Yeah - that was fixed last week.

I only recently looked at this properly and was a bit disappointed when I realised that all of my pre-strava rides and runs weren't on there. I did have a wide spread of squares but with quite a lot of gaps. I never used a gps at all back when I was running and I don't think that Strava was invented back then, it certainly wasn't a thing anyway.

So I sort of cheated a bit and made gpx files of some of the routes and roads I know I've been on, added some (very slow) times to them and uploaded them as private activities which has enlarged my max square quite a bit.

It shows how compact the Peak is really, there's surprisingly few squares that can't be visited on a bike or by a few long fell runs. All of bleaklow is ticked by riding the classic MTB trails and the snake pass, running the high peak marathon, the trigger, 2x club champs and a couple of other long runs.

Also shows where the good roads, MTB and fell running is - my max square is 4 overlapping at 26 but my house is only three square in from the east side! I have one square at the far SW and a couple in the far north west to join those up into a bigger square. After those it looks like some potentially odd rides would be needed to go much bigger.

So I sort of cheated a bit and made gpx files of some of the routes and roads I know I've been on

I did that too (imported some older gpx files and created some new ones) and certainly don't regard it as cheating.

Didn't know you could do that. I reckon I'd have most of the Lakes covered if I included my races and BG recces, probably all of if if I included walks. Similarly in the Dales. Ride all the roads and there aren't that many big holes. Now ride the bridleways and the holes shrink quite a bit. Fell races deal with quite a lot of the remainder.

What did you use to create the GPX files with valid timestamps?

ScotRoutes wrote:

So I sort of cheated a bit and made gpx files of some of the routes and roads I know I've been on

I did that too (imported some older gpx files and created some new ones) and certainly don't regard it as cheating.

I know it's not really proper cheating as I know that I've ridden those rides or run those runs. But I wondered if others may feel differently. Glad thats not the case here

edit for Bob - I only added the Peak based ones (and the BG, as that felt right to be there!) via http://gotoes.org/strava/Add_Timestamps_To_GPX.php

I did that too (imported some older gpx files) and certainly don't regard it as cheating

I did that with a heap of files from Garmin Connect from pre-Strava times.

Didn't know you could create new ones that would be usable -

What did you use to create the GPX files with valid timestamps?

Edit - thanks Ian - cross posted.

2nd edit.... Oh now that's brilliant - sorted out a route from a 200km audax I did a couple of years ago where the Garmin failed and didn't save the file. Happy chap here!

Pickers wrote:

I did that too (imported some older gpx files) and certainly don't regard it as cheating

I did that with a heap of files from Garmin Connect from pre-Strava times.

Didn't know you could create new ones that would be usable -

What did you use to create the GPX files with valid timestamps?

Edit - thanks Ian - cross posted.

It's quite a good tool but it applies speed in an odd way. If you know you did a ride at say 24kmh average it will pretty much apply that time to the whole route, resulting in KOMs on climbs that are half the time of the existing ones! So I set mine at 2mph for rides and 1mph for runs and made them all private as I didn't want them to interfere with my actual segment times.

I'd thought about doing the same to pick a load of stuff in Leeds when I lived there 5 years ago.
Saves me having to ride through places again, just for the sake of it especially with some of it being a bit urban.

I'd say it all comes down to honesty about where you've been. Perhaps plotting the routes without any explorer overlay so you upload them "blind"?

My house is almost in the centre of my max square, so a bit surprised when people have offset ones.
Although East/West are easier to get its in the urban sprawl of Leeds/Manchester, North/South are more interesting/harder as i'm into the Peak/Pennines. Cant grumble too much.

Chew wrote:I'd thought about doing the same to pick a load of stuff in Leeds when I lived there 5 years ago.
Saves me having to ride through places again, just for the sake of it especially with some of it being a bit urban.

I'd say it all comes down to honesty about where you've been. Perhaps plotting the routes without any explorer overlay so you upload them "blind"?

My house is almost in the centre of my max square, so a bit surprised when people have offset ones.
Although East/West are easier to get its in the urban sprawl of Leeds/Manchester, North/South are more interesting/harder as i'm into the Peak/Pennines. Cant grumble too much.

To the west of my house is the Peak District. To the east is the M1, Meadowhall, Rotherham and doncaster. To each their own

My house has varied as to where it lies within the max square - at one point it was actually outside it.

Added a couple of races (Three Peaks and Pendle Full) which have made a difference A few other races will grab some odd squares here and there.

ianfitz wrote:via http://gotoes.org/strava/Add_Timestamps_To_GPX.php

How do you get strava to recognise them as different tracks?

Chew wrote:

ianfitz wrote:via http://gotoes.org/strava/Add_Timestamps_To_GPX.php

How do you get strava to recognise them as different tracks?

I just marked them as private when I uploaded them. Also placed the date well into the past so they wouldn't interfere with my current data on there.

Chew wrote:

ianfitz wrote:via http://gotoes.org/strava/Add_Timestamps_To_GPX.php

How do you get strava to recognise them as different tracks?

Make sure you give each a different start time otherwise Strava throws a wobbly.

