Maps or GPS or both and how to keep notes

JohnnyBoxer · Jan 1, 2023

CUT FROM A THREAD IN THE BLACK FOREST SUB-SECTION, JUST BEFORE WE HIJACK THE POOR FELLOW’S THREAD TOO MUCH.

Have a good new year everyone and may your maps never blow away in the wind.

RICHARD

I would suggest getting a 1:10 Michelin map for whole of France and one for Germany
This will give you a 2d overview of the geography and terrain of the area and then the areas you want to visit
Once you have decided on the areas you particularly want to visit and stay in, then purchase Michelin maps at 1:3/4 smaller scale
These will give all the top roads to seek out in those areas
Probably none of the ‘very best roads’ will appear in here/in a guide book or via recommendations from ADAC routes etc
A GPS won’t give you any of them either unless you randomly put a small village in them
Your brain will beat any GPS algorithm
Research it yourself
I have a box of 50-60 Michelin maps for Europe and select the ones I want before a trip - in large country scale and then locally in small scale
The maps are permanently displayed on the tank when travelling - from setting off to arriving at the hotel at night
At every coffee or lunch stop I take the map out and check out the best roads on the next area, along the way - maybe changing route slightly depending on the weather overhead and the weather report towards the destination and/or my progress throughout the day
A map gives you the ultimate flexibility that a GPS cannot do (especially if you are slavishly following a pre determined GPS route for that day)

Maps are the future, certainly not over reliance on a GPS

AndyB_11 · Jan 1, 2023

Maps and sticky plastic tabs but never forget the highlighting pens with different colours for different purposes.

I find it much easier if I’m returning to an area to get out the map and check my markings so I know where I stopped and if it was any good by the colour of the cross after marking hotels initially with a circle and leaving the rating until post breakfast

JohnnyBoxer · Jan 1, 2023

AndyB_11 said:
Maps and sticky plastic tabs but never forget the highlighting pens with different colours for different purposes.

I find it much easier if I’m returning to an area to get out the map and check my markings so I know where I stopped and if it was any good by the colour of the cross after marking hotels initially with a circle and leaving the rating until post breakfast

Great points

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

“Get a map, bum”

That was said to my father by a New York policeman in central Manhattan, in the mid-1950’s when he asked for directions.

Your advice is all well and good, JB but it doesn’t answer the OP’s question too well. Of course paper maps of all sorts and scales are great. But of course they can also be used to create a bespoke route within a GPS device, making the device a very efficient, very accurate, electronic moving map. That the sharing of GPX routes via the internet (as the post #31 shows) is also a lot easier than photocopying or listing it all out road by road road, is just an additional bonus.

What your post also avoids is that apps, like MyRoute, Google maps and Kurviger do use maps (often very good ones) as a base for bespoke route creation, no different to using a paper map of no matter what scale. The electronic ones might even score, as they may well show up-to-date road closures, which your paper maps from yesterday or five years ago will not show, of course.

I like paper maps, I think you know that. But, slowly but surely they are having their day. Their demise is of course sped up by people who just want to be told how to go from A to B to C avoiding motorways and to be confident that, no matter how wrong they might go, they will always arrive. Of course the devices are not perfect and some people are incredibly lazy (even if they ride an Adventure bike, with a capital A) and unimaginative. But the algorithms are getting better and better, as are all the app’s. Soon paper maps will be as ancient as a 78 rpm record, a telegram or your venerable GPS device….. good as it might be.

I still take my paper maps with me, not least as they are very good for showing:

A. Huge areas

B. People where we are

For individual route creation, I now create them directly on my iPad or phone. Baring a horrendous fault with my new 1600 and it’s much vaunted navigation system (see the 1600 section) which I am in deep discussions with BMW over, it all works near enough perfectly. In fact it’s now worked perfectly for assorted GPS devices for years.

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

AndyB_11 said:
Maps and sticky plastic tabs but never forget the highlighting pens with different colours for different purposes.

I find it much easier if I’m returning to an area to get out the map and check my markings so I know where I stopped and if it was any good by the colour of the cross after marking hotels initially with a circle and leaving the rating until post breakfast

What you need is my little black book.

AndyB_11 · Jan 1, 2023

Wapping said:
What you need is my little black book.

No, what you really need is a Filofax so you can easily add and remove pages in different areas so when you go to the Black Forest and find a new hotel, bar or restaurant you file the information in the correct place. You can also remove the relevant page and use the scan app you so conveniently have on your phone.

Your little black book is a 1980s Filofax isn’t it?

