Veloviewer. Who is using it, and what do you get from it?

[Daveyraveygravey]

Just remembered what I use VV for! About 5 years ago, I got the Simon Warren book about the Top 100 climbs, and got obsessed with having a go at the local ones. I live at the bottom of Steyning Bostal so that was easy enough, but the other Sussex and Surrey ones involved a lot of route planning and some long cycle rides. I messed up Gibbets Hill, I did a ride that should have had 4 from the book but after the third one I got lost and tired, and even though I knew I was in the area I couldn't find the actual route, so had to make a separate journey in the car to get it.
I'm 26th for East and West Sussex, there are 3 I haven't ridden still (don't think they were in the list originally?) but I feel a lot of rides coming on!

[yellowjack]

Try Veloviewer Explorer tile hunting! Many more long rides will be planned if you get into that...

[ukbabz]

ukbabz said:

Thought I'd give it a go, not really used it but for £10 worth a punt - who doesn't like data.

For the tiles -

2634 tiles, average of 5.867 km per tile
Max square 13x13 View map
Max Cluster: 323 KML

I can see this being fun, although looking at my current 13x13 it'll be tricky to add extra as there's no roads in the blank tiles.

Well I've only managed 2 rides since I signed up, as turns out having a baby reduces outdoor riding somewhat.

But have managed to improve a bit, looking at best way to try and extend to a 14x14 grid without throwing my MTB in the car and picking up some bridleways 30miles away (where the road segments end). Although I did take my TCR off road to get one tile yesterday

2647 tiles, average of 5.914 km per tile
Max square 13x13 View map
Max Cluster: 373 KML

[AndrewT1275]

Upgraded to the full Veloviewer and have started looking at my tiles. Prepare yourselves.....

Max square 2x2
Max cluster 3

In my defence I've only started tracking rides using an app in the last 2 weeks. Also, because it's quieter and I've got a bit more time on my hands than usual I've been doing bigger loops so have lots of holes.

There's a track I'll often use on a ride but haven't lately which goes straight though a current gap and will give me a 5x5 square. And when the Sandbanks ferry reopens it will be a tile bonanza.

This is going to be so addictive!

One thing I can't get to work though is the list and chart views on the routes page. Any ideas?

[ukbabz]

Managed to get up to 14x14 tile today. Although missed two tiles. Encouraged me to go up streatly hill again and knocked 40s off my pb so double win

[yellowjack]

AndrewT1275 said:

Upgraded to the full Veloviewer and have started looking at my tiles. Prepare yourselves.....

Max square 2x2
Max cluster 3

In my defence I've only started tracking rides using an app in the last 2 weeks. Also, because it's quieter and I've got a bit more time on my hands than usual I've been doing bigger loops so have lots of holes.

There's a track I'll often use on a ride but haven't lately which goes straight though a current gap and will give me a 5x5 square. And when the Sandbanks ferry reopens it will be a tile bonanza.

This is going to be so addictive!

One thing I can't get to work though is the list and chart views on the routes page. Any ideas?

Welcome to the madhouse! With a small Max Square, expansion should be quick. When it gets bigger you either have to ride a lot further for fewer tiles, or end up driving out to riding spots. Which side of the Sandbanks Ferry are you? I'm on the Bournemouth side, and although they won't help my Max Square much I want to "colour in" Purbeck as much as possible. I'm going to have to hit the gravel bike, or my MTB soon, because I'm starting to hit tiles where the bridleways aren't very forgiving on my road bike.

I picked up six tile the other night, on a past-midnight spin up to Godshill, and eventually as far as Downton, near Salisbury. Loads of tiles to get out on Cranbourne Chase/Chalke Valley though. There are patches where four or five tiles could grow my Max Square too, but I'm plotting an assault on Cranbourne Chase over a few rides, leaving one or two nearer tiles to keep it at 14x14, so that when I finally fill those closer tiles there's a significant leap up in my Max Square size. Then, when lockdown restrictions are eased, I can concentrate on joining my Bournemouth-based cluster with my current Max Cluster centred on Farnborough.

Expansion for me is limited to West and North only. I've reached the Southerly limit unless I get a kayak, and there are several tiles in Southampton Docks and Fawley Oil Refinery which might be a little difficult to get if I try to push East.


My "local" Max Square (there's another 14x14 to match it based out of my old home in Farnborough). Not bad for just under a year here in Bournemouth, and even better when I think that I didn't sign up to VeloViewer Pro until just three weeks ago. It gets really addictive really quickly!

[Some Gump]

Went square chasing today. Now on 13x13

Next ride would have been able to make that 14x14 (choice if 2 directions) except i ballsed up todays route leaving a gap in the new area i filled in.

