Most confusing bike route (long and rambling)

So there I was, wanting to get from my house in Manhattan to the northern
part of the Nassau county line, mainly on cyclist's business. Normally, if
I decided I wanted to go there, I would go over the Queensboro Bridge, get
to Northern Boulevard, make a right at the light and keep on moving till
night. But here I had some time and a perfect opportunity to try to use
the outerborough bike routes in a meaningful and organized way. So I
googled and received a pdf of NYC bike routes, took some notes, and took
off.

Here's where our problem is. It seems that on-road bike reserved lanes,
roads suggested and signed as bike routes, off-road bike paths, and the
overarching NYC Greenway project each have their own rules and layers of
government. The "map" [it was an actual map copied from an actual atlas,
true; it had dashed lines, dotted lines, red lines, and green lines
superimposed on the actual map, but unlike a yahoo map, the small street
names didn't shift around to appear where they were needed. That is to
say, this was a wide-area map without names for the smaller streets,
instead of a collection of small-area maps that had street names. Get it?
The thing looked like a map, but it didn't meet the basic specs of what a
map is suppoed to do.] might as well of been a picture of a bowl of
spaghetti sitting on top of Queens County. It didn't trace a clear path
from A to B.

So I figured I'd wing it; counting on everyone being so happy about the
bike route project that there would be lots of happy signs along the way,
preventing me from falling into the horrible "Astoria Trap" in which, for
example, one arrives at 31st Avenue and 31st Street and thinks one is
proceeding along south when one is really going east. (Queens County, a
collection of former Western Nassau County towns and villages, each
seperated by bays, creeks, and hills, is a Bolyai-Lubochevsky surface with
an orthogonal grid superimposed on it.)

But I was to have no such luck. Coming out of Manhattan, 1st ave, 2nd ave,
55th st, and 54th st are either signed bike routes or have reserved bike
lanes leading to the most excellent Queensboro Bridge bikeway. Coming out
in Queens, though, there is nothing to lead you on to the next step. You
have to somehow get across the entering and exiting bridge traffic if you
want to continue east on Queens Boulevard, the main road east through
Queens. If you make it, you get another bike reservation on the little
Queens Plaza Bridge, but then an unsigned left turn, no bike route, no bike
lane, and then you get the "Astoria Trap." It's only those who can find
their way to 34th Avenue who get a bike lane, which then abruptly ends at
114th st, at the Grand Central Parkway, in sight of Shea Stadium, but with
no obvious way to get across. If you find your way, you can get into
Flushing Meadow-Corona Park, site of our two former World's Fairs, which is
a fine place to take a date or the kids out for a little flat spin, or a
row around a lake, or to look at all the exhibits. But it's just not a
through route.

Basically, it goes on and on like that, all good stuff for riding around
but nothing for riding through; no numbered bike routes like in San Fran or
the rest of New York State. On the whole, it's just better to take the
main Northeast road and deal with the traffic, which is a shame. Many
parts of Queens are poorly served by the subway system _by design_ to keep
out the sort of people who don't have cars. This policy is no longer a
good thing. A little signage, a couple of more lanes and routes, and
people from Whitestone, College Point, and Kew Gardens could bike in faster
than people closer to the subway can get in, but all of them faster than
the folly of driving in. Just a little tweaking...

--ag

"andy gee" wrote: (clip) looked like a map, but it didn't meet the basic
specs of what a map is suppoed to do.] might as well of been a picture of a
bowl of
spaghetti sitting on top of Queens County. It didn't trace a clear path
from A to B. So I figured I'd wing it; counting on (clip) lots of happy
signs along the way (clip) But I was to have no such luck.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I am amazed you were actually able to decypher what was happening to you. I
think I would have just got lost.

In article ,
catzz66 wrote:
Do any of you use an old fashioned compass? I've been thinking of
getting one. I do almost 100% urban riding by stretching out routes
that I have already done, but there are times I have gotten crossed up
and a compass would have helped.

Not I, but I do have a fairly good sense of direction, and that's helped
often enough.
I also carry around a city map anytime I'm going outside the area I know
well, which helps a lot more than just knowing which way is north would.


I also have a hand held Magellan GPS I could take with me in a pinch,
but I have not figured out any way to mount it on my bike.

I solved that by returning it and getting a Garmin. Magellan does have
bike mounting brackets listed on their webstore (at least for the one I
had), but that didn't help me much since I don't have a credit card, and
none of the dealers around here had anything but the GPS units themselves;
the first place I went to that sold Garmin had all the accessories I
needed too.
The Garmin bike mount is a lot nicer too - it's just a low-profile
rail-mount bracket that comes with a replacement battery cover for the
GPS that fits it, where the Magellan one was something that the entire
handheld unit clipped into (so it was the size of the entire GPS unit),
nice and big and ugly when the GPS isn't attached.


dave

--
Dave Vandervies
Carry that to its logical conclusion: pelt the pro-lifers with adult
pro-choicers, and vice-versa.
--Anthony de Boer in the scary devil monastery

Do any of you use an old fashioned compass? I've been thinking of
getting one. I do almost 100% urban riding by stretching out routes
that I have already done, but there are times I have gotten crossed up
and a compass would have helped.

I also have a hand held Magellan GPS I could take with me in a pinch,
but I have not figured out any way to mount it on my bike.

catzz66 writes:

Do any of you use an old fashioned compass? I've been thinking of
getting one. I do almost 100% urban riding by stretching out routes
that I have already done, but there are times I have gotten crossed up
and a compass would have helped.

