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Long Distance Competition/Ultracycling, Randonneuring and Endurance Cycling Do you enjoy centuries, double centuries, brevets, randonnees, and 24-hour time trials? Share ride reports, and exchange training, equipment, and nutrition information specific to long distance cycling. This isn't for tours, this is for endurance events cycling

Any body going GPS Free?

Old 03-30-22, 07:34 AM
  #51  
prj71
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[QUOTE=bikenraider;22455275 I've mostly been concerned with powering the unit and having another bit of tech around that I won't use in a few years. [/QUOTE]

What are your concerned with powering the unit? The unit doesn't become obsolete.
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Old 04-04-22, 05:45 PM
  #52  
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I don't think I disagree with many of the points made here so far, but I have a different take. It seems that event organizers are starting from the assumption that participants will have ready access to a navigation-ready GPS, and so plan routes and such accordingly. As some have said, this means that routes can be quite dramatic, with frequent turns and great back roads that might otherwise be skipped for the matter of simplicity (and I agree).

On the other hand, this assumption pushes organized endurance cycling even further towards the 'wealthy elite' class of sports, and I don't like that one bit. I still use paper cue sheets for the few organized events I do; I prefer to practice this, along with dead reckoning. In theory, my Garmin Edge 130 has impressive navigation abilities, but I wouldn't know.
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Old 04-05-22, 06:32 AM
  #53  
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Originally Posted by Bulette
...
On the other hand, this assumption pushes organized endurance cycling even further towards the 'wealthy elite' class of sports, and I don't like that one bit. I still use paper cue sheets for the few organized events I do; I prefer to practice this, along with dead reckoning. In theory, my Garmin Edge 130 has impressive navigation abilities, but I wouldn't know.
I have never priced the cycling specific GPS units, have never owned one.

I started using a black and white screen GPS that had almost no memory for installing maps over a decade ago for bike touring, upgraded to a Garmin 62S, then bought a Garmin 64 that I now use. Bought the 64 new on Ebay for less than $200 six years ago, but most of that model were selling for between $200 and $300 at that time, I got lucky and found a seller that had overstock or maybe it was an opened box.

It takes a bit of time and work to find and install free cycling maps on a Garmin GPS. Unfortunately, the best website for that has become dysfunctional in the past couple years. But there are options out there.

My rando bike, I think I put less than $1200 to $1400 into it, but in all fairness I built it up myself six years ago with a frame that cost less than $500 new (still have the receipt, was $458 on a christmas sale). There are some parts on it that I bought used, and some were from a previous bike, initially I used wheels on that that I had built up in 2004 for a touring bike. That said I think most people would struggle to build up a bike from parts, I am not saying that everyone could do that. That bike now has dyno powered lighting, a few photos of the bike at this link if you are interested in my low budget bike.
https://www.bikeforums.net/electroni...b-charger.html

The prices I am citing here were prices paid at that time, not inflation adjusted to 2022 USD.

I am not saying everybody can build up a low budget bike and I am not saying everyone can learn how to use a non-cycling GPS for brevets. But, it is possible.

And the Garmin 64 that I currently use, repeated this photo from a post above:



Now, most bike prices are going to be higher with disc brakes and through axle pushing some costs upwards compared to quick release and rim brakes. And of course the current shortages out there, just yesterday someone was complaining to me that he can't find the 11 speed brifters that he wants to buy for a new gravel bike. Now, everything is getting expensive. But I assume that there are reasonable cost alternatives for GPS units.

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Old 04-05-22, 08:05 AM
  #54  
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It seems to me that RBAs take great care to make accurate cuesheets. Brevets are pre-ridden nowaways to check the directions and also conditions of the route. That never happened in the old days of randonneuring. There are still plenty of cue sheet only riders out there. I cannot imaging them going way on brevets. OTOH...I just wish gratuitous gravel sections were not added or authorized by-passes/detours were allowed/mandated.
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Old 04-05-22, 08:41 AM
  #55  
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Originally Posted by GhostRider62
It seems to me that RBAs take great care to make accurate cuesheets. Brevets are pre-ridden nowaways to check the directions and also conditions of the route. That never happened in the old days of randonneuring. There are still plenty of cue sheet only riders out there. I cannot imaging them going way on brevets. OTOH...I just wish gratuitous gravel sections were not added or authorized by-passes/detours were allowed/mandated.
The brevets are run according to the official rules. If the rules say "cuesheets", then brevets will provide them.
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Old 04-05-22, 09:14 AM
  #56  
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Originally Posted by njkayaker
The brevets are run according to the official rules. If the rules say "cuesheets", then brevets will provide them.
I am sorry, what is your point?

Mine was simply that I cannot imagine cuesheets going away and by extension, no need to buy a GPS anytime soon.

