Veloviewer. Who is using it, and what do you get from it?
Discussion
https://www.strava.com/activities/3689782202
Today's result. I drove up to Figsbury Ring car park (take a Dakar-prepped Bowler for the "road" up to the car park!) and rode up to Stonehenge, and completed the lap of Boscombe Down to get that out of the way. 23 new tiles, and 3 covering old ground. Should have been 4 more, at least, but I stopped my GPS watch and failed to restart it for a while.
I took my Cannondale 'Backroads' with HeadShok. The HeadShok itself sounds a bit past it's best, and the bike is heavy. But it rode nicely on the byways and bridleways up there. As usual, I'd planned to do more. Including linking up my tiles around Tidworth with the Salisbury cluster. And as usual I left home rather later than planned and therefore ran out of time. Still, it's an excuse to go back again...
Edited by yellowjack on Monday 29th June 23:15
Here's an update on my VV aims. I'm going round all 13 of the Sussex climbs, trying to improve them. There are two over towards Hastings that are a long way away, probably 120 mile round trip, that I have never ridden. I haven't ridden much over 100km for a couple of years, so saving those for the time when my overall performance is better.
Sunday's goal was Quell Lane which is an evil tiny little lane in the woods up near Haslemere, so almost Surrey. I've only ridden it 3 times before, I think I must have been out for the count on those rides because I chopped a minute off my pb. Very chuffed! And given Sunday's weather included a forecast of 40 mph headwinds, I was pleasantly surprised; I expected the wind to batter me at some point but it actually felt like a tailwind all morning.
Solocle said:
Yeah, sadly, I don't think I'd have been flavour of the month if I'd disapeared for hours, only to call "can you pick me up from Oxford"?
Haha I can imagine the response, I've been tempted to do similar but it'd be a short response!I've done a few rides to tick off some more tiles, but it is hard to find the time to go so far - a 70km ride is netting 4 or 5 new tiles.
Current stats are:
Veloview score - 99.413
2761 tiles, average of 6.212 km per tile
Max square 19x19 View map
Max Cluster: 570 KML
No time for a longer planned ride, and the army tank ranges at Lulworth Gunnery School had some of the roads I needed to 'nab' 5 tiles closed anyway. So I moved on down to Kimmeridge, east of the Lulworth Range boundary, and got four tiles down there...
...which, rather unexpectedly, means that my Max Cluster has increased from 636 to 639. Better yet, though. It means that the Max Cluster I have created since April last year, centred on Bournemouth, is now larger than the "old" Max Cluster centred on Farnborough. And that one took me six years to create.
Now, if I can manage to link the two clusters up, I'll more than double the size of it/them. And hopefully someone at the National Trust will come up with a plan to reopen Brownsea Island some time soon, because the four tiles covered by the island will be worth a 12 tile increase to my Max Cluster.
Sadly, no increase to my Max Square. Filling in the gaps on Purbeck does nothing to help expand my Max Square, but it's good fun all the same...
...which, rather unexpectedly, means that my Max Cluster has increased from 636 to 639. Better yet, though. It means that the Max Cluster I have created since April last year, centred on Bournemouth, is now larger than the "old" Max Cluster centred on Farnborough. And that one took me six years to create.
Now, if I can manage to link the two clusters up, I'll more than double the size of it/them. And hopefully someone at the National Trust will come up with a plan to reopen Brownsea Island some time soon, because the four tiles covered by the island will be worth a 12 tile increase to my Max Cluster.
Sadly, no increase to my Max Square. Filling in the gaps on Purbeck does nothing to help expand my Max Square, but it's good fun all the same...
yellowjack said:
Now, if I can manage to link the two clusters up, I'll more than double the size of it/them. And hopefully someone at the National Trust will come up with a plan to reopen Brownsea Island some time soon, because the four tiles covered by the island will be worth a 12 tile increase to my Max Cluster..
Not fancy a swim? ;-) ukbabz said:
yellowjack said:
Now, if I can manage to link the two clusters up, I'll more than double the size of it/them. And hopefully someone at the National Trust will come up with a plan to reopen Brownsea Island some time soon, because the four tiles covered by the island will be worth a 12 tile increase to my Max Cluster..
