Learning the way with GPS

What is Inspired Living ?? Why ride 1,250 miles ???

I am part of a team who have set up Inspired Living which aims to show that ordinary people can do extraordinary things and small changes to diet and exercise can make a massive difference to people's health and well being.

Inspired Living has three key objectives. Firstly we want to inspire ordinary men and women to adopt healthier lifestyles to reduce their risk of contracting cancer. Secondly we will produce medical research to help in the fight against cancer. Each rider will conduct tests as they train for the ambitious continental ride. In addition we would like to raise a significant amount of money for Cancer Research UK through sponsorship and fund raising events.

On September 4th, 2010, a team of 30 volunteers will start a 2 week 1,250 miles / 2,000 kilometres cycle ride from Winchester to Gibraltar, on this first day there is also a mass ride open to everyone covering 33 miles of beautiful local countryside from Winchester to Portsmouth.

To learn more about Inspired Living visit: http://www.inspiredliving.org.uk

Monday, 2 August 2010

Learning the way with GPS

Following a number of training rides, I found out that unless I followed someone who knew the route or had a GPS system, I either ended up lost, or waiting for others who knew where they were going. Maps are all well and good, but not that much use if they are folded up in your back pocket and or not in enough detail to show the lanes you are riding on.

A few weeks ago I finally bit the bullet and spoke to Mark at the Peter Hansford cycle shop in Winchester, who have been supporting the Inspired Living project, he agreed to provide Garmin Edge 705 GPS navigation systems at significantly reduced prices to myself and other like minded (easily lost) riders.

I have to say I was very impressed with the Garmin, it's compact, has all the maps of Europe, includes a cadence sensor to tell me I'm pedalling and a heart rate monitor to warn me if I'm dead (for now I've decided not to bother with these features), it also beeps as you approach a turn so you know when to look at the display. All in all a nice piece of kit, however.....

On the training ride last Sunday, two of us had these devices, being a novice, I'd simply taken the route provided for the course (a .GPX file) and stored it as a track, when I started up the Garmin and selected this track, it took a few minutes to calculate the route - in much the same way the car SatNav's do - then went beep and I could see the map telling me where to go, what could be simpler ???

Ian, my more learned colleague had taken the .GPX file and using clever web technology had converted it to a course (a .TCX file), it turns out this tells the Garmin to stick to the intended route, not to try and work out a 'better' route based on it's own criteria. We found this out during the ride, when my device stopped beeping and the nice pink line we were supposed to be following drifted off the screen.

It turns out this is the next generation of bike GPS technology, now the systems are able to incorporate maps and function far more like car SatNav's. So while old generation GPS's blindly followed the .GPX files on a point to point basis, new GPS's 'smooth' the way between points based on the map information they have, which could result in long detours if it decided I should not go on main roads, etc.

As we are about to traverse the whole of Europe, I'm rather pleased to have found this out while in the New Forest, else I could have been taking all sorts of detours care of my new best friend!!

You do have to love technology (:O)

P.S. I forgot to mention the feature we most liked about the Garmin, the map shows a slice of cake for cafes / tea shops and has a database of these for the whole of Europe - yummy !!!