There's got to be some sort of optimum combination involving GPX, http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=6&lat=53.68647&lon=-1.37665&layers=1 and a really big printer.
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Norfolk is now on my list ;D
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I'd like to fill some of the other gaps, especially to the Kennet Valley audaxes, but the Oxford one's the most annoying!
Oh dear. I've done it again, and this time it's even worse.
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/20150308%20Another%20Gap.PNG)
Not only is it even closer to home than the Oxford gap, it's under two miles. :facepalm:
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And it's a village called Eddington!
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...along with the bit that's taunting me. Oxford to Cumnor. Three and a half miles. :facepalm:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/20141215Nemesis.PNG)
Success! I got a slightly earlier train up to Oxford for Fab Foodie's wonderful FNRttS ride, giving me time to gently pootle up to Farmoor and back:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/20150704%20Nemesis%20Defeated.png)
Now, on to the next one...
And it's a village called Eddington!
I think I'm going to try to save closing this one for my 40th ride of 40+ miles. It seems appropriate somehow :)
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Yay! Congratulations! :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:
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Well this is awkward. :facepalm:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/NotAgain.png)
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;D
Think of it as an opportunity.
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;D Whoops! :facepalm:
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Are these maps generated by Strava? Although I have a Strava account I have never logged rides on there - once, perhaps.
I am trying to imagine where my lines might be and where there are sections that are not joined up. Given that we have ridden LEJoG, Lowestoft-Ardnamurchan, a couple of coast-to-coasts, I've done Southend-Market Harborough and York-Stowmarket, and have ridden all the way home from Sheringham, as well as Southend-Maidstone, Southend-Pontefract-Cheltenham, there can't be that many UK lines that don't join up. I think the Southend-Maidstone route will have caught pretty well all of my Kentish rides.
We had a Devonian holiday a few years back which included Totnes, Kingsbridge and Princetown, so that is probably isolated, there is some New Forest/IoW stuff which is probably separated, as well as the Solstice WARTIES that began in Castle Carey and ended in Pewsey. I don't think that the Surrey Hilly 50, which I have completed 3 or 4 times, is connected to anything else.
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Are these maps generated by Strava? Although I have a Strava account I have never logged rides on there - once, perhaps.
Other GPX-plotting services are available but for mine, yes - a third-party website uses the Strava API to pull details of my rides from Strava and plot them on a map:
http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php
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For the aspiring completionist, here's my map of Steve's roads more travelled since January 2015:
(http://gicentre.org/oytt/images/steveHeatmapAug11.png)
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I notice that he is avoiding Wales . avoiding leeks
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Well this is awkward. :facepalm:
(https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/23853117/YACF/NotAgain.png)
There are a couple of places where the track fencing comes right up to the B4-whatsit. <Looks at map> Hmm, perhaps not quite as close as I seemed to remember. Still, I'm sure you can cycle up to the gates any time.
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There are a couple of places where the track fencing comes right up to the B4-whatsit. <Looks at map> Hmm, perhaps not quite as close as I seemed to remember. Still, I'm sure you can cycle up to the gates any time.
I'll probably try to remember to cycle out of the gate and back next time I'm there, so I can link it up to the others at my convenience. I forgot tonight, but weather permitting should be back next week.
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I killed my completionist tendencies a several of years ago, back when OSM was a case of "here be dragons", by trying to ride round all of the roads within reach and add them onto the map. I even spent a summer holiday putting a fair proportion of the non-urban parts of Shetland on the map.
Enough is enough, and though I've got loads of track files, I've never uploaded them anywhere, or even looked at them.