I only use strave.route builder at the moment, and if i save as tcx i get no turn by turn prompts despite the web saying i should. Guess i'll switch back to gpx because although the prompts always come too late they at least exist!

Does anyone know of any clever place doing route planning with the vv map squares? Still not quite sure whether my missed square was me missing a prompt, or just setting the route missing a square - i was trying to multitask children and 2 maps in different colours and scales and it was quite frustrating.

[yellowjack]

Some Gump said:

Went square chasing today. Now on 13x13

Next ride would have been able to make that 14x14 (choice if 2 directions) except i ballsed up todays route leaving a gap in the new area i filled in.

I only use strave.route builder at the moment, and if i save as tcx i get no turn by turn prompts despite the web saying i should. Guess i'll switch back to gpx because although the prompts always come too late they at least exist!

Does anyone know of any clever place doing route planning with the vv map squares? Still not quite sure whether my missed square was me missing a prompt, or just setting the route missing a square - i was trying to multitask children and 2 maps in different colours and scales and it was quite frustrating.

I'm not sure it would help with route planning, and it isn't much use to low-tech me, but...

irn_bru_ce said:

If you have a smart phone then have a search for the app called "explorer helper for veloviewer" , it provides the tilemap and all the coloured squares as well as your current position, so very easy to go exploring on the hoof. The live position is very handy for time when your somewhere you kind of shouldn't be so you can just enter a square by a few pixels then leave and know you still have it bagged.

...this app sounds like it might help to avoid leaving an area having overlooked a tile or two. I'd use it myself, I think, but being a cheapskate on PAYG with a donated El-Cheapo brand 3G phone means I don't have the memory/battery life on my device to run it until I upgrade. It doesn't sound so much like a route planning tool, rather more like a "changed my mind off the cuff" assistant while you're on the bike.

I've missed a few tiles recently where they've been just off the map sheet I've taken with me, but adjacent to tiles I've been riding on that map, if that makes sense. So the app would have shown me that there were adjacent tiles, and a route into them. Then again, though, I don't want to get too obsessed with "tiling" to the point where I don't re-ride tiles I've already ticked off, because that would deprive me of some really fantastic roads, trails, and views over the beautiful Dorset/Wiltshire/Hampshire coast and countryside. Sometimes I feel that I've become a little too fixated on the "tiles" to the point where I've gone out in the dark and stayed out past midnight just to nab a tile or two, when I really ought to have ridden a more sensible loop close to home. The issue is that I'm now in a position where I need to ride 100km + to grab any tiles that would count toward growing my Max Square. And for a slow-poke like me that means at least half a day out on the bike. I'll probably have to start driving to destinations sooner than I'd have liked, and ride from car parks rather than starting all my rides from home, if I really want to tick off the greatest number of tiles per ride. Otherwise I'll be re-riding dozens of tiles before I can even reach new ones. The idea of "riding every tile from home" was a nice one, but it's difficult when you can't expand South due to living near the sea. I probably should have moved Leicestershire if I was going to get serious about "tiling"!

[Some Gump]

Thanks Yellow and Bruce,

Sadly, I'm an iPhone user so no Explorer helper for me! not the end of the world missing a square occasionally I suppose, just another excuse for a ride =)

[Solocle]

Liking the OS layer!

I've always viewed connecting different rides as the challenge. In particular, there's a big pile in the North I need to look at.
But I'm also considering making a bigger max cluster by connecting my two hubs.

Edited by Solocle on Monday 11th May 16:44

[ukbabz]

Just seen that there are leader boards for veloviewer, so can see how fellow members of the pistonheads club are doing on their tiles this year..

It's not a surprise that yellowjack is winning this year!

https://veloviewer.com/leaderboard/y/2020/t/explc/...

[yellowjack]

ukbabz said:

Just seen that there are leader boards for veloviewer, so can see how fellow members of the pistonheads club are doing on their tiles this year..

It's not a surprise that yellowjack is winning this year!

https://veloviewer.com/leaderboard/y/2020/t/explc/...

The link doesn't work for me, but...



That will soon change. I've almost exhausted the "new" tiles I can reach within a four-hour ride now. I only moved here in May 2019, and due to DIY, etc, didn't really start riding until July 2019. It's only since the sunny weather this spring that I've really pushed out from Bournemouth on longer rides (not as much cycling over the wet winter we've had as I would have liked). When I signed up to VV in April 2020 I found that I'd already grabbed a lot of "new" tiles without realising it.

My new tile rate will begin to slow down now, as they get further and further away. But I'm still inspired to ride, simply because the area (East Dorset, Sout West Hampshire, and South Wiltshire mainly) is absolutely beautiful to ride in, and there are many quiet roads to take advantage of.

