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

[Daveyraveygravey]

So, enough of this "Tiling" nonsense, here's a proper use of Veloviewer

I've done 12 of the 15 climbs in the E&W Sussex section, so I headed off to Beachy Head and Eastbourne to do the Holywell Zigzags and maybe improve my time up Butts Lane. I knew it would be about 120km, into a slight headwind on the way there, so at least 2 hours for me before arriving at the first climb. I got up early as I had about 15km to do on the A27, which is the main road along the coast. Some of it is dual carriageway but it goes to single lane in each direction from Selmeston, and that is an uncomfortable amount of time to be on a main road, for me anyway. I was early enough to not get a lot of traffic, but I just don't get why drivers can't use all the road when it is a long straight bit and you can see for a mile that its clear...

I have a Giant Neostrack computer which is a bit quirky; I bought it because it was half the price of a Garmin 520. It is very quick to auto-pause on a climb with lots of tree cover, so I got that dreaded beep as I tried to push hard on Butts Lane. I was kicking myself for not stopping at the bottom and using my phone as a back up for the climb, but when I got home I had taken 6 seconds off my pb, which isn't great but I hadn't expected to be in the same ballpark as my previous. I then let the unit guide me through the streets of Eastbourne to the bottom of the Zig zag climb, and paced myself better for what turned out to be an easier climb at a more constant gradient. After that I topped out along the Beachy Head road, which is a stunner on a st day, but yesterday was fantastic. There's a couple of S bends to really get your attention, and the scenery is lovely. I wanted to upload some pics to the Photos thread but the site was being recalcitrant yesterday.

[ukbabz]

The books by Simon Warren are really good, have found a couple of extra climbs around here from them. The leaderboards are good but I have missed out on one of the TdF ones as I started the ventoux climb 100m short (from the hire place).

[Daveyraveygravey]

ukbabz said:

The books by Simon Warren are really good, have found a couple of extra climbs around here from them. The leaderboards are good but I have missed out on one of the TdF ones as I started the ventoux climb 100m short (from the hire place).

I know that feeling! I did the SE ones about four years ago, I had 4 left. Had to drive to the start near High Wycombe (I live near Brighton) and I had a route going going in a diagonal line, it would have been over 100 miles. The first went OK, nice to be riding in a different part of the country. The last was Coombe Gibbet, I got down to the general area OK, but could not find the actual climb for the life of me. I went up and down the ridge, off every junction, flattened the battery on my phone trying to find it on Google maps, and had to give up and head back to the car as it was going to get dark. Had to make a separate trip in the car just for that one hill. Found the climb easy enough, and was gutted to see an actual gibbet on the skyline! Although to be fair, it's on a rough old track away from the Strava segment

[ukbabz]

Coombe Gibbet is a weird one, I used to live in Newbury and it's quite hidden when you ride out that way until it's upon you. I had a crap time up there last time so do need to head back over and improve to get up the leaderboard.

Went on a 40km ride and managed to bag a whole tile! Progress is definitely slowing

2715 tiles, average of 6.045 km per tile
Max square 17x17 View map
Max Cluster: 497

[Solocle]

17 more tiles in my max cluster, and another county ticked off.

[ukbabz]

Nice work Solocle!

I've been working on mine over last few weeks added 30 more tiles but increased max cluster by 59 and max square by 2. I've also ticked off a couple more climbs from the SE leaderboard too :-)

VeloViewer Score - 99.402
2745 tiles, average of 6.116 km per tile
Max square 19x19 View map
Max Cluster: 556 KML



Not seen much from Yellowjack but looks like he's been ticking loads off on strava

[flight147z]

I have some question on how this works - hopefully someone can help me!

1) What is the difference between a square and a cluster? As far as I understand it a square is a grid of tiles that an activity has passed through. I don't understand what a cluster is though?

2) On the diagram what is the difference between the red and blue squares? I understand that the box drawn out in blue is my max square and the other red and blue squares are ones that I have travelled through but I don't understand the difference between the two colours

[ukbabz]

flight147z said:

I have some question on how this works - hopefully someone can help me!

1) What is the difference between a square and a cluster? As far as I understand it a square is a grid of tiles that an activity has passed through. I don't understand what a cluster is though?

2) On the diagram what is the difference between the red and blue squares? I understand that the box drawn out in blue is my max square and the other red and blue squares are ones that I have travelled through but I don't understand the difference between the two colours

I had a similar query and got it after a bit of googling.

1) max square is largest continuous square that you've passed through. Max cluster is linked tiles you've visited where you've also visited at least 3 corresponding tiles.

2) Red squares, are visited.
Blue squares are part of your max cluster

[flight147z]

Daveyraveygravey said:

So, enough of this "Tiling" nonsense, here's a proper use of Veloviewer

I've done 12 of the 15 climbs in the E&W Sussex section, so I headed off to Beachy Head and Eastbourne to do the Holywell Zigzags and maybe improve my time up Butts Lane. I knew it would be about 120km, into a slight headwind on the way there, so at least 2 hours for me before arriving at the first climb. I got up early as I had about 15km to do on the A27, which is the main road along the coast. Some of it is dual carriageway but it goes to single lane in each direction from Selmeston, and that is an uncomfortable amount of time to be on a main road, for me anyway. I was early enough to not get a lot of traffic, but I just don't get why drivers can't use all the road when it is a long straight bit and you can see for a mile that its clear...

