Tag Archives: route

ride routes 21st – 27th october

a couple of 30 degree days means that summer is on it’s way.  this always brings up the discussion about tan lines.  now some people think that tan lines are a badge of honor.  they need to be sharp and crisp and show everyone just how much damn riding you do.  on thighs, i can totally understand this.  much like that tattoo you are now embarrassed about, you can hide a thigh high tan line and still enjoy shorts or skirts when it is hot.  sock lines however are a different story.  the latest trend for socks to be halfway up your calf means that you now have two-tone legs, or look like you are wearing two pairs of socks (one of them white).  according to the velominati, short socks are a no no.  pffft.  tan lines in stupid places are a no no.  i have friends outside of cycling and i am pretty sure they don’t see it as a badge of honor.  i can’t even begin to understand how the dilemma around tan lines on arms and sleeveless dresses gets dealt with.

ride leader sponsor – the ride leader sponsor for october is Mount Hawthorn Family Practice.   a fully accredited and equipped, modern general practice whose friendly staff look forward to welcoming you. the experienced team of doctors and staff can assist you with your general health needs and offer a range of general practice services.  please see the previous post for more details.

spr tomr teams – still have one place tantalisingly available in the men’s ranks. we are getting close now, so serious interest only please! email jon and greg at race@southperthrouleurs.com.au for more info or to nominate.

spr tomr practice –  with only a few weeks to go before the tour of margs, the next three saturday’s will focus on the team time trial.  meet as usual for the main ride and then head out in your teams to practice riding as a group.  this week the teams will do the standard thursday ride route but with one small change.  at cottesloe, instead of riding along marine parade, turn a few blocks earlier onto broome st.  this road contains a lot more rolling hills that will test how well the group can stay together.  this road eventually joins back on to marine pde where you can continue the normal route.  check on google maps so you know where we are talking about.  next week, we will find a different route to tackle.

the beverley 2017 – 2nd year in and the beverley was a raging success for spr. 170 racers, 37 women and about 45 spr members – a cracking turnout! there will be a beverley “behind-the-scenes” and beverley race report blogs published this week, so standby.

state road race championships – the wa state road race champs are on 29th october, the wa cycling community are returning to york in the wheatbelt. there are open and masters categories available. registration is open here.  anyone able to volunteer as marshals or on course vehicles, please email race@southperthrouleurs.com.au and we will coordinate with the event organisers for you. as usual there are reimbursements for fuel for on course vehicles.

2018 licences renewal – now that we have started october, any race licence that you purchase will be valid until the end of 2018.  recreational licences are a year from the date purchased, but race licences are for a calendar year.  if you need a race licence for tour of margs, get it now and you can race all of next year.

ride leader expressions of interest – we are currently looking for expressions of interest for our next batch of ride leaders.  you have seen the men and women in black and should have even had one of them lead one of your rides.  now it is your chance to give back to the club and be trained to be a ride leader.  remember, we will not put you in a situation where you are out of your depth.  if you are a main 2 rider, we would not make you be ride leader for main 1.  so don’t think that you need to be a super fast rider who does races every weekend.  we are primarily looking for people that can help out at the main 3/tranny/novice end of the spectrum.  this means that anyone that is currently riding in main 2/1/fast more than qualifies as far as fitness/riding skills are involved.  how you go about leading a group, we will train you in that.  if you are interested, please check out the previous blog post for more details.

entertainment books – we are still selling the entertainment book/app as a fund raiser for the club.  packed full of offers, it will not take you long to redeem back what you paid.  check out the previous post for more details and links to registration.

thursday training ride – we implemented a new system of splitting the thursday group ride to keep the size manageable.    we think that we have come up with a good way of splitting the groups, but we need you to be honest about your own abilities.  have a look at the strava segment for the ride so you know where you sit.  there is nothing to stop you stepping up to challenge yourself, but this will at least provide a guide as to how much more challenging it will be.

saturday start locations – we have revamped the group start locations on saturday morning.  please have a look at the map so you know where your group will congregate.  this makes it easier for ride leaders to give you a briefing before the ride starts.  see the previous post for more details.

ride routes – hot days with hot winds.  make sure you are ready for the summer temperatures this weekend  along with the supposed thunderstorms that will accompany it.  if you are tackling the sunday hills ride, ensure you have adequate food and water.

saturday 21st october

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – earlybird 40.93km spr special

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

development group –  novice shelley 36.06km spr saturday

transitional – trans abernethy 39.96km spr saturday

fast & main groups – morley drive 50.77km spr saturday

tomr teams – spr thursday 37.26km (cott & freo) (but with broome st)

sunday 22nd october

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

early lap – earlybird 40.93km spr special

all rides start at coode st carpark at 7:00am

development group – coffee ride

short – wlsh weir 62.23km spr sunday

long – wlsh obs cam goose 88.67km spr sunday

monday 23rd october

ride starts under the narrows (sth perth side) at 5:30am

south stock 33.76km spr monday

tuesday 24th october

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

spr tuesday 36.37km (river ride)

ride starts frasers ave at 5:45am

development group – interval training kings park

wednesday 25th october

ride starts raffles bike path at 5:30am

interval training – stock road repeats

thursday 26th october

ride starts under the narrows (cityside) at 5:30am

see previous post for ride groups

spr thursday 37.26km (cott & freo)

ride starts frasers ave at 5:45am

development group – interval training kings park

friday 27th october

ride starts under the narrows (sth perth side) at 5:30am

spr friday 42.01km (shelley)

friday training/recovery ride

Never take the wrong turn again

If you’re like me, every Thursday evening you check the SPR blog to see what Pete has planned for the weekend. Are we doing Benara Road this time? Not Ewen St again pleeeease…

Even though I always check the route, I’m a “big picture” person and couldn’t possibly remember the entire route if my life depended on it. Also road names mean very little to me. I know St. George’s Tc and Hay St and maybe I’ve heard of Albany Hwy but the rest really is sort of gibberish to me. Sure, some rides I’ve done 00’s of times so I kinda “know” where we’re going and where to turn, but generally my main navigation device is the butt in front of me.  Bike in front of me turns, I turn.  Simple.

