njkayaker

Nice.

The background colors are a bit "inexplicable".

Garmin uses green, yellow, orange, red in order of difficultly (which makes more sense). You might want not to use saturated colors (you might want to use more "pastel" backgrounds).

For the condensed format, use an up arrow for the ascent. Use a horizontal arrow for between the start and end. Maybe, use a right triangle for the grade (something like the "Lower Right Triangle" or "Black Lower Right Triangle" Unicode char). Using symbols might work better for different languages.

Maybe, add an option to show the gaps between the hills.

Ideally, things should align properly (kind of picky but makes it easier to read).

njkayaker

But it's not really the same, is it?

Some people might want more input and control than Garmin allows. The "cue sheet" also lets you see all of them (rather than as pop-ups one at a time), which might be useful to some people.

firebird854

These are, phenomenal points! I will likely use all of them, perhaps I'll call it "even more condensed view" and add options that visualize the gaps, thank you quite a lot for these suggestions.

prj71

Not saying you can't share them, but it seems like you are trying to reinvent the wheel or have a solution looking for a problem.

njkayaker

I think it should replace the current condensed view. The new version will be much more clear (IMO). Having two versions is more of PITA to maintain. (Obviously, it's likely you'll keep the other around while you create a new version but multiple versions is confusing.)

You won't need the colons (with symbols).

prj71

Not the same at all but better. An alert is better than constantly looking at a cue sheet.

https://www8.garmin.com/manuals/webh...D09D1D80D.html

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fit...t-drink-alerts

https://forums.garmin.com/sports-fit...rts-determined

njkayaker

Better for you. The problem is that you are suggesting that it's better for everybody (which is silly).

Other people might like the option of having the cue sheet. There's no reason people couldn't use both (since they don't do the same thing). Also There's no requirement to "constantly look at" it (this is a silly objection).

I can see the Garmin approach not working or it not providing enough "heads up" for some people.

No, it's not "better". Some people might prefer it; some people might not.

prj71

I guess if you like hauling around an 8-1/2 x 11 piece of paper.

firebird854

I disagree. With an alert it's hard to get multiple pieces of information at once, for instance, if I have a nutrition guide pasted to my top tube, and pull a gel out of a pocket, and a bunch fell out while I did this, I'd be able to easily figure how many to grab at the next aid station. The nutrition guidelines would also be tailored to the course, so it doesn't have you trying to eat a gel in the middle of single track or on a 30 minute, challenging, switch back descent, pretty sure Garmin doesn't bother with any of that.

Additionally, for hill cues, which can be customized for the cue sheet you can easily pay attention to how many you've conquered, how many are left, etc.

Also, I can make a cue sheet that shows what surface type for how long, then the next surface type/ different levels of single track difficulty, etc.

I mean, lol, cue sheets don't even run out of battery power! They're incredibly useful, I can't fathom why you came on this forum to try as hard as possible to negate the positives of a tried and true, perfectly useable system. As a Garmin owner myself, and my roommates, we're going to use the heck out of them. It costs me literally nothing to share a link to a tool I made for my friends and I, If you'd really like, I could whip up another web page that simply hosts a picture of a Garmin and states "Buy a Garmin! You have no other option!" lol.

firebird854

Goood point, that would be quite a bit easier, I'll probably update it with these suggestions in the next day or so, thanks again for the ideas!

njkayaker

(I have done vaguely similar stuff.)

"C" didn't register as "climb" to me at first and "G" could be interpreted as "gain". The symbols might be more clear (especially in different languages) and may make it easier to scan the small cue sheet.

===========================

I could see the cue sheet thing appealing to some long distance riders.

Once you make your changes, you might want to mention it in the long-distance subforum (just make sure it doesn't look like you are posting the same thing in multiple places).

===========================

People use "course points" on Garmins for some of what you are doing. "Course points" are a feature of TCX (and FIT) files. TCX files are kind of like GPX files. If you can process GPX files, you can process TCX files as easily (FIT files are PITA).

Usually, course points indicate turns but many course planners let you add custom ones (for food, aid, etc). You could pick out the custom ones (and ignore the ones for turns).

Long term, you might consider reading the course points to fill in your cue sheet.

===========================

GFNY did a profile sticker.

https://nyc.gfny.com/wp-content/uplo...guide_lo-1.pdf

firebird854

That profile sticker is super cool! I could easily incorporate that into the printable cue sheet. Additionally, you're right about both the Fit and the TCX files, it's super annoying to read/manipulate/pull data from fit files, but generally, I love the idea of pulling non-turn-by-turn cue data and incorporating it. I was already working on adding a manual entry option.

