GPX - The German 'Motorcycle route'

On BC PC
Route length 1744 miles Total Time 50h 58m

pjzx61T


bQdpg89


From experience my Nav V will just route from A to B however it sees fit unless there's loads of Waypoints.





 
The German 'Motorcycle route' - GPX files

Carrying on from # post 20 above....

I have now compared the route generated from the track, with the original track.

The track's full length is 1,747 miles, whilst the route's length is 1,744 miles. Small discrepancies like this are not unusual especially over long distances. Providing the bulk of the route matches the track, it's nothing to worry too much about.

I then laid the route (coloured magenta) on top of the original track, which I coloured white, just to make it stand out. By zooming in I can then run along it to see where the two might differ.

Here is a good example of what I call a 'Garmin feature'. The track takes the bend on the L3139, just as any sane person would do. The converted route takes the rider on the diagonal, along some sort of small road, the Gotzen Ausserhalb.

db8ee3b942f28bdd0c331810a04fab4d.jpg


This is all down to algorithms, nothing more. It - along with possibly some others along the way - also probably accounts for why the mileage differs slightly. If I were using the route I would have checked it (I hope!) before I sent it to my Garmin device and dragged the magenta line to take the curve by using an un-announced shaping point. Similarly, I hope I would have edited out any other silly glitches the software (or the original track's creators or Kurviger) had managed to make. For instance, cutting corners in towns, as you so often see. The truth is, had I been riding along and been told to turn down the Gotzen Ausserhalb goat track, instead of just riding around the nice bend, I hope I would have had the common sense to ignore the instruction, I being cleverer than the dumb device, at least this once.

Always check your routes before your send them to your device and after the device has imported and displayed them. If possible, do this at home home, before you waltz out of the door. Five minutes in the comfort of your sitting room, might well translate to an hour or more cursing the bloody device in the rain or broiling sun. Trust me on that. Not least, ALWAYS check a route that comes from any third party, even really nice people like me. Trust me on that, too.
 
On BC PC
Route length 1744 miles Total Time 50h 58m

pjzx61T


bQdpg89


From experience my Nav V will just route from A to B however it sees fit unless there's loads of Waypoints.






OK, so we match on the converted route’s distance. That’s a good thing.

A Nav V can and will run long routes without way, via or shaping points quite happily. I ran one for 350 miles A to B (ok, it’s not over one thousand) converted off a track, quite happily a couple of months ago. That being said, a few via points, never go amiss. A lot of it comes down to nothing more than the way an owner operates the device, as opposed to the way another person does it. Similarly, the way one person expects the dumb thing to function, will differ between owners. I think it’s a bit like spreadsheets. What makes perfect sense to one person, is sometimes gibberish to another bod.

When I get a moment I will try to load the northern route into my Nav V, to see what it makes of it. My gut feeling is that it will be too long in one bite for it to process or display the lot in one go. We shall see. That doesn’t really matter, as most people would break the route up, just as the route’s original creators did. I just joined them up for fun and practice.

:beerjug:
 
For anyone wanting to do what vRSG60 has done, to add some announced via points (or unannounced shaping points) to pin the route in place, here is my method on my Mac.

Select the route shaping tool. On a Mac you can also use the hand tool.

Touch on the route near enough where you want the via point to be.

Drag that point to some other road or even into a field close by.

The route will elastic band out and reshape itself, to pass through that point.

Now use the shaping tool (or the hand tool) to drag that point back onto the road where you actually want it to be.

The route will now snap back into place.

You now have what is either an announced via point or an unannounced shaping point at that point. You can switch from one to another at will.

You can also do it by inserting a via point into the route manually and doing a route recalculation. I just find my slightly convoluted way easier. But, that’s just me.
 
When I get a moment I will try to load the northern route into my Nav V, to see what it makes of it. My gut feeling is that it will be too long in one bite for it to process or display the lot in one go. We shall see. That doesn’t really matter, as most people would break the route up, just as the route’s original creators did. I just joined them up for fun and practice.

Well, I got it from my Mac to my Nav V. It is now busy (but very slowly) trying to save the route to the trip planner app. I am going to have to connect it to the mains or I think it might flatten the battery, which doesn't have a lot of juice in it.

I also sent the track across, to see what it makes of that. But first, the route.

I am trying the same on a Nav VI, which is proving no faster.
 
Well, I got it from my Mac to my Nav V. It is now busy (but very slowly) trying to save the route to the trip planner app. I am going to have to connect it to the mains or I think it might flatten the battery, which doesn't have a lot of juice in it.

I also sent the track across, to see what it makes of that. But first, the route.

I am trying the same on a Nav VI, which is proving no faster.

Sort of half a success.

The Nav V imported half the route exactly and then created a straight line from the middle point back to the start. It also imported exactly half the the track, which it successfully then converted into a route. Unsurprisingly, neither was a fast process.

My Nav VI failed to do load the route at all, which is a bit surprising as it has more powerful processor, power in this context being a relative term. To be fair to the Nav VI, the route installed onto an SD card in the device, which might contribute to the problem.

It doesn't really matter as it is near enough what I expected to happen. Not least, nobody would really try to load a single, multi-day, thousand mile route into their GPS device in one hit and expect it to work, surely?
 
