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STAR 2021 Routes Website is online!

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NinjaBob:
I will just say again the fault is with garmins map product.  They are not targeted at road travelers, just loo,  at the name:City Nav!  Norm and the wv route team have done a great job with the map product they have to work with, IMHO. Plus the help page has great info, including how to deal with getting off route.

Patmo:
Carl….if you look at the routes listed for people without GPS, and spread out a WV State map next to one of them, I think you’ll be able to match it up pretty easily with the map. 

The volunteers putting these routes together (some of whom aren’t even MSTA members!) we’re asked to prepare routes for GPS usage, because the vast majority of members do use dedicated GPS or phones to navigate with.  They had to start from scratch with little or no prior knowledge of how we (as a club) are used to setting up routes for our events. We will try to help those that don’t use GPS as much as we can.  But we would ask that if you need help with certain routes, please cut your request down to just a few of the routes that you plan to use. 

Ride4MS:
I know when I first started mapping routes, they were not perfect either.  In fact, I did not want to make the routes.  I finally made it my goal to have good routes.  Or, as one rider told me 2 years ago on a route in Wisconsin, he did not know I had designed and mapped the route for that year's Ride.  He was with a few other riders and they were commenting about the route when I walked by at the gas station and I asked if I could help.  They said it was the best designed route they had been on for many years and loved the turn-by-turn directions. 
All of them were shocked when I mentioned that I designed it as well as the T-by-T.  They said they could look down at it every little while and had a good feeling where they were going.
That comment made me feel good.
I have tried many different programs, but have found Bing.com/maps as the best for making the directions.  I then drive the route and verify the turns and roads as well as mileage.  Then it is put into the written format like in the attachment.  It is a lot of work, but it makes it so anyone can ride it without any problems, we hope.
Many times, I have driven the route several times, as I refine it, with a co-pilot taking notes.
The three routes that I have printed and thinking about riding at STAR, are: #10, 14, 22.  Those are the only ones at this time.  We may team up with some other friend riders that have GPS for more rides as we plan to be there from about Friday to Wed night.  And, as several of us found out at STAR in Bristol, GPS is not always correct either and we had to refer to the maps to get back to the hotel.  GPS sent us down a dead end road.  Darn Tom-Tom is known for that.
I have looked at a W VA map.  It is not an official W VA map, it is from AAA.  It may not have all of the small roads, but when I compare it to the map for that route, it looks very similar.  At least the AAA map shows Davis and Onego and others, which the route map does not.  It always has all the road numbers listed, but no road names.
I think the STAR map should at least have the road names or number on the route. 
A good suggestion, have a supply of official WV state maps on hand at Registration.  At La Crosse, both WI and MN gave us a box and we returned the unused maps.  We were lucky, the Welcome Centers were within a few miles.

Patmo:
We have already contacted the states of West Virginia and Virginia for maps.  If we get enough, there will be one of each in every registration packet.

Patmo:
I started playing around with the routes, maps, gps, route site, etc. this morning and I have to agree with Carl somewhat.  Just using route 10 as an example, the route instructions are hard to follow.  Part of that is because of where waypoints may have been put into the routes.

For example on route 10…

8…turn right onto Wren st
9…turn right onto water street
10…turn left onto Clements St
11..turn right onto S Fork Road

Could all be simplified by saying…

When you get to Moorefield
Turn right on Old WV 55 (Winchester Ave)
Turn right on WV 7 (S Fork Road)

The routes sometimes take you on village back streets.  My guess is that the software is set up to take the shortest distance.

Now….HOW did I figure this out? 

On my computer I have loaded a GPX viewer and recorder.  So when I click on the GPX designation for route 10, it comes up and shows me the complete route.  When I focus in on the route, I can see the way it goes in detail, and read both the street names and route numbers. 

I admit that this will take everyone a little time and effort to work out, and that some of these little roads don’t show well on the state maps.  However, as I’ve stated before, it’s OK to bypass some of these little roads and just stay on the major state routes.  Like this…

Come out of park and turn right/south onto 32.  Got to Harmon and turn left onto 33. Got to Senaca Rocks and turn left onto 28.  Go to Petersburg and take 220 to Moorefield. Turn right on 55, turn left on 29, turn left on 50 to Romney.

That’s the 90% of 1st half of route 10, except it leaves out some of the little roads that hardly show on state maps and would be hard to follow without a GPS.

But why not just break down and get a GPS?  Even a cheap one designed for a car can work on many of these routes.

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