Gosh, I should come to this forum more often with my half baked tools, you guys have some seriously good suggestions!

On another note, this really got me thinking. I could make a phone app that allows a user to input a GPX/TCX/maybe FIT, then select the cue options you're interested in, i.e. climb/nutrition/surfaces/turn by turn, and have it both present this information when needed and at a set interval in a fully audio/voiced way i.e. every 25 minutes notify how far until the nearest feed zone, climbs completed, how many to go, etc. (fully customizable).

I could even loop in an LLM like ChatGPT, that, when prompted, is given your question with all the route information and where you are on the route to provide said information, i.e. "how far until the next aid station"? answer "along your route, you are 25mi from the upcoming aid station, at your average pace, and with the course analyzed up to that aid station, it will likely take you 1 and a half hours".

I could even loop it through my routing engine in regards to the turn by turn, so you could ask "take me to the nearest gas station" and it could reroute the user...

Sorry, just brainstorming a bit, but I think advanced audio voice cues as an app with LLM integration would be super cool...

njkayaker

I don't think your thing is really/exactly a cue sheet.

The "running out of battery" issue is overly-exaggerated and well-worth dealing with.

Cue sheets objectively kind of suck. They were "tried and true" mostly because they were often the only option. Historically, a lot of the "pro" cue sheet stuff was from people who didn't understand how Garmins work (or didn't know how to use them properly). These people often ignored the serious deficiencies with cue sheets. I suspect that many of these people who were so gung-ho about cue sheets are using Garmins (some GPS) devices now.

Keep in mind that I don't really care what people prefer to use.

njkayaker

I've literally dealt with many of the issues already.

Maybe, consider not going down that rabbit hole! (I've seen a couple of these sort of things come and go.)

Oh noes, they got to you too! (There are companies who are already spending billions of dollars to use LLMs in not competent ways.)

There a lot of high-profile apps that already do this. Maybe, you are not familiar with them?

firebird854

I've integrated ChatGPT into multiple systems already, it's pretty easy. Onto your next point, which is exactly why I brought this up, as there're many knowledgeable people on this forum. So, You could, potentially, have Google Maps, route you from location A to location B, and ask it to perform some type of rerouting if need be. Their routing profiles typically keep you (in my experience) farr too much on bike trails and such, which is annoying, but they are the only service I can possible think of (maybe Apple maps? but who uses that...) that allows voice dictation re-routing.

On to the next point, the whole LLM discussion aside, you mention there being plethora of apps that voice turn by turn directions AND specific cues, like the beginning and end of climbs, how long said surface types will last, and when to have a gel.

I know of RideWithGPS having a premium option to allow the import of a GPX file and then giving audio turn by turn direction.

I think Samsung health supports this to some extent?

But I'm talking about something much more powerful. Something you can even hook sensors like a power meter up to over ble, which can give audio intervals of normalized power, calories consumed so far, what maximum power you might want to hold for the next climb or into the next headwind.

An app that gives many cue options, allowing you to customize it before you begin the ride, notifying you of upcoming singletrack, a good span to have a gel in, when the headwind will likely abate. I mean heck, I even have Strava API access, I could code voiced live segments "you have a KOM lasting x amount of time coming up in x miles" and tell you how far ahead/behind you are as you do it (I've also been creating a separate cue sheet mechanic that tells you all the segments on your route, the beginning, end, time to beat, and avg speed of the kom holder).

So, by all means, before I spend any time persuing this, what apps do you know of that provide much beyond "turn right in 250 feet..." using audio? I am serious, I'd happily spend my time on other projects if it's honestly been done a bunch of times.

njkayaker

But is it useful?

I think bicycle routing is weird. People have very different opinions about "appropriate roads". I'd guess Google is targeting more "casual" riders (who might want to avoid riding with cars).

There was an Android "computerized" cue sheet app (that is no longer). It didn't do routing.

I suspect that what you are describing is too open ended (it would take lots of effort to get it to be something people would want to use). There are also a lot of "cycling" apps that didn't seem to get much traction.

(Of course, what you do is your own business.)

Sort of.

You can import recorded tracks into RWGPS and create routes (something useable for navigation). You can use the RWGPS app for navigating routes (this requires a paid subscription or enrolling in bicycle club RWGPS account).

It shouldn't be too hard for apps like Osmand and Guru maps to create a route from a track (which is how the Garmin Edges work) but they haven't.

