Veloviewer. Who is using it, and what do you get from it?

[yellowjack]

Mornin' all!

After 6 years of seeing data for the same 25 activities completed in 2014 on the free version of Veloviewer, I've just signed up to Veloviewer Pro for the princely sum of £10. I've done a one-off payment in case I find that I'm not really getting the use out of it.

Is anyone else using it? And if so, what is it you like best, or get most value from on the site.

I've got a massive amount of new/extra data by signing up. I decided to pay after a Strava buddy pointed me toward the 'Explorer Score' section. Basically the map is divided into squares (tiles) and you can then see where you've ridden in terms of the number of tiles. So far so boring, and you might ask "so what?"

But you get a "score" for your exploration. And it's great for someone like me who likes to ride different routes, and generally explore on a bike. I'm not fast, and I'm no great climber so I don't do so good on Strava leader boards. But this is different. It rewards you based only on your willingness to get out and explore routes and places you never have before.

Data such as "Maximum Tile Cluster" and "Maximum Tile Square" intrigue me, and I've just 'wasted' a couple of hours poring over the map trying to work out how I can grab a bigger "Maximum Square"...

my veloviewer summary page said:

Explorer score:
2484 tiles, average of 11.054 mi per tile
Max square 14x14
Max Cluster: 636

What makes it all the more novel (and to some extent frustrating) for me is that I moved to a different part of the country last year, and so I've pretty much started again collecting "tiles" because my old home is just a little bit too far away to ride to anymore. Annoying because now that I can see many more than 25 activities I've realised that I was only a handful of "tiles" away from having a "maximum square" size of 16x16 tiles.

I can see this becoming quite addictive, and I'm already fixing to head out into areas I haven't ridden before to fill in some blanks on the tile map locally. It will take some effort to even match the 14x14 square around my previous home, but it's something I can build slowly while enjoying the ride, as it will take me to new parts of the New Forest, and into the Cranborne Chase and Dorset AONBs. Well, just as soon as the Coronavirus restrictions are eased anyway.

I've also discovered that the furthest two points on a map I can get between on completed "tiles" are Cambridge and Weymouth. Hardly LEJOG/JOGLE territory, but I'm happy with that...



It's a shame that Strava wasn't around further back in my cycling life. This is all since I got my first GPS unit back in late 2013, so there is lots of cycling that I did in South Wales, North Yorkshire, and Essex/Suffolk/Cambridgeshire that doesn't exist in data form. Imagine all the "tiles" I could lay claim to if all those years and miles of cycling had been recorded!

[Daveyraveygravey]

I'm on it, but don't use it much. I like the graphic at the end of the year that pulls together a lot of stats, and the graphics of the climbs are very good for showing you where the tough bits are.
I haven't looked into the part you refer to, but at the moment I am making more of an effort to explore bridleways that I haven't been down before so will be looking at that.

[mcelliott]

Been on it for about 7 or 8 years, looked at it twice, a good way to while away an hour/fall asleep.

[millen]

Thanks Yellowjack. I like VV and look at it weekly to check my progression v. my annual target, though in practice it could do better at projecting forward as mileage always drops off a cliff towards Xmas. I also like the 3D view of climbing segments.

I think I read that pro-teams are wedded to Garmins as they integrate best with VV.

Anyway, thanks for the he ads-up on Tiles and Explorer. We have a guy in the club who recently goes tile hunting, mainly in manky parts of S London which presumably are a bit more accessible in the lockdown. I've only just discovered how to access it in VV and it's instructive. Here's my map, excluding Scotland and other overseas trips. Horribly parochial really!

[anonymous-user]

I use it a fair bit for the data, things like “best splits” are quite useful for training. I can probably get the same data elsewhere on Wattsboard/zwift etc but I’ve used veloviewer for a while and am probably just familiar with it. I’ve never used it for route finding or mapping.

[Dannbodge]

I use it and paid for premium too.

having best splits and segment comparisons is brilliant

[ukbabz]

Thought I'd give it a go, not really used it but for £10 worth a punt - who doesn't like data.