I just chose an arbitrary year and each new track got added to a different date - 1st Jan, 2nd Jan, 3rd Jan and so on. That way it's easy for me to spot the ones I've fiddled with.

ScotRoutes wrote:I just chose an arbitrary year and each new track got added to a different date - 1st Jan, 2nd Jan, 3rd Jan and so on. That way it's easy for me to spot the ones I've fiddled with.

Ah that would have been a better idea than my pick-a-random-date ‘plan’!

A ride today to pick up a specific square up to get me to 20x20, plus a few bonus ones which may come in handy later.

Progress may be a bit slow from now on as im getting blocked in by some off road tiles which take longer to get to and everything needs to dry out a bit, so fingers crossed for a good hard frost

Help please. I'm new to VV. I uploaded existing Strava activities during the week. Trying to upload today's route unsuccessfully. Route done is on Strava but not pulling through. A previous poster said I should update myself. How do I do this? Read the FAQ's but non the wiser. FWIW I only have 18 activities on VV at present. Thanks in advance.

Alan63 wrote:Help please. I'm new to VV. I uploaded existing Strava activities during the week. Trying to upload today's route unsuccessfully. Route done is on Strava but not pulling through. A previous poster said I should update myself. How do I do this? Read the FAQ's but non the wiser. FWIW I only have 18 activities on VV at present. Thanks in advance.

It's not done automatically, you have to set things going yourself. In VV there are a set of tabs along the top. The rightmost one is "update". Click on this and after a little while it should show a set of buttons along with the text 'You have x rides to update'. Click on the "Get new activities" button and all new rides should be uploaded.

whitestone wrote:

Alan63 wrote:Help please. I'm new to VV. I uploaded existing Strava activities during the week. Trying to upload today's route unsuccessfully. Route done is on Strava but not pulling through. A previous poster said I should update myself. How do I do this? Read the FAQ's but non the wiser. FWIW I only have 18 activities on VV at present. Thanks in advance.

It's not done automatically, you have to set things going yourself. In VV there are a set of tabs along the top. The rightmost one is "update". Click on this and after a little while it should show a set of buttons along with the text 'You have x rides to update'. Click on the "Get new activities" button and all new rides should be uploaded.

Thanks Whitestone. Should it take 25mins for the text to appear. All I'm getting is about renewals and a button to delete all info?

It's about 15 seconds for me.

Might be worth an email.

Veloviewer Explorer tiles. What a fantastic way to help motivate yourself to get out and try new rides in the winter.

My square was only 8x8 at first. However I've explored about 90% of the Peak District since I started using Strava (helps that I participate in a lot of Mountain Bike Orienteering Events). The last few weeks I've been picking off the odd random squares that I've missed, some of which were surprisingly local.

However, my main problem is that Kinder Scout is preventing my square from expanding from it's current size of 20x20.

So probably over Xmas holidays I'll try and do a bog hopping session over Kinder. This is a perfect example of this challenge helping me to try different activities in remoter parts of the Peak District.

I'll definitely be renewing my Veloviewer subscription but also my Strava Premium as it makes it so easy to download gpx files of riders you follow. This was an eye opener in the Quantocks where I often ended up riding a 'local riders'route that links the classic and harder to find trails. I was also able to this in the Alps and got to ride backcountry trials away from the crowds.

some swamp and bog riding over winter is getting me up to 40x40 now it gets hard. Need to plan some base camp trips away to hit areas.
good fun in the planning too.

did a blog a while back, the KML download from veloviewer comes in handy.

https://burlycross.wordpress.com/2017/0 ... -grabbing/

Well, today's ride looping up round the Epsom and across to Cobham, aside from showing remarkable amounts of green given how close it is to Lon-don, got me up to 12x12. What's nice though is that it's a completely different 12x12 to the 11x11 I had previously- three squares that sit in between and one rogue one that's miles away from where I tend to ride and I'll be up to 12x25. The North Downs tends to lead to a rectangular riding area as you follow the ridge so I'll have to start heading down into roadie country in the lanes to the south to push the square number up. Worse, at some point I'll have to grit my teeth and do a lap of Crawley- there are 3-4 squares that I think are going to be very hard to get with my usual technique of skirting through all the bits of forgotten suburban woodland and along the edges of parks.#

I look at numbers like 40x40 or more and wonder how you fit it in! If I got out on the road more and pushed it south I could possibly just scrape 40 before I hit the channel and then I'd have to go north into London proper

This is my aim next year, I'm at 11x 11 and I'd like to push out to 20x20. Plan this year was to double my millage of last year but I'm about 300 miles short, there's many reasons but mainly I got fed up grinding miles on my commute just to get miles. Next year I just want to explore new places and explorer square will help me do that

mat_swan wrote:...at some point I'll have to grit my teeth and do a lap of Crawley...

I hit the edge of Bournemouth a while ago. Wasn't looking forward to riding in the city, but it's actually quite pleasant at 7am on a Sunday morning as I'm used to rural riding. Doubt I'll venture back in there once the tiles are done though. I have a few Bournemouth airport tiles planned for dawn tomorrow morning.