This is what (more or less) Hammerhead spent years on with their Karoo.

I think there are (have been) a fair number of apps that go a fair ways towards doing this but never ended up there. It's possible that they realized it was too much work for an app that people wouldn't want to spend much money on. RWGPS is one of the (more) successful ones.

(Heck, I even thought about doing kind of the same thing years-ago. Then, I sobered up.)

AirPhantomPhoto

Firebird,
Thank you for the sharing the tools to play with, and ignore the negative nellies, seems some folks arent happy unless they are tearing others down, doesnt matter where.

I'm in 95% flatlands for the most part, local DNREC gets a bit upset if I go dune surfing with my bike
I'm gonna go look into it even though I have a garmin explorer2, I love new ways of playing with my tech even as a GenXer.

prj71

Everything is flexible. I have my eat and drink alerts set to 1 hour intervals for a longer rides. Obviously if the alert goes off when I'm riding a challenging section, I just wait until I'm through it and then proceed to eat or drink.

With a 16 hour battery life...the Garmin will last longer than me. No way I'm riding for 16 hours straight.

prj71

With the free verison RWGPS you can export routes as TCX files then import the TCX file into Garmin Connect (free) as a course which then syncs to the Garmin Edge with turn by turn navigation.

No subscriptions required. I do it all the time.

njkayaker

I said that you need a subscription to use the RWGPS app for navigation.

For what you are doing (not what I was talking about), you don't need a subscription (as you said).

You don't need to do the export from RWGPS and import into Garmin Connect. You can link the accounts and the syncing will happen automatically. You may need to pin the routes on RWGPS to make this magic happen. (I don't use this so there might be some detail I'm missing.)

Not that it matters but you don't have to use TCX. FIT is equivalent (it's slightly easier since it's the default on RWGPS). FIT files are considerably smaller than TCX files too (not that matters much either).

You can also use Garmin IQ apps (GRouteLoader and the official RWGPS app) to pull the pinned routes to your Garmin (which is a lot less effort than your method).

Note that there is a limit to the number of courses (100) and activities (200). Courses aren't removed to make space for new ones.

firebird854

All valuable points, and, generally I appreciate the feedback for the idea. I've already begun scoping it out, as we've already been working on a phone app for following routes, but argh, the map interface is a pain, and it's directly competing with everyone else's phone/bike computer app. I think it might be novel to create something in this area that's entirely audio, with lots of configuration, I also feel it might be one of the best ways to use the new and fascinating large language model technology.

As for the point about it being too much work for something that people wouldn't spend money one, I'm faaaaaarrrr too lazy to figure out subscription services, all my sites and apps are 100% free:
route builder: https://sherpa-map.com/
cycling physics engine: https://sherpa-map.com/cycling-route-calculator.html
Activity racer: https://sherpa-map.com/activity-racer.html
Heck, I even have this moderately secret project that I wouldn't appreciate anyone sharing particularly publicly: https://sherpa-map.com/Show_Hills/show_hills.html (Ignore the filter options, enter a state by typing it and choosing from the dropdown then increment the number and then click on the displayed cycling climb, it identifies the nth biggest non-paved cycling climb in the state)

I just love to build cycling tools for the fun of it in my spare time. I even trained 4 AI classifiers to work together to determine road surface types based off satellite imagery.

Sure I'm negative probably 5k in computer parts, but I even made it on the Bikerumor podcast https://bikerumor.com/podcast-098-sh...-cycling-maps/ how cool is that?

So, frankly, I appreciate the effort you put in in your post, it shows that there're a couple of attempts to make portions of my overarching idea pioneered by some pretty big groups. Whether or not it'd make money isn't a concern, I just think it would be cool to use.

indyfabz

fify :d

I am now curious about how the weight of cue sheets for, say, a week-long tour would stack up the weight of a device with its mounting bracket and any charging accessories.

firebird854

Thanks! I was surprised at the animosity some had for just showcasing a free tool... I guess it could be construed as advertisement? but it clearly doesn't cost anything or has any ads, and just generates a printable image... So, thanks again.

njkayaker

Not surprising that you are aware of this.

I got my computer from the garbage (I was really lucky).

Anyway, it’s really the time you spend that is the real cost.

Cool doesn't pay the bills.

njkayaker

I think it's being overly-assured that one's approach is the "only" approach. It's basically a lack of imagination.

"I only like chocolate ice cream. How dare they put vanilla on the menu."

I doubt it. It seems likely they would have mentioned it (for the sake of being clear).