For the tiles -

2634 tiles, average of 5.867 km per tile
Max square 13x13 View map
Max Cluster: 323 KML

I can see this being fun, although looking at my current 13x13 it'll be tricky to add extra as there's no roads in the blank tiles.

[yellowjack]

ukbabz said:

Thought I'd give it a go, not really used it but for £10 worth a punt - who doesn't like data.

For the tiles -

2634 tiles, average of 5.867 km per tile
Max square 13x13 View map
Max Cluster: 323 KML

I can see this being fun, although looking at my current 13x13 it'll be tricky to add extra as there's no roads in the blank tiles.

Same here. I was looking to see how to mop up some gaps in my tile map, but big empty spaces in Dorset/Wiltshire with no roads/villages. So I might have to get creative with a gravel or MTB on bridleways. There's also a gap near Poole harbour which is behind a big metal fence, and a four-tile gap centred on Blandford Camp. Maybe they'll have an open day though? Or perhaps the Royal Signals museum is inside the camp and I can visit that way?

I'm limited by the sea a couple of tiles to the south of me so there's no scope to expand my Max Square that way, and there would be hundreds of tiles to fill before I get that far, but if I head north eventually I'll get to the bits of Salisbury Plain you'd simply never be allowed to ride through as they are live artillery 'Impact areas'. I suppose if I ever reach the point where that limits my obsession, I could always switch to just colouring in the map of the South West as much as it's possible...

[yellowjack]

Well that got addictive quite quickly.

23 new tiles visited in 2 days. All just "missing" individual tiles, or groups of 2 or 3 together. Well on the way to "colouring in" the New Forest now, and then I'll look at expanding my Max Square north and west, as those are the only directions open to me.

Not looking forward to one tile in the middle of my square though. It's going to involve some trespassing, I think. Unless there are any businesses operating out of farm buildings on the big estate, in which case I can pretend to be visiting them when they open again post-virus. And scouting around the map, I've zoomed in on a couple of "empty" tiles west of Fordingbridge that definitely have no roads through them, so it's going to have to be bridleways or footpaths to nab some of those.

[AndrewT1275]

Will Veloviewer only work with Strava?

It looks as though the only way I can use it is to export my ride data to Strava and from there to Veloviewer. Not the end of the world if that's the only way to do it but it just means signing up to another service as I'm not on Strava.

[yellowjack]

AndrewT1275 said:

Will Veloviewer only work with Strava?

It looks as though the only way I can use it is to export my ride data to Strava and from there to Veloviewer. Not the end of the world if that's the only way to do it but it just means signing up to another service as I'm not on Strava.

Yeah. It pretty much takes your Strava data and does funky things with it. You can sign up for free, but will be limited to 25 activities to enable you to play around with functionality. If you get a taste for it, signing up to the 'Pro' version costs £10 per year at the moment. And damn, I wish i'd signed up sooner. This tile hunting business is properly addictive. It's like really bad colouring in, but requires riding a lot of miles to fetch the crayons.

Very addictive. Well it is for me, anyway. It hasn't changed the way I ride too much, just intensified my efforts to ride new routes. Having moved house last year and "left behind" a 14x14 tile 'Max Square' which was built over about 5 years of activities, I have managed to match that from my new home in 10 months, and could expand it to a 16x16 Max Square with just 6 more tiles if I pick the right route. More than the data and the tile-hunting willy waving, though, it's pushing me to ride further from home into some truly stunning scenery. Whereas the "rewards" in Strava often come from riding the same segments again and again and getting faster on them.

So I'd say VeloViewer is worth the £10 for 'Pro', and Strava can be had for free with enough functionality to enjoy both platforms...

[AndrewT1275]

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go as the Specialized Mission Control app feeds into Strava so it should be straightforward enough to set up once then leave it.