It also depends upon which data fields you choose to look at. 'Gruffy' wipes the floor with everyone from an absolute number of tiles due to his long distance racing. But his "tile" collection is often long strings which don't count toward clusters or squares. besides which, I'm doing this because I enjoy it, not to "win anything", not even "virtual pub bragging rights". I'm well aware that there are a great many people out there who, given my time and inclination, could collect a great deal more tiles far more swiftly than I can due to my low average speed on most rides. Even when I'm "fast for me", I'm still pretty slow...

Edited by yellowjack on Wednesday 13th May 09:42

[yellowjack]

Solocle said:

Liking the OS layer!

I've always viewed connecting different rides as the challenge. In particular, there's a big pile in the North I need to look at.
But I'm also considering making a bigger max cluster by connecting my two hubs.

The OS layer is an excellent feature, especially useful for transferring tiles from the computer screen to a paper map. Sadly, though, the "tiles" don't follow OS grid squares exactly, as that would save a lot of work too!

Connecting two 'hubs'? I'm in that same boat...


I have two 'hubs' based around my old and new addresses. The 'string' that joins them is the result of a single ride a few years ago (my longest ever ride). Between the New Forest and the Basingstoke area, via Winchester, is a mostly 1 tile wide 'string'. If I could widen that to 3 tiles wide I think it would allow me to join those two 'hubs' and claim a far larger Max Cluster. But any ride that helps with that would necessarily mean a long day on the bike, or involve driving to a location and riding from the boot of the car, where I much prefer riding from home, really.

I've got my fingers crossed that ferry services start running again now. The chain ferry at Sandbanks would help to shorten my journey into Purbeck, and the Lymington ferry to the Isle Of Wight would help me explore over on the island. In the meantime, though, there are plenty of unexplored tiles out there that I can venture into...

[ukbabz]

Oh I agree, just interesting to see how rides stack up and how people are doing.

I like it, as it's making me look at new areas and plot random rides which I wouldn't necessarily do and seeing new areas. It's tricky with a newborn at home to go out for more than a few hours but still able to tick off ones that I've missed out on.

[colin_p]

I don't venture far from home so mine is a lowly 6x6

What would be interesting is to know what your explorer scores are (on the summary / front page)?

Explorer score:
93 tiles, average of 109.831 mi per tile
Max square 6x6 View map
Max Cluster: 51 KML

What are your average miles per tile?

109.8 to beat....

[ukbabz]

colin_p said:

I don't venture far from home so mine is a lowly 6x6

What would be interesting is to know what your explorer scores are (on the summary / front page)?

Explorer score:
93 tiles, average of 109.831 mi per tile
Max square 6x6 View map
Max Cluster: 51 KML

What are your average miles per tile?

109.8 to beat....

109.8mi? do you go to an outdoor velodrome?


I don't really like doing circuits so often just pass through each tile!

2664 tiles, average of 5.934 km per tile
Max square 14x14
Max Cluster: 393

[colin_p]

ukbabz said:

109.8mi? do you go to an outdoor velodrome?


I don't really like doing circuits so often just pass through each tile!

2664 tiles, average of 5.934 km per tile
Max square 14x14
Max Cluster: 393

No velodroming here, lots of off road rides though. Due to health reasons (heart), I don't venture far from home and am not physically capable of doing a ride much more than 30 miles. This is mainly due to the heart drugs and in particular the elephant tranquilising quantity of beta blockers I take. Having a defibrillator pacemaker in my chest also adds to the fun.

I am however still out there a fair bit.

.....thinking about it, Dorney Lake is the closest thing to a velodrome that I use but I don't do round and round it that often as it is always windy and quite boring, I normally just pass through. It is a 3 mile / 5k loop of super flat smooth traffic free tarmac, but oh so boring.

[Solocle]

More tiles, up to a 13x13

Explorer score:
2129 tiles, average of 2.938 mi per tile
Max square 13x13
Max Cluster: 203

[Some Gump]

Done 2 more rides...

1873 tiles, average of 4.702 mi per tile
Max square 15x15 View map
Max Cluster: 366 KML

Next ride should make it 16 x 16, then the ride after that 17x17.

..then I think 3 maybe 4 rides to get to 19x19

...And then progress will grind to an epic halt, because the next squares in each direction will..

Require me to ride quite far to MTB in some areas that I've got no chance on 23c road tyres North.
Require me to walk up a tor East, unless I can work out a way to MTB there (think it's footpacth only not bridle path)
..And then the missing squares west and south are all not very connectable - it'll have to be a project for the summer!

Good fun though, apart from anything else, having the garmin on map all the time lets you enjoy solo rides more, because you're not trying to keep average speed above some daft target level.

[colin_p]

I've always fancied getting into trig-pointing via bicycle.

It would provide proper goals and excuses for all you tile hunters! Grab some tiles and bag some trigs at the same time.