Further to my post last year about retrieving GPS data from corrupted Garmin fit files, when it happened to me again last week due to a failed battery I came across this tool: http://fitfilerepairtool.info/

It does what it says on the label and makes repairing a corrupted fit file a fairly simple and painless operation. Though you do need Microsoft Access or the Access runtime (which means a windows install) so it’s not quite right for everyone (luckily I have a Windows image with Office Pro running in VMware on my MacBook).

Bit of a rocky start to the start of the year for cycling so far. With weather and work I’ve not really been getting the miles in I wanted to. Hopefully that’ll start to turn around now. Debating whether to use this spare saturday for a hilly foray into the peaks, or to try tagging on the back of a club run.

I managed a very cold 200km DIY around Nottingham-Hinckley-Medbourne-Stamford-Nottingham (See “Planning an Audax DIY by GPS route” post). Very cold day out, don’t think I’ve seen energy drink freeze before. Thankfully the kind owners of medbourne post office let me sit inside while I supped soup. Had a few problems with batteries dying quickly in the cold. So I’ve stocked up on an extra long USB cable to keep the GPS running and a better set of rechargables to keep the lights on. Overall speed wasn’t help with a binding rear brake either, but it was too cold to think about whipping out the allen keys to fix it, had visions of loosening everything off and then not being able to get it done back up. Rear hub also still playing up, so have bitten the bullet and Wheelcraft are building me up a blingier replacement

Next audax ride is the Rutland and Beyond 100km from Leicester which I did last year as my first audax event (notes here). This year I’m ECE-ing it up to 200km. So hopefully that’ll conclude 12 months of Audaxing, and as a bonus finish off my RRTY as well. Route sheet’s arrived and looks the same as last years. As I didn’t have a routable GPS last year I didn’t bother making a gpx, so that’s a task for the next week.

January’s another month where I can’t make a proper AUK event, so I’m relying on another 200km DIY by GPS to keep the RRTY going (almost enough acronyms in that sentence to make it look like project brief from work). So I kept a track of how I went about working out a new route for it.

I tend to like to put my controls in places rather than at specific junctions or Grid References. Places tend to be easier for the Org to find on a map, and make life easier on the ride if you need to re-route because of conditions or a road closure. Another plus is that if the GPS plays up I’ve a good chance of still being able to pick up proof of passage. It’s also better to have a low number of controls as it gives you more choice on the route you take on the day (for instance with this one I worked out a rural roads version, but if it’s icy on the day I can also do it on A roads without too much trouble), and it makes the Org’s life easier.

I start with Google maps zoomed out a fair bit to work out roughly where I want to go. As this is going to be an early january ride I’ve decided that I’m going to head south from Nottingham to avoid the Peak District and also to keep out of the fens as I’ve not done much on the bike and don’t fancy a day of headwinds.

From looking at that  I reckon a ride around Leicester and Rutland Water would give me about the right distance. I start by picking 2 corners. Looks like Hinckley will give me a route to the west of Leicster avoiding major towns, and then I should be able to head East to Stamford to take me under Leicester and then give me a rural ride back to Nottingham

Basic DIY GPS route, but set to driving

Looks OK, and it’s over distance which is good. But it’s set to driving mode. So switch it to walking and we get.

Basic route set to walking

Rats, distance is now under 200km. Though it’s showing the shortest route is through the middle of Leicester, which I don’t fancy. So to bring it back up to distance I think I’ll hunt for another control about half way along that leg somewhere south of Leicester. The village of Medbourne appears to fit the bill.

Basic route set to walking with extra control

Hmmm, still a bit short Now come the tweaking to get those extra 5 km in. I’ve used the generic centre of Nottingham for the planning, but I’ll actually be starting from the North of the city. So let’s use a more accurate location.

Final google maps for DIY GPS

back over 200km on google’s shortest distance, so all’s good. Route doesn’t look particularly brilliant at the moment (don’t really fancy that section of the A1 myself), but can sort that out later.

To double check I now put the points in AutoRoute (I got a cheap copy from eBay). There are some route where this is the only way to check the distance, when planing the LEL DIY we couldn’t get google to let us ‘walk’ over the Humber Bridge so had to use autoroute for checking that section. Also AutoRoute is seen as the “gold standard” for checking the route, so if I’m submitting a route at short notice I know that if I include the AutoRoute file it’ll pass muster so I don’t need to wait for the Org to check it and let me know.

So enter the controls in AutoRoute, and ensure it’s set to shortest distance (this is under ‘More Options’):

Autoroute settings for DIY GPS checking

Autoroute confirming DIY GPS Distance

Excellent, still passes muster, so I can now submit it to the Organiser.

Now I can go back to googlemaps/bikehike/bikeroutetoaster/etc and work out a route I’d actually like to cycle between these points. With this route I just pulled the route off the main roads slightly as it was mostly on quiet A-roads anyways.

So here’s hoping there’s no ice about when I ride it next week.

A couple of days late, but finally got the stats for 2011 all done (nothing if not geeky here).

Total mileage for 2011 – 5555.44 miles

Average Weekly miles – 106.82

Weeks with No mileage – 4

Hours cycling – 363 (15.125 days).

Average hours cycling per week – ~7

And now for a pretty graph:

Series 2 is the weekly total, and Series 3 is the average. So you can see how quickly the average drops off after a couple of weeks off or weeks with low mileage.

Fastest ride was a 29 minute blast round a local 10 mile club TT course in the middle of a longer ride. Hopefully I’ll get a bit faster than that for 2012

So not a bad start to my first year back in cycling. Definitely a promising start to some serious long distance cycling. I certainly feel like I’ve built up a solid base to build on this year.