You should check out the North Dorset trailway as it's quite a good way of getting out and colouring in that triangle you've started between Blandford, Shaftesbury and Dorchester.

https://www.northdorsettrailway.org.uk/

[Some Gump]

Ive used vv for several yewrs, imo it gives you everything strava premium should be, for a tenner.

Best bit if that you can see where you compare to a mate. This is brilliant for petty rivaliries.

My explorer (never even noticed that bit before):

1837 tiles, average of 4.715 mi per tile
Max square 11x11 View map
Max Cluster: 304 KML

[Some Gump]

Now you've pointed it out, can you explain the rules?

Many squares i have been through bit they don't get coloured in...

[yellowjack]

AndrewT1275 said:

Thanks for that, I'll give it a go as the Specialized Mission Control app feeds into Strava so it should be straightforward enough to set up once then leave it.

You should check out the North Dorset trailway as it's quite a good way of getting out and colouring in that triangle you've started between Blandford, Shaftesbury and Dorchester.

https://www.northdorsettrailway.org.uk/

I'll definitely check that out at some stage. Annoyingly I rode up Louse Lane, Spetisbury, quite recently, and saw no sign of the Trailway. It's not that far from me, though, so I'll be back that way again.

I smashed 18 tiles on my last ride out, two near Verwood and the rest all up near Martin/Cranbourne. Cost me an innertube to get one of them, but kinda worth it for the views while I replaced it. That triangle is not my main focus for now though - I'm concentrating on "growing" my Max Square by filling in the square-ish section to the east of the A350 Blandford/Shaftesbury road. After that there are all of the "odds'n'sods" tiles in the eastern part of the New Forest. If I'd signed up earlier to VV I'd have probably varied my routes a little more so as not to leave them unclaimed. Annoying now that I'm going to have to make long trips out to "collect" only a handful of tiles. it's no great shakes, as it's all lovely riding out that way, but i'll have to go over so much previously ridden ground to get to the new stuff.

I've also dug out my OS maps for the area, and started marking up the unridden squares on them. Which is in itself annoying because the VV tiles are not based on OS grid squares. It is therefore a little more time-consuming than it might be. but once the maps are marked (carpenters' pencil for paper maps, chinagraph crayon for waterproof maps) it will be easier to make and adapt routes "on the hoof" rather than having to plan tile-hunting rides in detail before I leave. Which means less reliance on tech to navigate on the bike, and the freedom to "go off piste" to achieve the same ends, but still get quickly back on track if I need to hustle home. Some people might find stopping to read a map annoying, but I'm glad of the occasional rest if I'm honest.

I'm also trying not to get entirely fixated on tile hunting for the sole purpose of growing my Square. Due to it's location, the Isle of Purbeck doesn't really contribute much to a 'Max Square' for most people, but my Explorer Map has highlighted some areas of Purbeck that I've not explored yet. Ripe for a shorter MTB ride when the lockdown is over and the Studland Chain Ferry service (hopefully) resumes.

The OS (physical, paper) map thing leads me to another observation. Folk seem so unused to seeing another person reading a map these days that they assume you are hopelessly lost. Just on one ride I had two cyclists stop to ask if I was lost and offer assistance (while observing social distancing too!) and a car driver pull up at a junction, where I was trying to decide on the most efficient route to "bag" another 4 tiles, to ask if I was OK.

Tile hunting has changed the way I ride for the better (for me, at least). Because now I'm riding the same segments less often, and not feeling pressured (I know it's all in my own head) to pull a PR out of the bag. Now it's more about exploring the map, and seeking out interesting places, or place names, just to see what they're like. Places like stterton, Piddletrenthide, God's Blessing Green, Lover, and Bohemia. I'm also building a mental map of roads I can drive on in summer to avoid having to share choked-up 'A' roads with snarled-up holiday traffic. Long term this is, I feel, only going to be good for me. And if I get bored, or have grown my Max Square to it's limit, then I can just put the tile-hunting on the back burner and enjoy re-riding the edited highlights of this area just for the sake of cycling.