I have a Giant Neostrack computer which is a bit quirky; I bought it because it was half the price of a Garmin 520. It is very quick to auto-pause on a climb with lots of tree cover, so I got that dreaded beep as I tried to push hard on Butts Lane. I was kicking myself for not stopping at the bottom and using my phone as a back up for the climb, but when I got home I had taken 6 seconds off my pb, which isn't great but I hadn't expected to be in the same ballpark as my previous. I then let the unit guide me through the streets of Eastbourne to the bottom of the Zig zag climb, and paced myself better for what turned out to be an easier climb at a more constant gradient. After that I topped out along the Beachy Head road, which is a stunner on a st day, but yesterday was fantastic. There's a couple of S bends to really get your attention, and the scenery is lovely. I wanted to upload some pics to the Photos thread but the site was being recalcitrant yesterday.

This is my favourite feature on Veloviewer. I'm working through as many of these as I can

So far I have managed:

South East - 1/60
South West - 5/75
Midlands - 41/75
Yorkshire - 20/75
North West - 5/75
Wales - 0/75
Scotland - 3/60

Just 345 left to go then!!

Edited by flight147z on Tuesday 16th June 21:24

[flight147z]

ukbabz said:

I had a similar query and got it after a bit of googling.

1) max square is largest continuous square that you've passed through. Max cluster is linked tiles you've visited where you've also visited at least 3 corresponding tiles.

2) Red squares, are visited.
Blue squares are part of your max cluster

Thanks for this, makes sense now

Link is here for the VV explanation too

[ukbabz]

flight147z said:

This is my favourite feature on Veloviewer. I'm working through as many of these as I can

So far I have managed:

South East - 1/60
South West - 5/75
Midlands - 41/75
Yorkshire - 20/75
North West - 5/75
Wales - 0/75
Scotland - 3/60

Just 345 left to go then!!

Edited by flight147z on Tuesday 16th June 21:24

Nice work!!

South East - 10/60
South West - 1/75
Midlands - 0/75
Yorkshire - 1/75
North West - 0/75
Wales - 2/75 ( should be 4 but did alternative routes on the dragon)
Scotland - 0/60

so that's 14/ 495 - only 2.8% from those boards, need to go on some road trips to tick off some more when I can tick off some mroe.

There's also
the 100 greatest UK climbs - (4/100)
Another 100 greatest UK climbs - (4/100)
100 greatest tour de france climbs - (4/100)

[flight147z]

ukbabz said:

There's also
the 100 greatest UK climbs - (4/100)
Another 100 greatest UK climbs - (4/100)
100 greatest tour de france climbs - (4/100)

For me I haven't cycled in Europe but from the main lists:

The 'Original' 100: 27/100
Another 100: 11/100

If you fancy a really hard climb THIS is the hardest one I have found anywhere to date. I wrote about it HERE back when I did it last year

Planning on going up to the Pennines later this week to go Great Dun Fell again. That is another really good one

[yellowjack]

I've been quiet on here, and had a week off the bike again. But I've been out on my MTB on the coast path, and my road bike around Puddletown Forest, picking off tiles...



...I'm trying to complete the coast from Fawley Refinery to Portland Bill, then I'll move inland and "colour in" Purbeck, before extending up to Salisbury and across to Shaftesbury. Holding me up now is Brownsea Island. A neat square of 4 tiles centred on the island, only accessible when the NT open it and the ferries are running. Unless I get a kayak!

I did most of yesterday's ride out Dorchester way with a broken rear shifter cable, so running as a two-speed!

[Solocle]

Today's tiling started my big push for Oxford.
Before:

After:


Max cluster 331/354/+23

I was skirting the edge of the Imber ranges today, which will be one of the big limitations on any max square.

[ukbabz]

That's going to be a hell of a cluster if you can get those two joined!

I'm struggling with the time to tick off any more squares at the moment as its 20-30km to the nearest empty tile at the moment. When i get a bit more time I think I'll go colour in around reading which should bring in my cluster with Wokingham area

[Solocle]

ukbabz said:

That's going to be a hell of a cluster if you can get those two joined!

I'm struggling with the time to tick off any more squares at the moment as its 20-30km to the nearest empty tile at the moment. When i get a bit more time I think I'll go colour in around reading which should bring in my cluster with Wokingham area

Unfortunately the cluster at the Oxford end isn't actually that big. Given that I wasn't tiling with those rides, there are more holes than Swiss Cheese. At least if I progress onto the masters course, there'll be plenty of easy tiles! The Upper Thames Audax also makes a convenient boundary, which roughly coincides with the edge of Oxfordshire.

But yeah, from home, it's a good 15-20 km to the edges of my max square. If I do the planned ride above, I only hit the edge of the max cluster I made yesterday 50 km in!

[millen]

A general question. My VeloViewerScore is dropping off a cliff

From a start in 2016 it was on a rising trajectory - eg with upward steps are intensive holiday weeks then leveling off during inactive weeks for weather, rehab etc. But it never fell until now. I now see it peaked around 18 May at 90.6 and has steadily fallen to 89.3 despite maintaining a decent weekly mileage.

The only notable event was that I didn't initially opt in to the extortionate Strava charge around a month ago so my VVS disappeared. I finally caved in last week and signed up but was gutted to discover my falling VVS. Initially I thought perhaps there was something going on with lots of Strava/VV users opting out and leaving just the stronger riders using segments but this doesn't stack up - surely Strava still ranks everyone on a segment whether they're paying or free users?

Any other explanations for this first-world problem?

[Some Gump]

Mine has dropped a little bit. I assumed it was due to less mamil orientated riders binning strava.


Still stuck at 17x17 and 445 on my map. Just can't find the time to do the 2 big rides needed to expand it a lot - and it's a 25 mile ride "start" (there and back" to add a single tile now.

[millen]

Thanks. You might be right. If people have ditched Strava entirely, not just dropped down to the free level, then maybe their segment times are scrubbed from the database?

[ultrastapler]

stuck on 17x17 as well. i need to venture north or south but that means the unappealing roads of luton and watford