• Category Archives Cycling

  • Wetley Rocks-Flash-Wetley Rocks, Wetley Rocks-Calton Moor-Wetley Rocks

    Posted on April 6, 2011 by Dave Comment

    (Monday, March 28th)

    I’m back home for a few weeks now. Having made reasonable progress with my dissertation this morning I decided to get out on the bike and head into the Peak District that’s located so conveniently nearby. The hills are a pleasant change from the flatness and windiness of Cambridgeshire.

    Wetley Rocks-Flash-Wetley Rocks is a 40.46 mile route that on the way out goes through Cheddleton, Leek, Blackshaw Moor, Upper Hulme, and on the way back goes through Dove Head, Longnor, Warslow, Onecote, Bottomhouse, Ipstones, Froghall, Kingsley and Kingsley Moor.

    The route includes over 3000 feet of climbing (the My Tracks recording stopped 48.82km in and reported 996m, while the Route Tracer import completed and reports 910m; assuming the My Tracks version was more accurate it is reasonable to extrapolate – there are still plenty of climbs towards the end – and assume the elevation gain was actually at least 1100m; over 3000 feeet). The A53, used between Leek and Flash is actually quite reasonable for cycling on, at least at the time that I was using it.

    Maximum speed according to Cateye was 43.4 mph; this is the fastest I’ve gone on a bike yet. On the majority of descents I didn’t dare stop braking, and there were a few valleys that I went into slower than I climbed out of because the amount of surface gravel meant that if I’d needed to stop while descending at anything more than a crawl I’d have been in big trouble.

    Average moving speed according to Cateye was 14.6mph, and according to the My Tracks Route Trace import, 22.31km/h. This is no doubt mostly due to the the amount of climbing, but possibly in part to the amount of back pain I had for the last 10 miles or so.

    Route:


    View Wetley Rocks-Flash-Wetley Rocks in a larger map

    A couple of photos from Flash:

    img_20110328_165759 img_20110328_165707

    British Summer Time is great (photos taken at ~5pm)!

    (Wednesday, April 6th)

    Wetley Rocks-Calton Moor-Wetley Rocks is a 27.61 mile (according to Cateye) route that on the way out goes through Cheddleton, Leek, Bradnop, Bottomhouse and Waterhouses and on the way back goes through Cauldon Low, Whiston, Froghall, Kingsley and Kingsley Moor. An extra bottle cage and bottle that I’d ordered turned up yesterday and it’s a good thing they did; I got through both, but then, today has apparently been the hottest April 6th on record. Average moving speed (again according to Cateye) was 15.9 mph.

    Although My Tracks has had this habit of failing to completely record tracks before, I’ve worked around it in the past by importing GPX files (exported from Route Tracer) to My Tracks. I can’t do that today because I’ve stopped recording Route Traces, as the project is now winding down (I intend to have a first draft dissertation ready on Friday).

    Route:


    View Wetley Rocks-Calton Moor-Wetley Rocks in a larger map

    I’ve noticed that a lot of A roads in Staffordshire are comparable in size, surface quality and traffic levels to B roads and lanes in Cambridgeshire, while many B roads and lanes in Staffordshire seem more like dirt tracks. This is the reason this route is entirely on A roads; the openness (in terms of visibility) and better surface quality make them feel safer than smaller roads to me.

    Here is the Google Doc with all the stats:
    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?
    key=0At0EKwdiLZmYdFg4Mk9fdHltdWlGeWpQTHMzM3RjU3c&hl=en_GB

    This entry was posted in Cycling, Site News and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Cambridge-Huntingdon-Cambridge, SO42

    Posted on March 25, 2011 by Dave Comment

    Cambridge-Huntingdon-Cambridge is a 56 mile route that on the way up goes through Coton, Hardwick, Childerley Gate, Great Cambourne, Elsworth, Hilton and Godmanchester. On the way back down it goes through Hartford, Wyton, Houghton, St. Ives, Fenstanton, Fen Drayton, Swavesey, Over, Willingham, Rampton, Cottenham, Landbeach, Waterbeach, Horningsea and Fen Ditton.

    Average moving speed on this was 24.04km/h according to My Tracks. Some reasons for the really poor speed: 1) I underestimated how much food and water to take and thus got “the bonk” about 10 miles before the end; up ’till this point my speed had been pretty good 2) 24.04km/h is incorrect; I again had to import the Route Trace as the HTC Hero failed to log a few stretches, and this introduces errors – the Cateye measurement is 16.3mph, which equals a slightly better 26.23km/h 3) This was my first time out cycling in two weeks, due to my work load being very high (and it continues to be) 4) My sleeping pattern during those two weeks was pretty bad, and I was mildly ill last weekend.

    Route:


    View Cambridge-Huntingdon-Cambridge in a larger map

    Cambridge Semi Oribital 42 average moving speed: 29.38km/h as reported directly by My Tracks (for the first time in a long time the GPS never lost the fix). Interestingly, My Tracks reports 27.74km/h if I import the GPX file exported from Route Tracer. This demonstrates the approximate amount of error added by the fact that My Tracks treats GPX files as pure and doesn’t filter them as it does data it records itself. It also suggests that a lot of my recent rides are reported as being slower than they actually were.

    Route:


    View Cambridge Semi Orbital 42 in a larger map

    Here is the Google Doc with all the stats:
    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?
    key=0At0EKwdiLZmYdFg4Mk9fdHltdWlGeWpQTHMzM3RjU3c&hl=en_GB

    This entry was posted in Cycling and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • Cambridge-Ely-Cambridge, North Cambridgeshire 1

    Posted on March 11, 2011 by Dave Comment

    Cambridge-Ely-Cambridge is a 48 mile route that on the way up goes through Girton, Oakington, Longstanton, Willingham, Earith, Sutton and Wentworth. On the way back down it goes through Witchford, Wentworth, Haddenham, Wilburton, Cottenham, Landbeach, Waterbeach, Horningsea and Fen Ditton. Average moving speed on this was 27.12km/h.