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

My little black book is, on some levels, a disorganised mess but it seems to work. I did try making notes electronically, which would be perfect. But it somehow just wasn’t the same and I gave it up.

adm1 · Jan 1, 2023

Wapping said:
My little black book is, on some levels, a disorganised mess but it seems to work. I did try making notes electronically, which would be perfect. But it somehow just wasn’t the same and I gave it up.

Try Evernote.

Take notes, paste in pictures, links, files, all kinds of crap. You can even take pictures with your phone of handwritten notes, receipts, documents etc and it will OCR the content and make it searchable. Tag, sort, organise and of course search for any and all information. Cloud synched so available everywhere. It's the ultimate digital little black book cum Filofax.

When I am on trips (business or pleasure), every receipt, business card, document or interesting snippet of information gets photographed and then the paper copy gets binned.

JohnnyBoxer · Jan 1, 2023

Black Forest Route Suggestions?

Wapping said:
“Get a map, bum”

That was said to my father by a New York policeman in central Manhattan, in the mid-1950’s when he asked for directions.

Your advice is all well and good, JB but it doesn’t answer the OP’s question too well. Of course paper maps of all sorts and scales are great. But of course they can also be used to create a bespoke route within a GPS device, making the device a very efficient, very accurate, electronic moving map. That the sharing of GPX routes via the internet (as the post #31 shows) is also a lot easier than photocopying or listing it all out road by road road, is just an additional bonus.

What your post also avoids is that apps, like MyRoute, Google maps and Kurviger do use maps (often very good ones) as a base for bespoke route creation, no different to using a paper map of no matter what scale. The electronic ones might even score, as they may well show up-to-date road closures, which your paper maps from yesterday or five years ago will not show, of course.

I like paper maps, I think you know that. But, slowly but surely they are having their day. Their demise is of course sped up by people who just want to be told how to go from A to B to C avoiding motorways and to be confident that, no matter how wrong they might go, they will always arrive. Of course the devices are not perfect and some people are incredibly lazy (even if they ride an Adventure bike, with a capital A) and unimaginative. But the algorithms are getting better and better, as are all the app’s. Soon paper maps will be as ancient as a 78 rpm record, a telegram or your venerable GPS device….. good as it might be.

I still take my paper maps with me, not least as they are very good for showing:

A. Huge areas

B. People where we are

For individual route creation, I now create them directly on my iPad or phone. Baring a horrendous fault with my new 1600 and it’s much vaunted navigation system (see the 1600 section) which I am in deep discussions with BMW over, it all works near enough perfectly. In fact it’s now worked perfectly for assorted GPS devices for years.

My way has been fine for touring since the later 1980’s, so will stick with it
I have no interest in MRA or Kurviger at present
I never use a bespoke GPS planned daily route as I find them too restrictive & lack the ability to deviate (seem plenty slavishly follow them, often going around in circles and every end & turn)
I have a GPS for speed and altitude etc and may use it when I get closer to a specific destination
Maps and place names suffice, together with the ability to read road signs works well enough
Hats off to those that do

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

Try Evernote.

Thank you.

I’ll give it a go. It might well be perfect if it can save links to the routes I create or tracks I record.

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

JohnnyBoxer said:
My way has been fine for touring since the later 1980’s, so will stick with it
I have no interest in MRA or Kurviger at present……
Maps and place names suffice, together with the ability to read road signs works well enough
Hats off to those that do

Just think how much richer your life would be if you could do all those things AND use a GPS device at the same time

JohnnyBoxer · Jan 1, 2023

I have a Zumo XT, never used it
Must get it fitted to the bike this year then
Maybe I can feel the GPS love experiences

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

JohnnyBoxer said:
I have a Zumo XT, never used it
Must get it fitted to the bike this year then
Maybe I can feel the GPS love experiences

It’ll be a waste of money (despite the savings made) if you don’t.

Use the GPS sub-forum when you get stuck

As it works a bit differently to earlier devices.

er-minio · Jan 1, 2023

Just to “confuse” Wapping a bit more: I switched from Evernote to Notion a few years back. I started keeping track of my trips (mostly when traveling with others, when on my own I just go with a vague idea of the direction) in Notion. Easy, all gpx routes are attached there, etc.
The only issue is that, by doing so, I am duplicating the data that lives in Basecamp.

I’m all for digital and using (properly) a GPS.
When traveling long range I do bring a paper map to have a comprehensive view of the areas I am traveling through. Scrolling on the LCD display only shows you so much

I’ll share the Germany files later today when home.

er-minio · Jan 1, 2023

Actually, here’s the Notion page for that German trip: https://emiliovanni.notion.site/Germany-Invasion-05-2022-76afbd33e7bb4ecf8abc51983a91628e

I’ll add the rest later.