Not fancy a swim? ;-) 
I had a monster ride planned for Sunday, the 6 hills of West Sussex in Simon Warren's books plus 4 more to make a nice round 10. I had the route plotted and on my Giant Neostrack computer, but as soon as I switched it on, it started playing up. It was lagging when I asked it to scroll, when I called the route up it took an age to load, and because I had plotted the route starting about 400 yds from home, it said "off route" initially, which was to be expected, but when I got to the start, the screen said "Arrived" and then froze! The first hill was Steyning Bostal which I know well, except my Giant computer hadn't located the satellite in this time, so I could have been anywhere. I stopped at the top, switched the computer off and back on, reloaded the route, started to ride and everything looked ok. One benefit of this was my average speed was boosted by starting at the top of the Bostal so I had until the next hill to bathe in a better than expected performance! I spent the whole ride wondering if I would be able to edit the files into one, to combine the short climb up Steyning Bostal with the longer ride I was now on.
It was a great ride, Steyning Bostal and Chantry Lane are pretty hard, but at the start so not killers. Good job really because no 3 is Bignor, which has to be the hardest hill for miles around. On to Duncton, which is a main road, and so its wide, has a good surface and a pretty steady gradient at 11%; on paper it's the easiest on today's menu. However, I struggled and started to think I wasn't going to do all 10 today. Bexley and Quell Lane come close together and I made it up both, but after Quell you are on a rolling tiny lane, and there are a few lumps which really were hitting me hard. I had planned to stop in Fernhurst and then think about whether to push on or bail out, it is a sensible place for me to make that call. To carry on with the whole ride meant heading even further away from home, maybe 40 km and that was looking like at least 2 hours at the pace I was reduced to. I had a great mocha and bacon and cheese panini, which made me feel a whole lot better. When I got back on the bike, my computer was saying it was another 97 km, which sealed the nail on the coffin of the big one for now and I headed home.
I used the buzz of the coffee and panini to get me home, and a few hundred metres away I saved the ride, or so I thought. The damn computer hadn't recorded, not sure why. Maybe because I went off route for more than half the ride, or perhaps the memory was full, or maybe the ride the day before when it ran out of charge and switched itself off before I finished had something to do with it. So frustrating, I'd notched up over 2000m of climbing!
It was a great ride, Steyning Bostal and Chantry Lane are pretty hard, but at the start so not killers. Good job really because no 3 is Bignor, which has to be the hardest hill for miles around. On to Duncton, which is a main road, and so its wide, has a good surface and a pretty steady gradient at 11%; on paper it's the easiest on today's menu. However, I struggled and started to think I wasn't going to do all 10 today. Bexley and Quell Lane come close together and I made it up both, but after Quell you are on a rolling tiny lane, and there are a few lumps which really were hitting me hard. I had planned to stop in Fernhurst and then think about whether to push on or bail out, it is a sensible place for me to make that call. To carry on with the whole ride meant heading even further away from home, maybe 40 km and that was looking like at least 2 hours at the pace I was reduced to. I had a great mocha and bacon and cheese panini, which made me feel a whole lot better. When I got back on the bike, my computer was saying it was another 97 km, which sealed the nail on the coffin of the big one for now and I headed home.
I used the buzz of the coffee and panini to get me home, and a few hundred metres away I saved the ride, or so I thought. The damn computer hadn't recorded, not sure why. Maybe because I went off route for more than half the ride, or perhaps the memory was full, or maybe the ride the day before when it ran out of charge and switched itself off before I finished had something to do with it. So frustrating, I'd notched up over 2000m of climbing!
Another big one last Thursday. Another Garmin failure.
So another Strava upload using GOTOES ( https://gotoes.org/gotoes/strava/Add_Timestamps_To... ) site to add time stamps to a planned route to recreate the ride and claim the tiles. 125 miles ridden in total, over 11 hours moving time, and I wasn't back until 0215 hours, much to the annoyance of my wife.
The ForeRunner 910XT just doesn't seem able to cope with big ride files. This time Garmin Express said "there was an error syncing to Garmin Connect". No explanation of what was the nature of the error, nor any suggestions of how to fix it. Repeated attempts at uploading the file were driving me nuts, so i've wiped the activity from the watch and used the Strava Routes feature to create the route I rode, and GOTOES to add time stamps.
