100 Virees a moto - A labour of love (of sorts)

Wapping

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No longer published by Michelin, sadly.

A long time ago, I created the 80 routes recommended in Michelin's excellent 80 Virees a Moto guide to some fantastic circular routes in France. That was in the days of MapSource and on my old PC, the routes looking like an explosion in a blue flag factory, such was the style of things back then. Rather stupidly perhaps, I have set myself the task of recreating the 80 plus the additional 20 all in glorious, flag free, BaseCamp colour.....

One done, only 99 to go.....

Grenoble

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It certainly looks a lot neater than the 100 I created before.

Here's a sample:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9k9xid729ve2u45/le massif de la chartreuse - grenoble.gpx?dl=0
 
Worked for me - ends up with "Le massif de la Chartreuse - Grenoble.GPX" You need to save the .gpx file somewhere and then open it in Basecamp or import it in to the Kurviger website.
 
Tried the link Richard- unable to open it unfortunately!

That’s odd, it should work, as the post above says. Try doing what Headtester suggests.

Here it is downloaded from Dropbox and then opened in Pocket Earth, all via my iPad. If only Apple iPads could run a version of BaseCamp, I am sure it woukd have opened there too.

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Worked fine for me too in Pocket Earth

As an aside I thought I knew my way round PE reasonably well but I’m confused by the small yellow “Marks” that have appeared recently. Do you know what they are or how they are designated? If you click on them they provide little detail (such as the lat/long) that can then be examined in Google Earth etc. I suspect they might be created during the conversion of a track to a route

Both the PE FAQ and help topics only open for the top item, so no help there
 

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I don't know what causes the yellow dots. I guess it might be the shaping or via points leaking through? The way to find out would be to create a BaseCamp route A to B with no shaping / via points and another with lots of shaping and via points to see what happens.
 
I don't know what causes the yellow dots. I guess it might be the shaping or via points leaking through? The way to find out would be to create a BaseCamp route A to B with no shaping / via points and another with lots of shaping and via points to see what happens.

I don’t use any Garmin products so I wonder if someone out there could try and then report on Wapping’s suggestion ...
 
No problem.

The odd thing was that when I uploaded the ‘without’ file to Pocket Earth, displaying it alongside the ‘with’ route, the yellow dots vanished from the ‘with’ route. But I guess it just wasn’t ‘active’. I should have played around a bit more. Anyway, you have both files, so play around to your heart’s content. I don’t use Pocket Earth that much but I do find it useful for looking at GPX files on my iPad.
 
I think I was right, the yellow dots seem to vanish if a ‘no dots’ route is added to Pocket Earth. At least on an iPad, that is.
 
It’s odd that the Dropbox link in the opening post is not opening for people using an iPad. This is what I see on my iPad Pro, when clicking on the link. Note, I do have the Pocket Earth Pro app on my iPad, as something to open the file into.

The first thing I get is:

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A load of script.

I then tap on the three little dots in the top right corner, which brings up:

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I then tap on ‘Export’, which brings up:

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I select ‘Copy to Pocket Earth’, which brings up:

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I click on ‘Import’, which brings up:

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I click on ‘View’, which brings up:

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For reasons I do not pretend to understand, it ‘just works’.
 
I do wonder how long the Pocket Earth app might last, given the apparent problems with the Open Street Map site. As a thread in the GPS section suggests, for all its assumed faults, Garmin BaseCamp is pretty good and reliable. If it only it were available on an iPad, life would be perfect.
 
it opens exactly in the same sequence on my venerable iPad Air 2
 
As an aside, I do like the Pocket Earth app on my iPad / iPhone. On a jaunt I dump copies of the routes onto the app, simply as a back up or to show bods where we are and will be going. The iPad lends itself to this quite well.
 
Took me a while to work out that in Windows/Chrome you have to right click the link and request that it opens in a new window.
I'm slow like that!
Now all I have to do is to find a way of getting gpx files associated with Mapsource (it doesnt appear on the list of available progs for some reason,) then I'm away.
 
I have had a change of plan.

1. I am going to break the routes up regionally, following how Michelin did it originally.

2. I am going to save the routes only as tracks, not as routes. Why?

a) I think tracks (though not sometimes perfect when ultimately converted into routes) are much less prone to the foibles of bods' own preference settings on first import.

b) It should be possible for bods to convert the tracks into routes at the touch of a mouse. Failing that it wouldn't take long to trace over them.

c) Very few bods will want to ride the routes exactly as they stand, not least they may not always be starting from the same start location.

d) Tracks have no pre-set announced via points and no shaping points. This makes them tidier and maybe easier to use. Bods can add their own via or shaping or way points as they see fit.

e) I think tracks are more easily transferred into non-Garmin software and non-Garmin devices.

3. I am going to simplify the names of the routes, simply calling by the name of the start location and giving the distance. For example, Grenoble - 282 km - 180 miles.

First flush of the first three, hosted on Dropbox: https://www.dropbox.com/s/7xvqwgyqyohd58m/100 virees a moto - wip.gpx?dl=0

PS I am torn between creating them in green or in Michelin blue.
 
I notice that on one of the routes coming out of Grenoble, the blue track line differed from the Garmin map, when viewed in Pocket Earth. I have no idea why. I guess it’s just a glitch in the data or the two maps are a little different.

35a8170af5c69ef0e7e62ac50477d844.plist


b8c934be8272f60d2fff496e11a1e505.png
 
I do wonder how long the Pocket Earth app might last, given the apparent problems with the Open Street Map site. As a thread in the GPS section suggests, for all its assumed faults, Garmin BaseCamp is pretty good and reliable. If it only it were available on an iPad, life would be perfect.

I have just had a trawl through the OSM forum, and yes, there are big issues with Lambertus’ .nl website/service which obviously affect getting both tiles and counties downloaded to MS and BC. The basic OSM operation however seems unaffected so I hope there are no headwinds ahead for apps such as Pocket Earth

The two guys who designed and run PE released a major update just a couple of weeks ago (V 3.7.2 now) and some equally improved features will come very shortly, including a much more efficient routing engine, in 3.8. They have not hinted at any concerns with OSM data supply in the beta version so
I’m confidently optimistic for PE’s future

Yes, the ability to whip out an iPad or phone at a coffee stop and overview the next leg is great - as is the facility to split screen PE with Google Earth/Streetview and really drill down and challenge the leader’s choice of route! The embedded Wikipedia entries have often provided us with options to divert and visit en route interesting sites
 


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