It would be nice to eliminate the paper brevet card and having to stop so often for sugar and a receipt but electronic passage prolly won't happen in my lifetime.
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Old 04-05-22, 09:50 AM
  #57  
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Originally Posted by GhostRider62
I am sorry, what is your point?
You are suggesting the reason there are cuesheets is because "there are still plenty of cue sheet only riders out there".

Originally Posted by GhostRider62
There are still plenty of cue sheet only riders out there. I cannot imaging them going way on brevets.
The reason cuesheets are provided is because the rules of running brevets requires them. No one is exactly required to use them.

Originally Posted by GhostRider62
Mine was simply that I cannot imagine cuesheets going away and by extension, no need to buy a GPS anytime soon.

It would be nice to eliminate the paper brevet card and having to stop so often for sugar and a receipt but electronic passage prolly won't happen in my lifetime.
Rules are hard to change and there's "tradition" stuff too. It would also be hard to require people spend as much as $600 for a device and there's the problem of which sorts of devices would be acceptable. And, if an organization requires a device, they also might get stuck having to support people's use of those devices.

By not requiring GPS, the organizers avoid having to deal with the inevitable complaints from people about the route not being good, the GPS not working, running out of batteries, the maps being bad, etc.

Passing out cuesheets and not getting involved with alternatives is much simpler.

Originally Posted by GhostRider62
Mine was simply that I cannot imagine cuesheets going away and by extension, no need to buy a GPS anytime soon.
The reason to buy a GPS is really to make your ride better (not because it's a requirement). I'm much faster with a GPS.

Given the amount of time people spend riding and training for long distance riding, it's not clear why people would stick to cuesheets (outside of "challenge" or "tradition").

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Old 04-05-22, 10:08 AM
  #58  
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Originally Posted by GhostRider62
It seems to me that RBAs take great care to make accurate cuesheets....There are still plenty of cue sheet only riders out there. I cannot imaging them going way on brevets.
Not that long ago, many RBAs would have nothing to say about GPS use and just provide the cuesheet (leaving it up to to each rider to create the GPS route).

It seems, now, it's more common to have the brevet organizers provide the GPS files along with the cuesheet.

If you do it right, the cuesheet is mostly a by-product of using route-planning software. Given that, there's no reason for not providing cuesheets and requiring riders to use GPS.

Cuesheets aren't going away (there's no need for them to go away) but support for GPS will become increasingly supported normally/routinely.

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Old 04-05-22, 10:09 AM
  #59  
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RUSA has gone to some lengths to make it so riders without a gps can ride perms, which for most of us are electronic now. It is a bit frustrating that brevets don't have epop. Now that most brevets essentially have only info controls, it's not unusual to have a snipe hunt for the info required.

Otherwise I'm not sure why we have to go around and around on this subject. Navigation and proof of passage is always going to have a learning curve for new riders. It probably is best to consult with your RBA/organizer about their views on navigation before riding one of their routes. The RUSA perm rules now have overtaken the fleche as the most complicated way to ride your bike. It's a little more difficult to find someone to talk to about that, since it's all automated now.

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Old 04-05-22, 10:20 AM
  #60  
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Originally Posted by unterhausen
RUSA has gone to some lengths to make it so riders without a gps can ride perms, which for most of us are electronic now. It is a bit frustrating that brevets don't have epop. Now that most brevets essentially have only info controls, it's not unusual to have a snipe hunt for the info required.

Otherwise I'm not sure why we have to go around and around on this subject. Navigation and proof of passage is always going to have a learning curve for new riders. It probably is best to consult with your RBA/organizer about their views on navigation before riding one of their routes. The RUSA perm rules now have overtaken the fleche as the most complicated way to ride your bike. It's a little more difficult to find someone to talk to about that, since it's all automated now.
It’s good people don’t have to use GPS. But, in at least some cases, organizers are putting less effort into tuning cuesheets than they used to.

Navigation and proof-of-passage are separate things. Given that brevets are training/qualifying rides for PBP, they are going to be run like PBP (as much as possible).

You might not be seeing EPOP because there is no standard way of handling it and the general distrust of technology.

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Old 04-06-22, 07:17 AM
  #61  
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I spend the time to edit the rwgps generated cue-sheet on my routes. It's the same cuesheet that pops up on the gps directions so it needs to be checked, and rwgps makes it easy to do with their "review cues" button... it literally reviews every single cue on the route. The generated cue sheets in my area are full of entries like this: "Turn right onto Gerber Rd/​Twp Rd 1 E (signs for Gerber Road)" and the road signs often only have the name on it instead of the road number, so all that stuff has to get removed so pop-up on the gps is legible. This also makes audio cues for the app a lot more useful since they actually match the street signs. It takes a lot of time to do this, especially if one is checking street-view to make sure the signs match the cuesheet, they often don't around here, or sometimes there is no street sign. I'd guess it's at least an half an hour to do a 200k, depending on how many turns there are. I pre-rode my 200 and 300k routes but I feel like pre-riding a 400/600k is a bit much of an ask, unless someone wants to pay me to do it.

