80 virees a moto

Wapping

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As three of the five regions are now complete, I have unlocked their threads.

I have started work on the north east region but have hid a snag with a bit of the routing, which I am trying to sort out with Michelin. Once complete (another 16 routes) I will then set about the north west section (another 16) to complete the full 80.

Hints and tips:

(a) The routes were all lifted from the Michelin route plans, which I then plotted out in Mapsource. Wherever possible I edited out any obvious routing glitches dreampt up by Mapsource, some though may still be there. If anyone finds any please flag them up and I will see if I can correct them. Wherever possible I tried to check that I had not clicked on the wrong lane of a dual carriageway. I also tried to make sure that Mapsource hadn't cut too many silly corners in towns, skirting down back alleys to save 20 meters.

(b) I have pointed out whatever errors I did find in Michelin's route books. There may be others. Again, flag 'em up, please.

(c) All of the routes are circular, each centred on a major town or city. That does not mean stretches cannot be used to plot other routes, cutting a part out of one and joining it into another.

(d) If you load several routes into a single file it should become obvious how segments of routes could be joined up. Simply use a decent map to fill in the gaps in between.

(e) If anyone is not confident with cutting route segments out, there is an easy way to work around it.

Load a route (or routes) into a single file.

Simply plot a new route by tracing over the top, joining two or more routes together, just as if you were plotting a route from afresh.

(f) Eventually, when I have finished the last two regions, there will be the five principle regions of France covered, each with 16 routes.

I think the five threads will work best of they are inter-active. So, besides pointing out any glitches, it would be great if users could flag up any other items of interest:

For instance:

Good hotels

Good view points

Significant road changes

Nice cafes

Bad hotels / cafes

Anything of any interest really.

If you can include pictures, waypoints and the like, so much the better.

Cheers,

Richard

PS It is still worth getting the book when you are in France.

PPS You may well still need a half decent local map!
 
Thanks for all of this work. Really useful. I'm going to have to download the lot and stitch them together into one big file.

Must order the book too. Only in French as far as I know so a chance to brush up on el Francaise!
 
Cheers. :thumb2

Spring will soon be with us.... Now that my eyes have stopped bleeding I must get on and finish the last 32, to complete the set.

:beerjug:
 
Cheers. :thumb2

Spring will soon be with us.... Now that my eyes have stopped bleeding I must get on and finish the last 32, to complete the set.

:beerjug:
well, I didn't like to rush you :D

Thanks for all your efforts :thumb
 
Wappers, you've done a sterling job on these old chap :thumb2
 
Cheers.

Stung into action by Ebbo, I have got out of my idle chair and started the last two regions.

Now on the north-east.

49 down and just 31 to go :eek: :D
 
Cheers.

Stung into action by Ebbo, I have got out of my idle chair and started the last two regions.

Now on the north-east.

49 down and just 31 to go :eek: :D

Its a labour of love mate :D

Psst... were's the blue flags! :D
 
Psst... were's the blue flags! :D

I wondered that.

The latest mapset on Mapsource seems to default to the little black signpost using the Route Tool. It's all part of life's rich tapestry, I guess.
 
The north east of France region is now complete. Just the 16 routes for NW France to do.......
 
The north east of France region is now complete. Just the 16 routes for NW France to do.......


I think I am going to cry....


Having spent many hours with a disintegrating book, highlighter pen, magnifying glass (some of the roads are very intricate) and a small scale map and got 65 routes plotted out, I was left with just 15 to go...... when Michelin bring out a new book!

85 virees a moto...... five extra..... :blast ..... to include Corsica..... :bounce1


825514580_5vqLX-L.jpg



But that is not the reason for my watery eyes......

I bought a copy of the book a couple of weeks ago. Late last night I idly turned it over to read the back.......

825515345_iRuWA-L.jpg




WHAT ???!!!


:eek::mad: :tears :drool :green gri :pullface:pullface :tears:barf:hammer::banghead::tosser:surrender

85 routes recommended by motorcyclists and downloadable.....

