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Mountain Biking


gkids

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I bought a GPS to go geocaching. Since I purchased it (3 days ago) I have come across a mountain biking site that puts in some coordinates to follow a trail (4 or 5 spots on a 14 mile ride). My question is this: Would it not be reasonable to save the whole track of a ride and post it somewhere so that you could easily follow that ride? This may not even be the website for such a question but you folks seem to be dialed in on the GPS thing, so I thought I'd give it a try.

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Posting the Whole track route might not help too many people because of the memory restrictions on some of the gps units. Some gps units cannot store a long track route. Also, I think most bikers like autonomy of finding their own way to their destination, or at least some of the way. For the most part, marking waypoints along the way is the way to go. Waypoints could be marks for places you should turn off the trail, a watering hole, points of interest, etc. These waypoints use much less memory than complete routes

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quote:
Originally posted by Ranger Rick:

Also, I think most bikers like autonomy of finding their own way to their destination, or at least some of the way. For the most part, marking waypoints along the way is the way to go. Waypoints could be marks for places you should turn off the trail, a watering hole, points of interest, etc. These waypoints use much less memory than complete routes


Rick, are you a state or national park Ranger by chance? If it is mandated that snowmobiles and atv's stay on the trails, I cannot see how it would be any different for cyclists. Bikes can cause erosion and rutting also. I hear this stuff all the time and it seems like "protectors of the forest" (AKA enemies of gas powered vehicles) all ride mountain bikes, and want to limit access for thier own sport. Stay on the path unless you're on foot. It seems fair to me!y

 

boo2.jpg

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National Geographic Topo (1:24,000 7.5 quads) allows you to automatically create Waypoints to a track transfered to NG Topo from the GPS. Once in Topo, you can either select 1. match the shape of the route (select quantity desired up to 50 waypoints), 2. Evenly space the waypoints based on distance along the freehand route (select quantity desired up to 50 waypoints), 3. Place a waypoint every mile (250 including start and finish). You can prefix each waypoint like P and then the waypoints will be automatically labelled P1, P2, P3 etc.

 

Once you have the waypoints, then you can post it, email it, etc using one of the other programs.

 

Alan

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quote:
Originally posted by Irvingdog:


Rick, are you a state or national park Ranger by chance? If it is mandated that snowmobiles and atv's stay on the trails, I cannot see how it would be any different for cyclists. Bikes can cause erosion and rutting also. I hear this stuff all the time and it seems like "protectors of the forest" (AKA enemies of gas powered vehicles) all ride mountain bikes, and want to limit access for thier own sport. Stay on the path unless you're on foot. It seems fair to me!y

 

Hello Irvingdog, You assumed incorrectly. If you check my profile, I am a swimming pool corp. owner. My post was strictly about considering memory limitations of gps units and the freedom of the bikers to ride where their intuition leads them. I think you read more into my post than what was intended although I am concerned about the protection of nature. Ranger Rick is just my chosen user name.

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quote:
Originally posted by Irvingdog:

 

Rick, are you a state or national park Ranger by chance? If it is mandated that snowmobiles and atv's stay on the trails, I cannot see how it would be any different for cyclists. Bikes can cause erosion and rutting also. I hear this stuff all the time and it seems like "protectors of the forest" (AKA enemies of gas powered vehicles) all ride mountain bikes, and want to limit access for thier own sport. Stay on the path unless you're on foot. It seems fair to me!y

 

http://www.hunting-pictures.com/members/Irvingdog/boo2.jpg


 

Actually, it's quite hard, and not very fun to go OFF trail on a bike. You would most likely have to carry the thing. As for errosion and all that. There was an EXTENSIVE New Zealand government study and it basically concluded that bike and a foot traffic are of compareable impact to trails. Bikes tend to impact in their downhill travels (if they skid) while hiking impacts while traveling up hill (you actually twist your foot as you walk and it digs into the dirt).

 

george

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