When there, obviously we decided what to do day by day, etc. But it’s handy to have most options readily available as route & tracks.

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

Blimey, these app based notebook things are powerful.

All I have to do in my little black book is remember to sharpen my pencil. I must be turning into old JB

AndyB_11 · Jan 1, 2023

JohnnyBoxer said:
My way has been fine for touring since the later 1980’s, so will stick with it
I have no interest in MRA or Kurviger at present
I never use a bespoke GPS planned daily route as I find them too restrictive & lack the ability to deviate (seem plenty slavishly follow them, often going around in circles and every end & turn)
I have a GPS for speed and altitude etc and may use it when I get closer to a specific destination
Maps and place names suffice, together with the ability to read road signs works well enough
Hats off to those that do

You dirty, filthy Luddite!

That’s pretty much what I do with my planning (such as it exists) being simply looking at a map, checking the weather in the areas I’ll be riding through, checking for hotel availability in my chosen destination then winging it as to how I get there. I like riding along, seeing a road heading off towards some hills or forestry then working out roughly where it is on the map and whether it fits in with my loose plans then going for it.

It’s not a system that’s suitable for groups or agreed stopovers but most of the time I’m either on my own or with my wife who always starts the day by telling me she’s following me so I need to decide what I want to do. She’s then got the perfect cop out if it goes wrong because it was all my fault but I retort by telling her she should have spoken up earlier if she wasn’t happy

er-minio · Jan 1, 2023

Having tracks is a powerful thing when traveling with people that have different paces.

I mostly travel on my own, so GPS tracks are used for bits I absolutely want to do, offroad parts, then the rest is due to what I want to do at the moment, etc, “make your own adventure”.

I also travel with an Italian friend at least twice a year (Germany above being one example). We both travel at a similar quick-ish pace. We follow each other. GPS is useful but not strictly necessary unless for finding hotels, going through cities or pointing towards very specifi routes we want to cover.

I also sometimes travel with a GS-equipped friend from the UK and he is SLOW.
Slow as in: if we go up and down a mountain, I have time to have a full meal before he catches up with me (happened a couple of times)… in that case the “agreement” is that I provide detailed routes for the trip, and the I wait/meet at specific points along the route because, trust me, I’m not gonna wait for anyone if I’m climbing a mountain pass (thing I can do once or twice a year)

GPS is a poweful tool. But you are not obliged to be a slave to the “thin purple line”

I also mostly use tracks these days… so… same story as following a paper map, just easier to read, you Luddites

Oh, happy new year guys!

Wapping · Jan 1, 2023

Here is an example of why I don’t entirely buy into JB’s ‘A paper map is the only way’ thesis.

I simply picked on an area of map in the Belgian Ardennes, fairly familiar to everyone, with La Roche en Ardenne in the bottom corner. I then tapped through just some of the maps available at the tap of a button on my iPad.

All of the maps are fully routable, the bespoke routes (ie routes that you want to follow, along roads of your choosing) will export seamlessly into any GPS device.

It starts with Kurviger’s samples and then moves into MyRoute’s.

I think anyone would have to be deliberate obstinate to say that wasn’t a pretty good choice of maps, all available at the touch of a button.

Of course I can zoom in:

Or out, as much as I like:

Or of course, create a bespoke route of 140 miles (it could just as easily be 1,400 miles) on it:

PS Ignore the load of teardrop shaping points. That was just me mucking about in MyRoute. I added them in afterwards, to do something else. I can take them all away, if I wanted to. I could also add in any additional stop off points, petrol stations, Thai massage parlours, camp sites and pubs I fancied, all at the touch of my laptop screen….. and more besides.

PPS To give you another impression, I am doing this in my garage, whilst I fiddle with my Royal Enfield. I’ll be in here for a bit, so I’ll use the same iPad to watch / listen to Northampton Saints v Harlequins at the same time. Let me see you do that on your paper map

er-minio · Jan 1, 2023

Another big plus, forgot to mention earlier, is the track recording.

One of the first things I do when coming back from a tour is to download and join all the GPS tracks, so I have the full route actually covered, that most times is different from what planned.
I also use iPhone photo to triangulate certain positions (drop an iPhone pic onto Basecamp and it will be geolocated) and you have a full recording of where you have been.

I'll rest my case now.

I'm saying that as I just added the full German trip track to my Notion page. But I can see Wapping splitted the threads (thanks!) I'll post that in the other germany-related thread.

Maps or GPS or both and how to keep notes

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