You can get bike bells that have compasses integrated into them.
I had one on my old bike. It worked fine as a compass for a
couple of years. After that, it cracked and the liquid drained
out of it so the compass stopped working.
--
Peter Seebach on managing engineers:
"It's like herding cats, only most of the engineers are already
sick of laser pointers."

Dave Vandervies wrote:
I solved that by returning it and getting a Garmin. Magellan does have
bike mounting brackets listed on their webstore (at least for the one I
had), but that didn't help me much since I don't have a credit card, and
none of the dealers around here had anything but the GPS units themselves;
the first place I went to that sold Garmin had all the accessories I
needed too.

Keep in mind that GPS units, especially recreational-grade units (ones
that cost less than a couple thousand dollars), suffer from multi-path
errors in and among the tall buildings in downtown areas. The GPS
signal gets blocked by or reflected off of tall buildings and returns
bogus information. In a side-by-side test, a Garmin unit "located" me
two blocks over from my actual position. The mapping-grade unit (a
Trimble GeoExplorer III) just told me it couldn't get a reading.

-Buck

Buck wrote:
:: Dave Vandervies wrote:
::: I solved that by returning it and getting a Garmin. Magellan does
::: have bike mounting brackets listed on their webstore (at least for
::: the one I had), but that didn't help me much since I don't have a
::: credit card, and none of the dealers around here had anything but
::: the GPS units themselves; the first place I went to that sold
::: Garmin had all the accessories I needed too.
::
:: Keep in mind that GPS units, especially recreational-grade units
:: (ones that cost less than a couple thousand dollars), suffer from
:: multi-path errors in and among the tall buildings in downtown areas.
:: The GPS signal gets blocked by or reflected off of tall buildings
:: and returns bogus information. In a side-by-side test, a Garmin unit
:: "located" me two blocks over from my actual position. The
:: mapping-grade unit (a Trimble GeoExplorer III) just told me it
:: couldn't get a reading.

So both units suffer from signal blockage and multi-path...one just lets you
know when it's unreliable and the other (the cheaper one) doesn't, no?

Roger Zoul wrote:
Buck wrote:
:: Keep in mind that GPS units, especially recreational-grade units
:: (ones that cost less than a couple thousand dollars), suffer from
:: multi-path errors in and among the tall buildings in downtown areas.
:: The GPS signal gets blocked by or reflected off of tall buildings
:: and returns bogus information. In a side-by-side test, a Garmin unit
:: "located" me two blocks over from my actual position. The
:: mapping-grade unit (a Trimble GeoExplorer III) just told me it
:: couldn't get a reading.

So both units suffer from signal blockage and multi-path...one just lets you
know when it's unreliable and the other (the cheaper one) doesn't, no?

Both units suffer from signal blockage, yes. However, more expensive
units are designed to prevent multi-path errors. Either way, the
Trimble will stop reporting/recording positions when the parameters are
bad. Garmins will often just keep on reporting despite errors....

-Buck

In article ,
Roger Zoul wrote:
Buck wrote:

:: Keep in mind that GPS units, especially recreational-grade units
:: (ones that cost less than a couple thousand dollars), suffer from
:: multi-path errors in and among the tall buildings in downtown areas.
:: The GPS signal gets blocked by or reflected off of tall buildings
:: and returns bogus information. In a side-by-side test, a Garmin unit
:: "located" me two blocks over from my actual position. The
:: mapping-grade unit (a Trimble GeoExplorer III) just told me it
:: couldn't get a reading.

Two blocks is still "close enough" accuracy when you have a map to
compare to, but yeah, definitely not something you want to discover for
the first time when it's causing problems and you don't have something
to check against.

Most of the built-up areas I go through are the same ones every time,
so I know the area well enough to not need the GPS or map to figure
out where I want to go. The big problem I'm noticing isn't actually
related to the accuracy at all, but that I don't know where to get road
maps with lat/long marked on them; if I had that, I'd be able to enter
waypoints for a long ride before I go through it the first time, which is
when it would be most helpful - after I've ridden a route once or twice,
I usually remember it well enough that I don't need to pull out the map
anyways, so having a GPS track from the last ride isn't nearly as useful
as it'd be for the first one. (Of course, I still don't actually manage
to get out of town on a ride often enough that it makes any noticeable
differenced averaged over the total number of rides, but it'd be nice
to have the option anyways...)


So both units suffer from signal blockage and multi-path...one just lets you
know when it's unreliable and the other (the cheaper one) doesn't, no?

Pretty much, but getting "I can't give you good data" is almost always
better than getting bad data without knowing that it's bad.
(Better than either would be "I can't give you good data, but here's my
best guess".)


dave

--
Dave Vandervies
Carry that to its logical conclusion: pelt the pro-lifers with adult
pro-choicers, and vice-versa.
--Anthony de Boer in the scary devil monastery

Dave Vandervies wrote:


I solved that by returning [the Magellan] and getting a Garmin. Magellan does have
bike mounting brackets listed on their webstore (at least for the one I
had), but that didn't help me much since I don't have a credit card, and
none of the dealers around here had anything but the GPS units themselves;
the first place I went to that sold Garmin had all the accessories I
needed too.
The Garmin bike mount is a lot nicer too - it's just a low-profile
rail-mount bracket that comes with a replacement battery cover for the
GPS that fits it, where the Magellan one was something that the entire
handheld unit clipped into (so it was the size of the entire GPS unit),
nice and big and ugly when the GPS isn't attached.


dave


Thanks, I'll keep the Garmin in mind for my next bike computer upgrade.
The Magellan (not at all handy on a bike) mostly gets used in the car
on trips, but definitly something more compact is the way to go for a bike.

For now, I'll just pick up a compass like something used for hiking and
stow it in my wedge bag. It is not something I would need to use every day.