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Traveling and navigation (was: Concerning commuting by bike)
Am Sun, 28 Jun 2020 14:45:14 -0400 schrieb Frank Krygowski
: On 6/28/2020 2:29 PM, Lou Holtman wrote: On Sunday, June 28, 2020 at 8:02:23 PM UTC+2, Frank Krygowski wrote: On 6/28/2020 1:31 PM, Lou Holtman wrote: ... come cycle here in the Netherlands. We spent about four days in Amsterdam the year before last. The only bikes we found to rent near our Air BnB were heavy upright Dutch bikes, but we rode them all around the city plus out into some suburbs. We had fun, but my wife was sometimes a bit nervous because of the crowds of cyclists and pedestrians. The density there is amazing compared to here. -- - Frank Krygowski I mentioned it before cycling in Amsterdam is not typical for cycling in The Netherlands. You should have left Amsterdam and go into the countryside and small villages. We actually tried that, but failed. Our BnB was one floor below the apartment of this book's author: https://www.amazon.com/Amsterdam-Rid...900/ref=sr_1_1 and we tried to do Route 7, out northeast of the city center. But my navigation skills failed me. We were on some bike path that left the road, eventually took us into some sort of apartment complex and seemed to give no way out. I could have used a Garmin. You shouldn't have to. When I'd like to use my motorcycle, for driving to an arbitrary German town, all I'd need is a map in order to get there. In most cases, I'd could do it without a map. Just find the name of the next major town and use the signposts. Then find the name of the minor city on local signposts. It even would work using a e-motorized bicycle called "S-Pedelec", which is technically identical to a "Pedelec", which in turn is a bicyle by law. The only difference being that a pedelec is restricted to 25 km/h and enforces some kind of gesture with the feet, while a S-Pedelec just is what was called "Moped" around here, a motorcycle retricted to 40 km/h, before the law had been changed. Pedelecs are forced to use mandatory bike paths, S-Pedelec are not. So you may use the latter as you'd use any slow motorcycle. So in essence, the problem in the Netherlands - and unfortunately in Germany, too - is that you are prohibited from using many of the good roads, so the signposts are mostly of less or no use. A Garmin or any similar device surely could navigate you to and through those meandering bike paths. But I used it for a different purpose, most of the time, instead. Before visiting an unknown teritory, especially on vacation, I locate roads with mandatory bike paths by various means and route around these, when possible. A mapping application and a good map is quite helpfull, there. I still use the old Garmin application MapSource, because it works fully offline and isn't as gamificated as later software on a laptop for that. But any such program probably would do. In 2008, I bought a set of quite expensive Garmin compatible and routable IGN-Maps (IGN == Institut géographique national) derived from topographical maps with height information, for traveling in France. Nowadays I'm just use converted OSM maps which work even better. When riding around, since 2008 the Garmin 60CSx is both my bicyle computer with speed and distance in large letters on display, when I'm not navigating, or a map, when necessary. https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/pr3000garmin60csx.jpg https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/qd_garmin60csx.jpg Lately, I switched to the somewhat newer 64s and moved it to the stem. https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/qd_garmin64s.jpg Whether I'm navigating or not, the Garmin is always writing a track into internal storage, I'm collecting these tracks and reuse them, when necessary, by eliminating detours or by combining parts of different tracks. But even when I do not, it is quite usefull to have a moving map which shows the already visited places and roads, or just for riding a track again, perhaps into the opposite direction, this time. Just for illustration - and some bragging, of course :-) - below are two identical maps of our bicycle trips in the Luberon region of France, a low resolution one https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/luberon2008-2018s.jpg and a somewhat larger one https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/luberon2008-2018l.jpg These are from vacations between 2008 and 2018. In 2018, when we finally where both retired, so we rented a holiday home there for two months and went many routes again by bike, some of which we had already ridden in 2008ff, as well as some, which we knew from decades before, and of course new routes, too. It was the longest vacation we've ever had, and we very much enjoyed it. All in all, these are about 2200 km, including about 30 km of accumulated height gain. Most of those tracks overlap, because they have been riden many times. No bicycle facilites, paths or "infrastructure" where used, just ordinary streets and roads. This year it didn't work out, for obvious reasons. Perhaps next year. Summary: I wouldn't voluntarily do without the device, it is much too useful both for planning and for the actual riding. The recorded tracks are a good memory of beautiful travels, especially when combined with photos. https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/20180525.jpg https://www.mystrobl.de/ws/pic/fahrrad/luberon/20180605.jpg -- Bicycle helmets are the Bach flower remedies of traffic |
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