I’ve wanted to produce this view of VeloViewer Explorer Tiles since I first came up with the idea back in 2015 and can only put my lack of action down to being too busy with the professional teams these last few years! Simple idea though: provide a KML output that can be viewed in Google Earth shows a tower for each ticked Explorer Tile with the height representing the number of times the tile has been visited on your travels.
When I meet VeloViewer users out and about, the enjoyment of ticking off VeloViewer Explorer Tiles is the most common feedback I get. Since I came up with the idea of Explorer Tiles back in 2015 1000’s of VeloViewer users have been discovering new roads and trails close to where they live and further afield. A global heatmap of the ticked tiles has been on my to-do list since 2015 so it is embarrassing that it has taken so long to make it a reality! But wait no longer.
A new contender for the steepest paved road in the UK (or perhaps even in the world if we’re talking Tarmac road) has reared its head after Bamford Clough recently received a pristine layer of smooth Tarmac up its (unofficial) 36.5 % slopes. A few contenders for the world’s steepest street/road have popped up over recent years looking to topple New Zealand’s Baldwin Street (34.8 %) in Dunedin so will Bamford Clough be a possible contender?
If you are anything like me then looking back at photographs from past adventures brings all of those feelings rushing back. Whether it was of that ludicrous ride where you bit off far more than you could chew (I blame Simon Warren for most of those) or that image of the fantastic cafe stop when chewing was the highlight. With the integration of your Strava photos into VeloViewer you can now browse through all of your exploits on the map or thumbnail view with the added benefit of VeloViewer’s activity filtering to quickly narrow down the photos you want to see.
Yesterday (18th May 2020) Strava announced some major changes to their subscription model and what features its user will have if they aren’t subscribed. The main thing being non-subscribers can no longer view any segment leaderboards apart from the overall top 10 (including lists of their own efforts). There have also been some changes to the Strava API. Thankfully I/VeloViewer is in the fortunate position that Strava gave me a bunch of warning and hasn’t restricted my API access at all for Strava Subscribers and only the segment rankings/efforts aren’t available for non-subscribers bringing it in line with Strava’s own website/app. So if you are a Strava Subscriber (more than 70% of VeloViewer PRO users already are before this announcement) then there aren’t any changes at all in VeloViewer for you. For non-subscribers that are a few but 99% of the site continues to work as normal. Full details of the differences within VeloViewer for Strava Subscribers and non-Subscribers is available here.
The Cycling Podcast needs no introduction, I’ve listened to them for years and always enjoyed their daily coverage from the Grand Tours. Undeterred by the lack of a race to cover, Richard, Lionel and Daniel have created their own Giro taking in the best wines and foods Italy has to offer, as well as some of the most iconic climbs. Race director Friebe got in touch a few weeks back to help him come up with the route and when he mentioned that they hoped to offer their listeners the opportunity to ride key sections of each stage I hooked him up with the guys at RGT. From the short, intense 8.4 km prologue through to 47.8 km rolling route through Piedmont a different challenge awaits each day with routes using the RGT “Magic Roads” feature. From this Saturday (9th May 2020) join the official group ride or ride them at your own leisure to try and complete your own “Grandy” with the Classifica Generale available for you all on VeloViewer. Best of all, it is all free!
The “Segment Hunter” leaderboards have been a part of VeloViewer since 2014 and are probably best known for providing the various 100 Climbs leaderboards and more recently the Zwift Insider leaderboards. Although you could easily click the segment names to view the details of each segment, providing an overview map of all of the segments in each leaderboard was always an obvious omission. So now we have a new “Details/Map” tab to plug that gap.
Yesterday (30th September 2019) I released an update migrating over to Strava’s updated authentication process. The first time you revisit VeloViewer after this date you will be re-prompted to allow VeloViewer access to your Strava data. The number of options that users agree to allow access to has increased and below I will explain why VeloViewer requires the options being asked for. Currently VeloViewer will only work if you leave all of the options selected even if you don’t chose to use all of those features within VeloViewer.
As a resident of Yorkshire for the last 28 years it is incredibly exciting to have this year’s biggest one-day races play out on its roads. For two years I lived in Harrogate while riding and racing as a Junior and made the most of the exceptional riding both on and off road, right on the doorstep. The 2019 World Champs road race and time trial courses all finish in Harrogate but start in different Yorkshire locations bringing the racing to the whole region and different styles of racing to each race. Let’s check out the routes for the main races.
In August I was contacted by Karl Andersson, an MA student of Visual and Media Anthropology at Freie Unviversität Berlin who was doing a project on the VeloViewer Explorer functionality along with how and why people use it. The link to his survey was shared and many of the most devoted Explorers responded. Karl has now published his findings and also produced a lovely video compiled from interviews carried out with a couple of the Explorers.