[yellowjack]

Some Gump said:

Now you've pointed it out, can you explain the rules?

Many squares i have been through bit they don't get coloured in...

Not sure I've been "doing it" long enough to be able to explain that. Beyond "check you privacy settings" and "do an update" of all you activities on VeloViewer, all I can suggest is opening each (offending) activity from the VeloViewer activities list individually on Veloviewer, because that apparently causes the tiles to be checked and ticked off using your actual GPS data points, rather than "virtual" datapoints every 100 metres (hence the straight-ish lines on the map). Or try asking Ben Lowe (Mr VeloViewer himself) on one of the forums or Strava clubs. Which is a point in itself - join the Strava clubs ('Ride Every Tile', and/or 'Ride Every Tile - From Home'). I'm not sure if you have to join the Strava clubs, but you do have to surrender some privacy on both Strava and VeloViewer in order to appear on leader boards, I think.

Beyond those suggestions, you'll have to accept an "I don't know" as your answer from me. I have no computer coding expertise, nor am I involved with running any of the sites/apps I'm commending to you...

Sorry!

ETA:

It may be down to map settings. You can customise the opacity of the shading, the density of the colours, and also you may have your map set to show your 'Max Cluster'. Squares (tiles) don't count toward your Max cluster unless you've ridden the four adjacent tiles on it's edges too. So a single missing tile within your 'Cluster' knocks your score down by 5 tiles, I believe. Riding that single missing tile should (and again I'm still learning the "rules" myself) give you that tile, and also all four surrounding tiles should then count toward your Max Cluster score.

See how my Max Cluster looks...



...with some adjustments made to colours, etc, to account for my colour-blindness. Those five-tile "crosses" within the blue area are all single individual tiles that have caused the adjacent four tiles to be discounted from my Max Cluster score. The blue tiles count toward the Max Cluster, the green (they are green, right?) ones are tiles I've ridden but don't count due to a missing tile on at least one adjacent side. Riding through each of those centre tiles would cause that tile, and the surrounding four tiles, to all count toward my score. In my case, those particular tiles are out of reach due to a house move, and until I expand my Max Cluster at my new home to a greater size than my initial Max Cluster, I won't be able to see that on my map (as far as I'm currently aware). Hope that helps...

Edited by yellowjack on Monday 27th April 14:53

[Some Gump]

Bingo! Thanks mate.

All of my missing ones are 5 tile clusters. So riding the middle tile should colour in the missing one i guess.

This is a good thing. It's motivational the same way that Strava Multiple Ride Mapper.was back in 2013. Time to explore!

[yellowjack]

Some Gump said:

Bingo! Thanks mate.

All of my missing ones are 5 tile clusters. So riding the middle tile should colour in the missing one i guess.

This is a good thing. It's motivational the same way that Strava Multiple Ride Mapper.was back in 2013. Time to explore!

Reading through some of the blogs and Strava 'Ride Every Tile' club comments, it seems that the Max Cluster was a later addition to the Max Square score. Specifically added to keep motivation high for folk who, for whatever reason, have their Max Square limited in size by geography or by an "Impossible Tile". It's another target to keep you interested.

Back in Farnborough I was blessed. There were no impossible tiles that I knew of, it was the 'home counties' so plenty of roads, even out in the countryside, and I could grow my Max Square in every direction, meaning shorter trips that still netted new tiles. Down in Bournemouth, though, I'm hemmed in by the sea, the Solent, and limited by impossible, or near impossible tiles in three directions. I'm a long way off hitting those tiles yet, but I can't see my way beyond a 39x39 Max Square on paper. Fawley Oil Refinery accounts for one "impossible" tile (short of getting a job there I can't see a way past the perimeter fence), ditto the Port Of Southampton and Marchwood Military Port. Another tile is entirely (or so it seems anyway) within the Lulworth Tank Gunnery range danger area (although it's too far south to limit my Max Square size). The ones that will hamper my Square-growing attempts (if I ever reach them) will be the tiles in the Larkhill Artillery Impact Area on Salisbury Plain Training Area. It's an offence to enter them, and you'd have to be spectacularly foolhardy to even want to, given that it's been an artillery range for decades and is potentially laced with unexploded ordnance. It won't trouble me for years, yet, though. The number of tiles needed to grow a square increases exponentially with each expansion. I've got about 200 tiles to make my 14x14. I've probably got another 150 to 200 tiles that would contribute to expansion in stages. But I'd need over 1500 tiles to complete a 39x39 square so I'm barely half way there, and the further away I push the northern and western sides of my Max Square, the longer the journey I need to make to "collect" each tile, so it becomes less efficient in terms of tiles per mile ridden. For this reason, I will also concentrate on "colouring in" the map to grow my Max Cluster around Bournemouth.

