VeloViewer Explorer Score and Max Square

[quilkin]

LEJOG cluster opportunities just waiting for somebody.... ;-)

Hmmm - wondered about that after completing Land's End to Bristol, but a quick look at road density in Scotland (north of Golspie)  suggests it's impossible on roads or tracks. You'd need to kayak a lot.

[carlosferreiro]

I think you can get up the east coast with a lot of short out and back gravel slog and some strategic hill wanders to tile boundaries.

[RobertW]

Staying in Gatehouse of Fleet last week allowed me a little time to work on my SW Scotland cluster.  At the end of the week I was at Total tiles : 360 (+33), Cluster 170 (+36) and Max Square 8 (unchanged). 

D&G tiles Oct 21 by rfwatson, on Flickr

Mainly short rides aiming for farm and forest tracks to boost the cluster.  These ranged from easily rideable on a road bike to quite muddy, though achievable by walking up the edge & then into a field

Track near Creetown by rfwatson, on Flickr

to fighting through regrowth on a track and hoping I would be able to find the bike and a cyclepath out of Creetown which was more challenging than expected.

Creetown cyclepath (2) by rfwatson, on Flickr

Still plenty of forest tracks in the locality to do on my next visit to fill in some of the holes.

Robert

[L CC]

LEJOG cluster opportunities just waiting for somebody.... ;-)

I'm almost London to Jedburgh - or is that not what you meant ? 

[carlosferreiro]

I'm a fan of any long place to place cluster 
First look Edinburgh to JoG looks easiest (most road density) up the east coast all the way. No idea south of the border, but keep up the same approach and you could do half of a UK coastal cluster too 

[L CC]

My current goals are to get to Carlisle and Dunbar this year.

[Jack_P]

Not on Veloviewer itself. On a Dutch forum we have an internal challenge about this. To be at the top your longest distance within your cluster should already be over 400k. Nothing compared to one German tilehunter who has a cluster extending from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea.

Fun idea Ivo, a long way from Lejog as mentioned but did think could I stretch mine to Scotland one day.
currently as a route within my cluster I have approx:

453Km from Minehead to Sheffield
456Km from Minehead to the Wash coast near Kings Lynn
493Km from Minehead to near Manningtree on the Suffolk coast, which could be easily pushed over 500km

[quilkin]

My current goals are to get to Carlisle and Dunbar this year.

That's impressive; do you ride from home to the Cambridge area a lot and go slightly different ways each time?

[Ivo]

Not on Veloviewer itself. On a Dutch forum we have an internal challenge about this. To be at the top your longest distance within your cluster should already be over 400k. Nothing compared to one German tilehunter who has a cluster extending from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea.

Fun idea Ivo, a long way from Lejog as mentioned but did think could I stretch mine to Scotland one day.
currently as a route within my cluster I have approx:

453Km from Minehead to Sheffield
456Km from Minehead to the Wash coast near Kings Lynn
493Km from Minehead to near Manningtree on the Suffolk coast, which could be easily pushed over 500km

Yorick tops the list on the Dutch forum, with a cluster from Northern France to the northern tip of the Netherlands.

[quixoticgeek]

Yorick tops the list on the Dutch forum, with a cluster from Northern France to the northern tip of the Netherlands.

And to think I was pleased when I got my cluster to reach from Ijmuiden to Enschede...

J

[Solocle]

Not on Veloviewer itself. On a Dutch forum we have an internal challenge about this. To be at the top your longest distance within your cluster should already be over 400k. Nothing compared to one German tilehunter who has a cluster extending from the Adriatic to the Baltic Sea.

Fun idea Ivo, a long way from Lejog as mentioned but did think could I stretch mine to Scotland one day.
currently as a route within my cluster I have approx:

453Km from Minehead to Sheffield
456Km from Minehead to the Wash coast near Kings Lynn
493Km from Minehead to near Manningtree on the Suffolk coast, which could be easily pushed over 500km

I currently have a couple of microclusters at Sheffield and Leeds.

Also a titcher near Penrith

Strange experience to do some tiling on a LEJOG.

[L CC]

That's impressive; do you ride from home to the Cambridge area a lot and go slightly different ways each time?

God no.
I hate riding in Lincolnshire, believe it or not. It's like the bad bits of riding in the Netherlands (long interminably dull flat roads and no scenery) with shitty drivers.

Couple of renditions of Flatlands 600, an LEL, a Lincoln 400, and moving from BSE to The Good Bit made it pretty straightforward, really.

[trickedem]

Would it be mean of me to point out that you have a false positive down on Rommey Marsh (on the Military Road between Rye and Appledore)? I only noticed it because it's one I've been trying to work out how to get myself so I thought I'd have a look and see how you managed it... I think it's possible to get it by going across the dyke further up, and then along a farm track on the other side, but the road doesn't quite go through it.

I will probably take the footpath to the South, which looks fairly straightforward.

Well I got that tricky tile. Bad route choice though as I had to walk across a very muddy field after the footpath petered out and eventually left my bike behind in some bushes to finish. Much better to take the track further South which is much more passable.