A bogus KOM came up, so i've had to flag the activity. I'm not sure if this quarantines the whole ride though? I want to claim the Veloviewer tiles and the mileage, I don't give a fig about leaderboards. I seem to have the tiles, not sure if the miles count toward my personal totals.
It was a daft ride. Planned to go to Portland and back from Bournemouth, all on the road. Ended up pissing about on byways and bridleways, and even walking sections of the coast path near Ringstead/Osmington. This meant I hadn't time or daylight to get back, so I binned Portland off for another day. Hard work. Hot too, when the sun came out from behind the clouds in the afternoon. The off-roading did deliver 28 tiles though, and left gaps that are either unrideable anyway (Lulworth Range Path, for example, forbids cycling) or are asphalt roads so filling in those gaps should be easier next time. A disappointing sounding 11.2 mph average speed according to the Activity page on the watch, but when I think about all the bridleways and footpaths I had to push the bike along, it doesn't seem as disappointing after all.
Strava link here... https://www.strava.com/activities/3788187759
I'm going to have to do something about the Garmin reliability issues on longer rides though. Maybe get my Edge500 repaired, or buy a new Garmin or perhaps defect to a Wahoo device? If the watch can't cope with larger data files it won't be much use to me, really...
So another Strava upload using GOTOES ( https://gotoes.org/gotoes/strava/Add_Timestamps_To... ) site to add time stamps to a planned route to recreate the ride and claim the tiles. 125 miles ridden in total, over 11 hours moving time, and I wasn't back until 0215 hours, much to the annoyance of my wife.
The ForeRunner 910XT just doesn't seem able to cope with big ride files. This time Garmin Express said "there was an error syncing to Garmin Connect". No explanation of what was the nature of the error, nor any suggestions of how to fix it. Repeated attempts at uploading the file were driving me nuts, so i've wiped the activity from the watch and used the Strava Routes feature to create the route I rode, and GOTOES to add time stamps.
A bogus KOM came up, so i've had to flag the activity. I'm not sure if this quarantines the whole ride though? I want to claim the Veloviewer tiles and the mileage, I don't give a fig about leaderboards. I seem to have the tiles, not sure if the miles count toward my personal totals.
It was a daft ride. Planned to go to Portland and back from Bournemouth, all on the road. Ended up pissing about on byways and bridleways, and even walking sections of the coast path near Ringstead/Osmington. This meant I hadn't time or daylight to get back, so I binned Portland off for another day. Hard work. Hot too, when the sun came out from behind the clouds in the afternoon. The off-roading did deliver 28 tiles though, and left gaps that are either unrideable anyway (Lulworth Range Path, for example, forbids cycling) or are asphalt roads so filling in those gaps should be easier next time. A disappointing sounding 11.2 mph average speed according to the Activity page on the watch, but when I think about all the bridleways and footpaths I had to push the bike along, it doesn't seem as disappointing after all.
Strava link here... https://www.strava.com/activities/3788187759
I'm going to have to do something about the Garmin reliability issues on longer rides though. Maybe get my Edge500 repaired, or buy a new Garmin or perhaps defect to a Wahoo device? If the watch can't cope with larger data files it won't be much use to me, really...
That's frustrating, and I agree I think you're finding a limit of the watches.
For older garmin edge models it seems wahoo had the edge, however if you go for the 530/830/1030 they seem to have gained the edge again.
For me, I managed a ride to get a few tiles on Saturday, didn't give a big boost for 100km ride. There's a big cluster win if I go colour in Reading, but it's not really a nice place to ride so putting it off. I may start heading over towards the Cotswolds there and see where I can expand.
In terms of max square, there's only a handful of gaps which stop a big jump.
2801 tiles, average of 6.251 km per tile (+28, up from 2773)
Max square 20x20 (no change)
Max Cluster: 616 (+12 from 604)
Veloviewer score - 99.419 (up from 99.417)
For older garmin edge models it seems wahoo had the edge, however if you go for the 530/830/1030 they seem to have gained the edge again.
For me, I managed a ride to get a few tiles on Saturday, didn't give a big boost for 100km ride. There's a big cluster win if I go colour in Reading, but it's not really a nice place to ride so putting it off. I may start heading over towards the Cotswolds there and see where I can expand.