This is great, thanks for sharing the route and the .gpx files too.

I've learnt a lot from Wapping's route planning lessons, not only some suggestions on where to go and options on how to plan a journey but also how to use the software.
 
Brilliant work.

I love the look of the navy blue one.
 
Thanks for this, Germany along with a number of other places are on my need to do list. The question of getting across and past Antwerp/Brussels or taking the Charleroi option is all to do with timing. The Southern route avoids the massive queues that accumulate on the motorways at peak times, the bigger problem is the duration of those peak times.

A number of times we have stayed near Dunkirk and Beveren just off the motorway heading on the northerly route, but having grown tired of filtering for many many kms we have taken to staying near Le Roche en Ardennes skirting south of Charleroi, the latter having now become a destination in itself.
 
For anyone wanting to do what vRSG60 has done, to add some announced via points (or unannounced shaping points) to pin the route in place, here is my method on my Mac.

Select the route shaping tool. On a Mac you can also use the hand tool.

Touch on the route near enough where you want the via point to be.

Drag that point to some other road or even into a field close by.

The route will elastic band out and reshape itself, to pass through that point.

Now use the shaping tool (or the hand tool) to drag that point back onto the road where you actually want it to be.

The route will now snap back into place.

You now have what is either an announced via point or an unannounced shaping point at that point. You can switch from one to another at will.

I had missed that tip previously. But what a great bit of advice
 
Thank you, ymfb, I hope you and others get the chance to ride some or all of them.

Yup, at some point crossing into Germany from parts of Belgium and Holland, you are likely to hit traffic. That’s the nature of the beast. No doubt there are German forums and websites that have reports of delays coming from Dover / Folkestone and when crossing the Thames at the QE2 crossing or Blackwall Tunnel, mixed in with (as we read on these pages) ‘horrendous’ traffic on the M25. But that’s just to over emphasise the possible negatives. Bods are doing it what? Once a year, when they go on their holiday, maybe? Is it really so bad to perhaps be slow’ish for say an hour, when there is two weeks of holiday ahead on near enough empty roads? Charleroi can indeed become a destination in itself, if it suits a bod’s itinerary to make it one, or if you are heading towards that area of Germany but not so good if you are heading towards say Munster, when a more northerly angle of attack is maybe required. Of course everyone wants to drive or ride on near enough empty roads, that is only natural but sometimes we all just have to accept that it’s not always possible or necessarily easy to do so.

Germany (like France or any big country) has a huge amount to offer, not least when you get beyond the ‘must do’ parts like the Black Forest, Eifel and Harz. It is great that bods want to do more there, I do too. The German magazines have given me lots of ideas on places and routes that I’d have never thought of, some of which I have shared on these pages. Just discovering, as I came across it on the road, that there is such a thing as the ‘German tree lined route’ was enough to set my curiosity running. Somehow I then tripped over the quite different ‘German motorcycle route’ which I then dug into, too. The only thing missing is having the luxury of the time to do some of the jaunts, but sometimes that is just an excuse not to try something different.

Enjoy your holidays everyone, no matter which way you go or where.
 
I had missed that tip previously. But what a great bit of advice

Hi Paul.

It’s a little trick I taught myself to do. I use it mostly when setting a fixed announced via point say five miles (or maybe just a few hundred yards) away from an overnight hotel or town that I plan to stay in. The next morning I can fire up that day’s route and select that point as my first destination, confident that the rest of the route will then run perfectly from that point onwards.
 
Brilliant work.

I love the look of the navy blue one.

Thank you. When creating the four routes, I came across roads I must have ridden down and sometimes place names that I recognised. Inevitably, they are all very different in nature. I like the idea of doing the green one and the red one..... or maybe a mix-n-match.....or maybe the lot, in one go! Now, that would be a jaunt!
 
What might be something to do would be to superimpose the German ‘Tree lined route’ over the top of the German ‘Motorcycle route’ and fill in gaps that way.
 
Some good info there cheers.
 
Top routes thanks for the time and effort you put into all of these and all the others of course!
 
The German 'Motorcycle route' - GPX files

I am harbouring a vague plan to ride the whole 7,500 miles in one event, as a sort of giant figure of eight, centred on Schotten, right in the middle.

If we call it 7,500 miles in total and break it up so that each day is on average 150 miles in length, it gives in a rather neat 50 days. But that is nonstop, riding each day. So let’s increase that by say 50% to give 75 days or two and a half months. Then it would just be a matter of deciding which order to ride the four sections in and in which direction. I think I fancy:

North East (cyan) clockwise. Then South (blue) clockwise. Then North West (red) clockwise, finishing with the western (green) anti-clockwise. I am not sure why I chose to reverse the direction for this one, it just somehow feels better.

7ac417e7b5c33edb6ebc5e1b6f0dfc34.png


If it is not to be a race, I think 150 miles a day is reasonable, as it will allow time to stop off and see things along the way and / or just to cruise along.
 
a double figure of eight would be good, converting the tracks to routes using BC over all 4 routes i get a difference of 14 mile in total, not bad considering a total length of 7261 miles, and of no real importance.
 


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