Yup, old Mr Bibendum has taken notice of some correspondence I had with them months ago..... and made their offering better..... just as the end was in sight :blast

Still, never mind, it has been fun (of sorts) and I have seen and plotted out some great routes for everyone to enjoy I hope.

The downloadeable routes are tracks (held in a GPX format) so I will convert them to complete my labour of love and post them up. The good news (of sorts) is that some of the 85 routes are missing.... so I am now one stage ahead of Les Frogs :D:D


PS Having just converted and completed a full route in under five minutes, I can now see how Michelin's intrepid motorcyclists got the turn distances so accurately. In the tracks they dropped waypoints at each significant point. I have deleted these to avoid possible re-routing errors for bods who do not turn auto-recalculate off, using via points instead.
 
Ooh gawd! :tears the only consolation is it will help you complete the set and we really appreciate your work :comfort
 
A VERY BIG thankyou Richard :clap:thumb:beerjug:
I'll download your latest tonight and I will be using these come June:D
 
That's it France (except for Corsica) is now complete. It's a lot quicker with the tracks :D

There are some seriously good roads in the complete set with some interesting twists and turns. It is certainly possible to join lots of the routes up to take you right across the country without ever hitting a motorway.


825652328_42Ta3-X2.jpg



Don't forget to take a decent map and have fun :thumb2

Richard
 
ALL 80 ROUTES ON ONE BIG FILE

Here you go, courtesy of the good folk at Dropbox, all 80 routes on one file.

80 Virees a Moto

It's quite big, so if you do not have a fast broadband connection it may take a while to download. Similarly, your PC may not load it up that fast either.

Have fun.

Richard
 
Wapping
Thank you for making this so easily available. Absolutely brilliant. Saddo that I am, I will be spending many hours poring over Mapsource and paper maps from now until next June. Getting excited already. :beerjug:
 
That's great, it's exactly what it is for :thumb2

I had always wanted to post all 80 routes up in one go but the file is way too large. I only learned about Dropbox a month or so ago, via another thread in UKGSer. It took me a couple of plays to get the link right (IT, files and all that malarky is not a strong suit with me) but it seems to work and will last as long as I have spare space on Dorpbox's servers, or whatever they are called.

I am now 2/3 of the way through a similar exercise for the Alps, using 30 routes from a very good German publication. These I will add to the specific Dolomites / Tirol routes I created for another thread.... along with a bunch of French routes I have just found in the French equivalent of Bike magazine...... and then join all these into the 80 Virees file..... along with quite a lot of Luxemourg / Black forest / Ardennes stuff I have already from ADAC.....ending up (one day) with something that will take anyone from Cherbourg to Cortina, via Perpignan, the 'Ring and all the bits in between...... :D.

I will then need to do some work on Italy, where there is now some quite good publications. Spain is a bit of a black hole and one that I cannot pretend I know too well. Finding Spanish routes will be fun though. :beerjug:
 
Well, it's much appreciated....consider a pint in the barrel for you if you're ever passing through Shropshire. I discovered Dropbox myself earlier this year. I took a Notebook PC (with solid state hard drive which survived a couple of drops) with me on my trip to Turkey in June. At the end of each day, I dragged and dropped all photos from camera's SD card to my Dropbox folder. Whenever I happened to be in a wireless area (probably 50% of the hotels I stayed in), the Dropbox folder automatically uploaded in the background.

I had set up a shortcut to my on line Dropbox folder on my home PC so family could see all my photographs as soon as they had uploaded, very often on the same day. I remember stopping at a garage in the middle of nowhere in Bulgaria for a cup of coffee...surprisingly, it had really good wireless so I spent a few minutes checking photos, email etc. While I was still there I got a text from my wife commenting on a photograph I had taken less than an hour earlier (she happened to be on line). Amazing stuff and reassuring to know there's an extra copy of photographs on the home PC in case the camera goes AWOL. You're probably aware, if you "refer a friend" to the Dropbox service, your free storage limit is increased...:thumb
 
thanks for your hard work, this takes the guesswork out of finding good biking roads!
 


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