    Route:


    View Cambridge-Ely-Cambridge in a larger map

    North Cambridgeshire is a 32 mile route that extends the “Semi Orbital” route. It passes through Madingley, Dry Drayton, Oakingon, Longstanton, Swavesey, Over, Willingham, Rampton, Cottenham, Landbeach, Waterbeach, Horningsea and Fen Ditton. Average moving speed on this was 25.42km/h (according to My Tracks; Cateye says 16.7mph (26.88km/h)). Perhaps I hadn’t fully recovered from Cambridge-Ely-Cambridge that I’d done the day before; there was a significant slowdown towards the end.

    Route:


    View North Cambridgeshire 1 in a larger map

    Here is the Google Doc with all the stats:
    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?
    key=0At0EKwdiLZmYdFg4Mk9fdHltdWlGeWpQTHMzM3RjU3c&hl=en_GB

    This entry was posted in Cycling and tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • SO39-40, CUCC T4, SO41

    Posted on February 26, 2011 by Dave Comment

    Last week was pretty busy (two interviews and one dissertation presentation) so I decided not to cycle. This week:

    Cambridge Semi Orbital 39 average moving speed: 27.95km/h.

    Cambridge Semi Orbital 40 average moving speed: 28.81km/h (17.9mph) according to My Tracks but 19.0mph according to Cateye (30.57mk/h). The weather was great – I hope the trend continues.

    CUCC T4 average moving speed: 26.90km/h. This was just over 30 miles, so after stopping outside for Fitz for 10 minutes I went out again: Cambridge Semi Orbital 41 average moving speed 25.57km/h. Low much more because of the traffic I got stuck in along Newmarket Road due to emergency gas works and less because of the distance I’d already done; I was doing 20+mph most of the way until I approached Fen Ditton (the reason I switch between km/h and mph is because I have My Tracks report in km and the Cateye computer report in miles). The two rides combined totalled 57 miles.

    CUCC T4 route (MyMaps functionality has returned to My Tracks):


    View CUCC Training 4 in a larger map

    Here is the Google Doc with all the stats:
    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?
    key=0At0EKwdiLZmYdFg4Mk9fdHltdWlGeWpQTHMzM3RjU3c&hl=en_GB

    This entry was posted in Cycling and tagged , , , , , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

  • SO37-38, O4

    Posted on February 13, 2011 by Dave Comment

    Cambridge Semi Orbital 37 average moving speed: 27.45km/h.

    Cambridge Semi Orbital 38 average moving speed: 28.67km/h – brought down a little by systematic error due to me having to walk around road works in Cottenham.

    Cambridge Orbital 4 average moving speed: 26.34km/h which would already be a reasonable improvement on the previous best of 22.54km/h. However: that speed is as reported by My Tracks and according to a post on the user/dev group, a recent change is causing average moving speeds to be underestimated. This is consistent with the fact that my Cateye computer reports my average moving speed to be 17.0 mph (27.36km/h). Pretty pleasing for a 50 mile route!

    The majority of the ride failed to record, with My Tracks reporting only a 44.35km total distance. This was not however due to My Tracks but instead due to today’s nightly build of CyanogenMod 7 for the HTC Hero (build number 20); several times when using the phone I noticed it was failing to get a GPS fix; clearly not My Tracks at fault. Luckily I was also recording the route with Route Tracer to contribute to the dataset for my dissertation and the G1 running CyanogenMod 6.1 had no trouble maintaining a GPS fix for the whole ride. I’ve exported the GPS location data from the Route Trace as a GPX file and imported it into My Tracks; which gives the above figure of 26.34km/h.

    Route (using dissertation code again to render points on OpenStreetMap tiles as I’m waiting for the dust to settle after the My Maps/Fusion Tables shake up – route points are in green as one of the recent enhancements to my dissertation dataset visualisation tools is that route points are colour coded by transportation mode):

    route

     

    Update (26/02/11):
    My Tracks once again has upload to MyMaps functionality. As I’m currently logging all rides I do with Route Tracer so I can add them to the dataset for my dissertation, I hadn’t bothered to backup the My Tracks routes when changing the configuration of my HTC Hero (whether that be removing the Market version of My Tracks to test out the new feature I developed or installing a new build of the CyanogenMod 7.0 Nightly Builds). For completeness now that MyMaps functionality has returned, I today generated GPX files from the Route Traces and imported using the My Tracks import functionality that I developed (which got added to the Market version along with the return of MyMaps functionality).

    SO37 according to the imported Route Tracer data was done at an average moving speed of 27.32km/h whereas the original My Tracks record reported 27.45km/h.

    Likewise for SO38: Route Tracer data – 26.95km/h, My Tracks record – 28.67km/h.

    The reason for this is that Route Tracer dumps data directly from the sensors without any preprocessing whereas My Tracks filters anomalies. It seems that this has resulted in an underestimate of the stationary times. My Tracks assumes GPX data is accurate/has been filtered and so the anomalies get through (which is also why those routes have very high maximum speeds).

    Here is the Google Doc with all the stats:
    http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?
    key=0At0EKwdiLZmYdFg4Mk9fdHltdWlGeWpQTHMzM3RjU3c&hl=en_GB

    This entry was posted in Cycling and tagged , , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.


  • dinamic_sidebar 4 none

©2012 piggott.me.uk Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS)  Raindrops Theme