Now to be honest this kind of sucks. My intellectual laziness is sheltered by my more apt fellow riders who actually memorized the route and know where to turn. God bless them. However, it did occur to me that if the whole group did what I do….we’d have trouble leaving Coode St (there…I know another one…)

So, what to do? Two choices I guess. A) Spend countless hours reading the map trying to memorize it. Useless. I’ve even considered buying that “Brainetics” DVD for kids but didn’t, fearing that my 2 year old might outsmart me. Little punk…show some respect for the old man!

Or B) Make Technology work for me. Now doing some research on the web, it turns out that my trusty companion the -very popular nowadays- Garmin Edge 500 can actually store and display maps on that tiny 1.8’’ screen. Sounds like this could be the answer to my issues.

So, for the benefit of my fellow map-challenged riders, here’s a quick guide on how to use this little known (at least to me) feature.

In a nutshell, it works like this:

  1. Get your desired map off the web
  2. Put it on your Garmin
  3. Ride and look like you know what you’re doing (or at least where you’re going)

So here we go:

Step 1 – Start with our trusty ol’ blog

Go to https://southperthrouleurs.com.au/blog/ and see where are we riding this weekend. Select the route of your choice and remember the name (e.g. spr saturday 49.01km (canning vale & welshpool))

Step 2 – Go to mapmyride.com

Go to  http://www.mapmyride.com . Here’s where you will get your maps from. You’ll have to register a user and login before you can do any of the following. Worth doing IMHO.

Step 3 – Find the route you’re after

Go to Routes -> Search Rides and type up the name of the ride you’re after (or part of it). After you hit the “Search” button, you’ll see all the matching rides. Now, this can be kind of tricky as you may see multiple rides that match your search and that might have minor variations or even see older versions of the ride. Generally a good indicator is the length of the ride. Choose your route wisely, young one. Select by clicking on it

Step 4 – Download the map

Once you’ve selected the route, Click on the “Export Map Data” link at the bottom of the screen. Now, older versions of this site allowed the file to be downloaded directly as CRS, which is what the Edge 500 understands natively. Unfortunately this option is no longer available. Therefore, we need to download the file as GPX (a standard GPS file) and convert it to CRS later. Download the file and put it on a folder on your PC

Step 5 – Convert it to CRS

There’s a number of ways to do this, so feel free to experiment if you want, but this is what I do. Goto http://www.gpsies.com/convert.do  . This is a website that will convert between multiple formats of GPS data. It will ask file location (either on the web or your PC), and allow you to select multiple conversion options such as reducing the number of GPS data points to reduce file size. Also you have the option of specifying a speed in MPH. This will come in handy later as this will set the speed of your “virtual partner” – a Garmin feature that lets you ride against yourself (wow). Anyway, options aside, the only important setting here is that you export the file as CRS. This will generate a converted file locally in your computer.

Step 6 – Move it to the Garmin

This is fairly simple. Connect your Garmin Edge 500 to your computer, take the CRS file you just converted and drop it on the “Courses” folder

Step 7: Ride like a Pro

OK, riding like a pro might take a bit more than that, but at least you wont take the wrong turn. Now, to see your map on the Garmin, all you have to do is go Menu -> Training -> Courses, then select the course you want to do and then “Do Course”. The Garmin will convert it (yet again) to another internal format but then you’ll see the course information, including course profile and the actual route.

You can adjust the “zoom” level on the map screen by “back” key and then selecting up and down to the level of your choice. I find that 300 meters works well.  The greyish dot indicates your position and the black dot is your virtual partner. Once you finish the course, go back to the same menu and choose (you guessed it) “Stop Course”.

Also, if you select “Map” instead of the “Do course” option, you’ll see a nice picture of the entire course on the screen.

Now there’s tons of options for you to play around but wont go into that as the key point was getting the map to the unit and being able to see your position on the course.

Now my lawyer advises me to also say the following:

  1. Always keep your eyes on the road. Don’t fumble with settings / screens / etc while riding. Otherwise the only course you’ll do is to the hospital
  2. This is not a turn-by-turn GPS feature. If the course crosses the same point multiple times, you actually have to know where to go. If you take the wrong turn however, the unit will warn you with a friendly “You’re off course” message or something along those lines
  3. This is how I do it. I have no affiliation (other than a personal user) with any of the sites I mentioned here so, please, if you have another way of doing the same thing, please share it. I’ve looked everywhere in Strava but can’t find a way to download courses. If you do, please let me know
  4. I’ve tried this with the Edge 500 but might work in other models such as the fancy 800. If the Club will invest in such unit and lend it to me indefinitely, I will make sure I test this and report back the findings

So, now when your ride leader shouts out the course before the ride and says something like “we’re turning left on Wacky wacky rd and then right after Worongonruna Hw” you can do as I do: Smile and nod…Smile and nod.