We did e-pop during the pandemic, I thought it was pretty great, folks could send in their gps file or a link to strava/rwgps along with a photo of their control card. We've never required reciepts for as long as I've been a member, and during the pandemic we encouraged people to sign their own cards.I'm sure people without a gps can still just mail the control card to the chapter VP if they don't own a digital camera.
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Old 04-07-22, 10:43 AM
  #62  
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Originally Posted by clasher
I spend the time to edit the rwgps generated cue-sheet on my routes. It's the same cuesheet that pops up on the gps directions so it needs to be checked...,
Presumably, you are using some Garmin Edge model. The things that "pop up" are what Garmin calls "course points". These can be enabled or disabled. And, indeed, RWGPS writes its cuesheet items as "course points".

You can also enable "turn guidance" on the Edges (the ones that use maps). These are turn instructions (and the big white arrows) that are generated entirely on the Edge. They are completely separate from "course points".

One big problem with the course points is they pop-up, by default, at the turn on the map. I found they often pop-up after the turn. RWGPS has an option to move course points earlier in the track (it's a paid feature). This would make the course points show up before the turn.

Originally Posted by clasher
...and rwgps makes it easy to do with their "review cues" button... it literally reviews every single cue on the route. The generated cue sheets in my area are full of entries like this: "Turn right onto Gerber Rd/​Twp Rd 1 E (signs for Gerber Road)" and the road signs often only have the name on it instead of the road number, so all that stuff has to get removed so pop-up on the gps is legible. This also makes audio cues for the app a lot more useful since they actually match the street signs. It takes a lot of time to do this, especially if one is checking street-view to make sure the signs match the cuesheet, they often don't around here, or sometimes there is no street sign.
This is a useful RWGPS and it makes sense to tweak them if you rely on course points.

If you use the map screen, you really don't need to see the course point text. You really only need the direction (and you don't really even need that if you use the map).

One reason not to edit the cuesheet on RWGPS is needing to redo all that work if the route gets updated.

Originally Posted by clasher
I'd guess it's at least an half an hour to do a 200k, depending on how many turns there are. I pre-rode my 200 and 300k routes but I feel like pre-riding a 400/600k is a bit much of an ask, unless someone wants to pay me to do it.
Ideally, one would be able to do these rides cold. They won't always be in places you can pre-ride.

Originally Posted by clasher
We did e-pop during the pandemic, I thought it was pretty great, folks could send in their gps file or a link to strava/rwgps along with a photo of their control card. We've never required reciepts for as long as I've been a member, and during the pandemic we encouraged people to sign their own cards.I'm sure people without a gps can still just mail the control card to the chapter VP if they don't own a digital camera.
It would be more interesting if they continued to use EPOP after the pandemic.
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Old 04-07-22, 01:30 PM
  #63  
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Originally Posted by njkayaker
Presumably, you are using some Garmin Edge model. The things that "pop up" are what Garmin calls "course points". These can be enabled or disabled. And, indeed, RWGPS writes its cuesheet items as "course points".

You can also enable "turn guidance" on the Edges (the ones that use maps). These are turn instructions (and the big white arrows) that are generated entirely on the Edge. They are completely separate from "course points".

One big problem with the course points is they pop-up, by default, at the turn on the map. I found they often pop-up after the turn. RWGPS has an option to move course points earlier in the track (it's a paid feature). This would make the course points show up before the turn.

This is a useful RWGPS and it makes sense to tweak them if you rely on course points.

If you use the map screen, you really don't need to see the course point text. You really only need the direction (and you don't really even need that if you use the map).
I'm on a wahoo bolt, apparently it just takes the cues straight from the rwgps file... the default seems to be 50m from what I can tell. I gave away my old garmin edge 200 so I don't have any garmins to test the routes on. No one has complained to me about the routes so that's good at least, though now I've figured out how to change that turn notification stuff so I can pass that along. I tend to just use the map screen when going through towns... I don't find it very useful outside of built-up areas.

One reason not to edit the cuesheet on RWGPS is needing to redo all that work if the route gets updated.
Thankfully the cuesheet only changes for the spots in between the RWGPS control points (and my routes have a lot of those white dots since I rarely take the shortest or flattest way) when the route is edited so small changes don't make for too many new cuesheet entries. The review cues tool also starts at these changes and skips all the already-checked cues so small changes aren't a lot of work. I also edit the cue sheet so that it's easier to read for anyone that prints one off.