[irn_bru_ce]

yellowjack said:

I've also dug out my OS maps for the area, and started marking up the unridden squares on them. Which is in itself annoying because the VV tiles are not based on OS grid squares. It is therefore a little more time-consuming than it might be. but once the maps are marked (carpenters' pencil for paper maps, chinagraph crayon for waterproof maps) it will be easier to make and adapt routes "on the hoof" rather than having to plan tile-hunting rides in detail before I leave. Which means less reliance on tech to navigate on the bike, and the freedom to "go off piste" to achieve the same ends, but still get quickly back on track if I need to hustle home. Some people might find stopping to read a map annoying, but I'm glad of the occasional rest if I'm honest.

If you have a smart phone then have a search for the app called "explorer helper for veloviewer" , it provides the tilemap and all the coloured squares as well as your current position, so very easy to go exploring on the hoof. The live position is very handy for time when your somewhere you kind of shouldn't be so you can just enter a square by a few pixels then leave and know you still have it bagged.

[yellowjack]

irn_bru_ce said:

yellowjack said:

I've also dug out my OS maps for the area, and started marking up the unridden squares on them. Which is in itself annoying because the VV tiles are not based on OS grid squares. It is therefore a little more time-consuming than it might be. but once the maps are marked (carpenters' pencil for paper maps, chinagraph crayon for waterproof maps) it will be easier to make and adapt routes "on the hoof" rather than having to plan tile-hunting rides in detail before I leave. Which means less reliance on tech to navigate on the bike, and the freedom to "go off piste" to achieve the same ends, but still get quickly back on track if I need to hustle home. Some people might find stopping to read a map annoying, but I'm glad of the occasional rest if I'm honest.

If you have a smart phone then have a search for the app called "explorer helper for veloviewer" , it provides the tilemap and all the coloured squares as well as your current position, so very easy to go exploring on the hoof. The live position is very handy for time when your somewhere you kind of shouldn't be so you can just enter a square by a few pixels then leave and know you still have it bagged.

I get where you're coming from, but i'm a bit of a biffa when it comes to tech. My "smart" phone is a cheap and cheerful thing and I'm still chugging along with pay-as-you-go, and I'm not sure if I need 'data' for this app to work, or how to get 'data' if it does. I shall have to ask my son if he can help me to enable this. Thanks for pointing it out though.

For now I shall stick to OS maps and pencil lines thereon. My latest outing was set to be disappointing. I set out to get a tile that was beside the sea, with only a tiny portion of it on land. When I got to the access point to descend from the clifftop to the undercliff it was clear that something was up. The clifftop was now at the base of the cliff, with no undercliff path to be seen. The road down was closed with warnings of unstable cliffs and (dangerously) soft sand. I got as close to the edge as I dared to take a few photos of the "impossible" tile. But when I got home there it was, ticked off and "filled in". There was just enough clifftop left to get me those precious few pixels into the tile. And because I feared getting home "empty handed" I also pushed on a few more miles and rode a gravel-topped sea wall to bag another two tiles. So in the end the ride bore more fruit than I'd planned despite me expecting less from it when I arrived at my "target" tile. Off out now to see if I can pick off a couple of tiles that are preventing me from growing my Max Square.