In terms of max square, there's only a handful of gaps which stop a big jump.
2801 tiles, average of 6.251 km per tile (+28, up from 2773)
Max square 20x20 (no change)
Max Cluster: 616 (+12 from 604)
Veloviewer score - 99.419 (up from 99.417)
ukbabz said:
That's frustrating, and I agree I think you're finding a limit of the watches.
For older garmin edge models it seems wahoo had the edge, however if you go for the 530/830/1030 they seem to have gained the edge again....
Additional frustration now! For older garmin edge models it seems wahoo had the edge, however if you go for the 530/830/1030 they seem to have gained the edge again....
Garmin's servers are down. I can't even attempt to upload yesterday's 126 miler until the servers are back up again. Watch was OK battery wise, a two-hour ride the day before uploaded OK after i did some "spring cleaning" of Garmin files and folders. That two-hour ride, and 12 hours or so yesterday meant the watch was down to 5% battery life remaining when I plugged it in to charge this morning. It remains to be seen whether the data will transfer and end up as a useable FIT file though.
I also ran my Edge 500 as a back-up. I didn't turn that on until I reached "new tile territory" though. It didn't quite last until the last of the "new tiles". A full charge lasted around 8 hours I think, including all the map-reading auto-pause periods. I can't find anything on the Garmin UK site about repair (or replace with refurbished unit) for the Edge 500, so I've been Googling for a repair company I can send the Edge 500 to for a new battery and a new rear case (the ¼ turn mount is broken). I haven't connected the Edge 500 so no idea if that will upload direct to Strava without the Garmin servers. It's tempting, even though it would only be half a ride, just to see what tiles I managed to bag.
Big ride out, over to the Blandford area (but not into Blandford Forum itself). Then wiggling my way down to Dorchester, and eventually on to Preston on the outskirts of Weymouth (for chips!) before coming back via Winfrith and Wareham. I had a 1:25,000 scale OS map for the bits south of Dorchester, and I also had a 1:50,000 scale map of Salisbury and The Plain. But all I had to help with the infill bit between Blandford and Dorchester was a fablon-covered page torn from an old AA road atlas! Hardly the most reliable mapping when it comes to VV tiling...
I'd also sworn that I'd stick to tarmac roads this time, and get down to Portland. In the end I went too far north, and was enticed onto bridleways and byways again (I don't think I'll ever learn) which killed my average speed. So time ran out once again, and after finishing at 3am last time I did a 200 km ride, this time I finished at a slightly more civilised 0030hrs.
I'm now champing at the bit to get the watch data uploaded, if only to see if the damned thing works. And the Garmin servers are still down!!!
yellowjack said:
Additional frustration now!
Garmin's servers are down. I can't even attempt to upload yesterday's 126 miler until the servers are back up again. Watch was OK battery wise, a two-hour ride the day before uploaded OK after i did some "spring cleaning" of Garmin files and folders. That two-hour ride, and 12 hours or so yesterday meant the watch was down to 5% battery life remaining when I plugged it in to charge this morning. It remains to be seen whether the data will transfer and end up as a useable FIT file though.
I also ran my Edge 500 as a back-up. I didn't turn that on until I reached "new tile territory" though. It didn't quite last until the last of the "new tiles". A full charge lasted around 8 hours I think, including all the map-reading auto-pause periods. I can't find anything on the Garmin UK site about repair (or replace with refurbished unit) for the Edge 500, so I've been Googling for a repair company I can send the Edge 500 to for a new battery and a new rear case (the ¼ turn mount is broken). I haven't connected the Edge 500 so no idea if that will upload direct to Strava without the Garmin servers. It's tempting, even though it would only be half a ride, just to see what tiles I managed to bag.
Big ride out, over to the Blandford area (but not into Blandford Forum itself). Then wiggling my way down to Dorchester, and eventually on to Preston on the outskirts of Weymouth (for chips!) before coming back via Winfrith and Wareham. I had a 1:25,000 scale OS map for the bits south of Dorchester, and I also had a 1:50,000 scale map of Salisbury and The Plain. But all I had to help with the infill bit between Blandford and Dorchester was a fablon-covered page torn from an old AA road atlas! Hardly the most reliable mapping when it comes to VV tiling...