Ideally, one would be able to do these rides cold. They won't always be in places you can pre-ride.
Five of us did my 400 last year without any pre-ride and ran into some closed bridges that weren't noted on google/OSM but thankfully they were still passable on bikes, though there were posted detours that used a busy highway... one rider opted to take the detour but the rest of us just rode through and took our chances... some deep gravel in spots so I've re-routed to avoid this area, though it's quite scenic I might put it on a gravel 400 in the future. There's a lot of backroads around here that don't have streetview, or if they do it's over 10 years old, so it's not too hard to get caught in things like this, or abandoned roads that are still on the maps as open roads but look more like a hiking trail through the woods. Personally I don't mind stuff like that but it could make it hard for someone on a tandem or recumbent.

It would be more interesting if they continued to use EPOP after the pandemic.
We've been emailing photos of the control cards since before the pandemic, there isn't always a ride organizer at the finish... we rarely have volunteers for doing stuff like that. Requiring a gps track was something new though, I'm gonna suggest keeping that as well.
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Old 04-07-22, 02:31 PM
  #64  
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Originally Posted by clasher
I'm on a wahoo bolt, apparently it just takes the cues straight from the rwgps file... the default seems to be 50m from what I can tell.
The Wahoo is using the "course points" for this (too). It's possible that the Wahoo is announcing them earlier by itself. RWGPS gives you the option of moving them but it doesn't by default and you only have that option if you have a paid subscription.

The announcement of course points on Garmins is a little weak (the Wahoo units might be better). "Turn guidance" on the Garmins is announced 0.1 miles before the turn and are noticeable big white arrows.

"Course points" were a thing created by Garmin and they are a feature of FIT and TCX files.

Originally Posted by clasher
I gave away my old garmin edge 200 so I don't have any garmins to test the routes on.
All of the Garmins display the course points "as they are". So, to get them early, they'd have to be earlier in the file.

Originally Posted by clasher
No one has complained to me about the routes so that's good at least, though now I've figured out how to change that turn notification stuff so I can pass that along. I tend to just use the map screen when going through towns... I don't find it very useful outside of built-up areas.
With the map, I often know about turns ahead of time and, if I miss a turn, I'll see that fairly quickly. The map is useful for what to do at a complicated intersection more clear (and those exist outside of built-up areas too). This is certainly an instance of do what works best for you.

Originally Posted by clasher
Thankfully the cuesheet only changes for the spots in between the RWGPS control points (and my routes have a lot of those white dots since I rarely take the shortest or flattest way) when the route is edited so small changes don't make for too many new cuesheet entries. The review cues tool also starts at these changes and skips all the already-checked cues so small changes aren't a lot of work. I also edit the cue sheet so that it's easier to read for anyone that prints one off.
Yes.

Originally Posted by clasher
Five of us did my 400 last year without any pre-ride and ran into some closed bridges that weren't noted on google/OSM but thankfully they were still passable on bikes, though there were posted detours that used a busy highway...
Was the 400k an old permanent? If it was an organized brevet, the route shouldn't have used the closed bridges. An organized brevet shouldn't need to be pre-ridden.

Originally Posted by clasher
We've been emailing photos of the control cards since before the pandemic, there isn't always a ride organizer at the finish... we rarely have volunteers for doing stuff like that. Requiring a gps track was something new though, I'm gonna suggest keeping that as well.
People are getting more used to the technology. It wasn't that long where the use of GPS wasn't really acknowledged. The pandemic also got people to reconsider what they did (and consider doing things in a new way).

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Old 04-07-22, 04:15 PM
  #65  
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Originally Posted by njkayaker
Was the 400k an old permanent? If it was an organized brevet, the route shouldn't have used the closed bridges. An organized brevet shouldn't need to be pre-ridden.
It was a new route, first time it was run. I'd set off to pre-ride it in 2020 but my saddle rails snapped and I turned back for home... never really got the chance to do it. The road looked fine on streetview but since 2011 the road has been downgraded to gravel and the bridge was closed to car traffic with concrete blocks, still passable on foot/bike I guess. Wouldn't have been able to know that without pre-riding it since rwgps/google still route cyclists that way. There was also a culvert getting replaced along the route that wasn't on google maps. Not really easy to find some of this out without pre-riding.
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Old 04-07-22, 04:48 PM
  #66  
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Originally Posted by clasher
It was a new route, first time it was run. I'd set off to pre-ride it in 2020 but my saddle rails snapped and I turned back for home... never really got the chance to do it. The road looked fine on streetview but since 2011 the road has been downgraded to gravel and the bridge was closed to car traffic with concrete blocks, still passable on foot/bike I guess. Wouldn't have been able to know that without pre-riding it since rwgps/google still route cyclists that way. There was also a culvert getting replaced along the route that wasn't on google maps. Not really easy to find some of this out without pre-riding.
Ahh. When I talked about not needing to pre-ride a route, I was talking about routes that (careful) organizers had already spent time creating and checking recently. In those cases, the ride is pre-ridden by them.
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