[quixoticgeek]

Went out for a tiling ride. Annoyingly didn't spot one of the tiny dead end bits on the screen, so missed this tile:



On the plus side, bagged 52 new tiles. Added 70 to my cluster, and increased my square to 29x29.



12062 tiles
Max square 29x29
Max Cluster: 2000

Target cluster of ≥2021 by the end of 2021 looking distinctly achievable.

J

[Kim]

Having made that mistake enough times, I now end my Route at the dead end bit and start a new one for the continuation of the ride. Means I have to stop and faff with the GPS, which doubles as a useful cue to check I'm definitely inside the tile.

[quixoticgeek]

Having made that mistake enough times, I now end my Route at the dead end bit and start a new one for the continuation of the ride. Means I have to stop and faff with the GPS, which doubles as a useful cue to check I'm definitely inside the tile.

I'd end up with 20 separate routes for some rides. The amount of dead ends I get on some rides is rather bonkers. Yesterday's was quiet mild with 6 of them. That would mean 7 routes for an 87km ride...

J

[Kim]

Ah, I suppose you've got a lot more paths that are dead-ended by water than I usually have to deal with. I think the worst I've had was about 8 in 120km or something.

[Auntie Helen]

I tend to put a coursepoint on the relevant section and wait till my Garmin pings to show me I have reached it.

[JonBuoy]

Yesterday's Salt & Cotswolds audax from Droitwich Spa bagged another 49 tiles.  I had plotted a variation of the route that added 19k and mopped up another 36 tiles but on the day I was enjoying riding with other people so didn't bother.

Just over 0.5k per tile seems like an absolute bargain now that I am sitting at home in the centre of my max square!

[telstarbox]

Picked off some fiddly ones around Ealing today. I think I only have a handful more in Greater London to do

[Bilfred]

Nice one people, love hearing the stories. Completed my last ~50K ride to tick all of the localish tiles since I moved house. On to some bigger adventures as and when now : D

[Jack_P]

Yesterday's Salt & Cotswolds audax from Droitwich Spa bagged another 49 tiles.  I had plotted a variation of the route that added 19k and mopped up another 36 tiles but on the day I was enjoying riding with other people so didn't bother.

Just over 0.5k per tile seems like an absolute bargain now that I am sitting at home in the centre of my max square!

I know exactly what you mean, I was with you in that car park in Droitwich on Saturday, taking advantage of a lift from a friend taking part in the Audax to go off on my own tiling adventure.
 A nice change from riding half the day just to escape my square; so nice to be gaining tiles from the off in a nice area to ride too.

Took another nice chunk out of my project 101 square. 717 to go

[paddyirish]

Couple of tiling injuries to report-

A 4inch long cut while trying to cross a barbed wire fence to get into a field near Penicuik.

Also brakes failed on a twisty descent on road from Glen Finglas to Brig o'Turk.  Despite having both feet down I couldn't stop myself in time due to mud on the road and ploughed into a wooden gate that was across the road.  A number of cuts and bruises, though the gate fared worse...  Reported to the park authorities and waiting to hear back...

All in all Brig O'Turk is the Westernmost point in my cluster and West Linton now Southernmost, so the rides had the desired for tiling outcome at least.

Cluster now 1391 and square 17x17.

[Rod Marton]

When I started Veloviewing in the summer I decided that a 25x25 square and cluster of 1000 were good targets for the year.

And I've now achieved them (actually 27x27, as I decided to knock off all the off-road tiles around Cricklade in one go). Of course most of this has been infilling between pre-Veloviewer rides and my total tileage has only increased by ~150, but it has meant that I have visited lots of places which I wouldn't have done otherwise. Of course there are good reasons why I wouldn't have wanted to visit some of them (Tadpole Garden Village, anyone), but there have been plenty of unexpectedly pleasant ones as well.

Expanding the square any further means going further into Swindon than Tadpole Garden Village, so I won't do that until I have good reason to go there (the only good reason to go to Swindon is to catch the train out). But there are still mini-clusters to attach to the main one, so I hope to add a few more tiles to the cluster total.

[Solocle]

When I started Veloviewing in the summer I decided that a 25x25 square and cluster of 1000 were good targets for the year.

And I've now achieved them (actually 27x27, as I decided to knock off all the off-road tiles around Cricklade in one go). Of course most of this has been infilling between pre-Veloviewer rides and my total tileage has only increased by ~150, but it has meant that I have visited lots of places which I wouldn't have done otherwise. Of course there are good reasons why I wouldn't have wanted to visit some of them (Tadpole Garden Village, anyone), but there have been plenty of unexpectedly pleasant ones as well.

Expanding the square any further means going further into Swindon than Tadpole Garden Village, so I won't do that until I have good reason to go there (the only good reason to go to Swindon is to catch the train out). But there are still mini-clusters to attach to the main one, so I hope to add a few more tiles to the cluster total.

I crossed Swindon to join up my Dorset cluster and Oxford mini-cluster. Not too hard to knock off.