I'd also sworn that I'd stick to tarmac roads this time, and get down to Portland. In the end I went too far north, and was enticed onto bridleways and byways again (I don't think I'll ever learn) which killed my average speed. So time ran out once again, and after finishing at 3am last time I did a 200 km ride, this time I finished at a slightly more civilised 0030hrs.
I'm now champing at the bit to get the watch data uploaded, if only to see if the damned thing works. And the Garmin servers are still down!!!
Garmin's servers are down. I can't even attempt to upload yesterday's 126 miler until the servers are back up again. Watch was OK battery wise, a two-hour ride the day before uploaded OK after i did some "spring cleaning" of Garmin files and folders. That two-hour ride, and 12 hours or so yesterday meant the watch was down to 5% battery life remaining when I plugged it in to charge this morning. It remains to be seen whether the data will transfer and end up as a useable FIT file though.
I also ran my Edge 500 as a back-up. I didn't turn that on until I reached "new tile territory" though. It didn't quite last until the last of the "new tiles". A full charge lasted around 8 hours I think, including all the map-reading auto-pause periods. I can't find anything on the Garmin UK site about repair (or replace with refurbished unit) for the Edge 500, so I've been Googling for a repair company I can send the Edge 500 to for a new battery and a new rear case (the ¼ turn mount is broken). I haven't connected the Edge 500 so no idea if that will upload direct to Strava without the Garmin servers. It's tempting, even though it would only be half a ride, just to see what tiles I managed to bag.
Big ride out, over to the Blandford area (but not into Blandford Forum itself). Then wiggling my way down to Dorchester, and eventually on to Preston on the outskirts of Weymouth (for chips!) before coming back via Winfrith and Wareham. I had a 1:25,000 scale OS map for the bits south of Dorchester, and I also had a 1:50,000 scale map of Salisbury and The Plain. But all I had to help with the infill bit between Blandford and Dorchester was a fablon-covered page torn from an old AA road atlas! Hardly the most reliable mapping when it comes to VV tiling...
I'd also sworn that I'd stick to tarmac roads this time, and get down to Portland. In the end I went too far north, and was enticed onto bridleways and byways again (I don't think I'll ever learn) which killed my average speed. So time ran out once again, and after finishing at 3am last time I did a 200 km ride, this time I finished at a slightly more civilised 0030hrs.
I'm now champing at the bit to get the watch data uploaded, if only to see if the damned thing works. And the Garmin servers are still down!!!
The bit around Spetisbury is I think impossible to do entirely on tarmac. But there are actually some nice gravel roads around there, it just involved walking on King Alfred's Way to get to them!
I used a segment of the A31 and a significant chunk of the A354 to cut down on the off roading.
Edited by Solocle on Friday 24th July 11:03
Some good work there dude! You should be able to plug the 500 into a computer and just pull the activity from it (the 200 did this, as did 810 and 530)! Can be quite frustrating when tech doesn't work :-(
I managed 1 longer ride earlier this week (65km) which closed a little gap on mine and upped my max cluster. The rest of my activities are just general fitness. I've got 4 different 20x20 squares over each other, so I need to go east and west to get a big step up there in max cluster. I'm considering spending a bit of time on my mountain bike and pushing a few of the segments that aren't really feasible on my road bike, although I may drive the bike the 20km the MTB to the edge of the cluster so it's enjoyable on the bridleways!
2803 tiles, average of 6.283 km per tile (+2, up from 2801 and + 0.032km per tile)
Max square 20x20 (no change)
Max Cluster: 624 (+8 from 616)
Veloviewer score - 99.422 (up from 99.419)
I managed 1 longer ride earlier this week (65km) which closed a little gap on mine and upped my max cluster. The rest of my activities are just general fitness. I've got 4 different 20x20 squares over each other, so I need to go east and west to get a big step up there in max cluster. I'm considering spending a bit of time on my mountain bike and pushing a few of the segments that aren't really feasible on my road bike, although I may drive the bike the 20km the MTB to the edge of the cluster so it's enjoyable on the bridleways!
2803 tiles, average of 6.283 km per tile (+2, up from 2801 and + 0.032km per tile)
Max square 20x20 (no change)
Max Cluster: 624 (+8 from 616)
Veloviewer score - 99.422 (up from 99.419)
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