Veloviewer Tile Bagging?

Squadrats (or Strava) needs another 10p in the meter, it's been "Synchronising with Strava..." for 15 minutes now.

Where are my new tiles FFS. THIS IS IMPORTANT!!!1!!2!eleven!!

Mine was the same last night. That seems to happen some times so I take it as a sign I need to leave it be overnight and move on with my life.

Indeed, it fixed itself eventually.

Slightly extended ride to footy tomorrow should connect my yardinho up with the mass of tiles in central London near my old office.

It's good this, I've done a boat load more riding than I'd normally do, and it's just what I need given my current level of fitness (i.e. poor).

The Strava API has a daily limit so when an app hits that there isn't much they/you can do but wait. Or throw a bag of money at Strava to increase the request limits.

Contrived cycle to football to connect my home to old office yardinho. Got a similar ride planned to extend the yardinho of my old commute (North of the river). Then the plan is to fill in the middle with varied rides up that way. Then I'll look at getting the train a bit earlier and filling in the area around Waterloo on a Boris Bike.

Meanwhile I've got other rides planned to fill out Sheen/Mortlake, Richmond Park (with some running), Southfields, Earlsfield, Clapham, Fulham/Walham Green, Chelsea/Pimlico, Westminster, Chiswick, etc.

£17 (with donation) to go to the Wetland centre. That's a lot for 7 tiles. No point taking 13yo there, she'd just be staring at her phone rather than the wildlife (or my GPS).

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Also need to take my head torch next time. Trying to read printed routesheets by streetlight (whilst moving) is not fun or easy. Especially when the instructions are so close together. Roughly 80 instructions in an 18km ride.

I'm just using my GPS watch (Garmin Forerunner) to record the activity, can't be bothered to dig out the cycling GPS to help show the way.

[EDIT] Also low tide (1.0m) at Putney Bridge is 11:55am on Friday 17th Nov. I think I'll use my lunchtime to go to Broomhouse Lane / Carnwath Road and take my wellies to walk down to the Northern bank and West along past the Hurlingham Club. If I go far enough and the tide is low enough I should be able to get all three watery tiles from the Northern shore, otherwise I spotted a ladder down to the water in Wandsworth Park so I can get the Western most one from the South if necessary.

The tile next to the dump looks doable. Rode past it last night and the gate was open, guess I just have to blast in there up to the end and then apologise if someone jumps out and claim that someone must have given me duff directions, but can I just take a photo of a particular wading bird from the end, will only be 20 seconds, thanksverymuch.

£17 (with donation) to go to the Wetland centre. That's a lot for 7 tiles.

Think of the aminals!

I should be able to get all three watery tiles

I'll pay your Wetland entry if you carry my GPS. Yes, I've just outsourced tile bagging.

Yesterday's 200k DIY got me a few. Planning another for laterz.

Last night we were chatting to the babysitter about the light show in Kew Gardens, asking what it was like as my wife was thinking of booking it. My ears pricked up when the babysitter said it was ok but there was a good one at the Wetlands Centre...

Haha. I'm like that now with random events. I was firing up the GPS whenever we stopped at a gas station in the US the other month.

I've been to the Kew lights show and it was ok. It was ok because me and my mate were pished.

I have been to Kew Gardens with my parents (both sets, I guess you'd say) and it fucking TIPPED IT DOWN. Like Kew Road was flodding over the footpaths kinda torrential rain. It cut the visit a bit short. I should've chased a refund.

I'll pay your Wetland entry if you carry my GPS. Yes, I've just outsourced tile bagging.

Ha, the rules (and my scant moral compass) wouldn't allow me to do this.

Saying that, it'd take me a couple of hours to write a script that would create passable GPX/FIT file for a given provided route (plotted on RWGPS/bikehike/etc) which would include cadence, etc, with the timestamped GPX location points representing a reasonable approximation of speed given terrain/gradient/etc and pass at least a casual analysis of veracity.

Would be obvious cheating, but easily done.

Daughter played football today in a big tile I hadn't ever visited before, next to some tiles I had visited, but I resisted the temptation to fire up the Garmin Forerunner to record a short walk between the side of the pitch and the club house in order to tick it off. Would have been completely within the VV/Squadrats rules but I simply could not be arsed.

Obviously, I can cheat, generating the GPX files (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqPQMOxAG4o
) is easy. But, the "rules" only require human power, they don't say who is providing the human power (fly! my minions!)

Would have been completely within the VV/Squadrats rules but I simply could not be arsed.

We are not alike, you and I.

Lost a big tile and a bunch of small tiles. Noticed a couple of old commutes had haywire GPS traces so I made them private. Now I just have to go redo some of the missing tiles. Also takes away a few of the "all river" tiles that I was feeling guilty about.

The big tile that is now unvisited is a whole 4 tiles away from home (it's the one containing most of Battersea Park). I must have ridden through it hundreds of times but never recorded it. I've played football in it. I've run in it. I've walked in it hundreds of times. But no (valid) GPS trace.

Luckily today's small tile lunchtime ride was going to visit it anyway so that should fix that.

Yeah, doing this tile bagging thing has made me clean up a bunch of old, noisy GPS files (mostly from when I carried an old etrex). Two days and two small square increases but fenced private property is blocking me again (although I think I found a sneaky way for at least one of the tiles).

Yeah, when I find the time I'm going to go through each of the tiles and check I've actually been there. Just found another that claims a tile (the all-river tile just South of Westminster Bridge) that I've never really been to.

Luckily today's small tile lunchtime ride was going to visit it anyway so that should fix that.

Fixed most, but turned too early at Battersea Power Station and so I've missed out two tiles there, which starves me of about 12 from my yardinho.

Easy to pick off on the next ride I'm up there, I've got about 5 rides to do to fill in the big gap between two different routes from home to old office (one North of river, one South). Then I can leave for Thursday football a bit earlier, get the train to Waterloo and pick off the ones in Central London on a Boris Bike.

It's good motivation (for now)...

I've found most of mine because I'd never uploaded them to Strava. I could see their purple heat map tracks in RWGPS but no tiles. So then it became really apparent when one was just big spikes all over the place that it didn't have a lock. Took me a while to backfill most of my rides due to Strava limits but I think I'm mostly done now.

I didn't bother today. Went to lunch with the missus instead. Tiles aren't going anywhere (oh, climate change go away)

My biggest square is once again the one centred on the Chilterns, after a bit of hunting round Bracknell and Reading today. I'm up to 28 squares. Managed to get onto a pretty full on DC at one point. It was quick but I was pleased to get off it.

Next plan is to go up to Potters Bar / Cheshunt and see if I can flip my London square back into the lead (it was before today's ride).

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I wish mine changed places. You look like far more of an 'explorer' than me. Endless loops of the A4010 and A413 probably didn't help my tile bagging.

Low tide at lunchtime today so I'm off to get those three river tiles near the Hurlingham Club with a walk along the shore. What the fuck have I become?

I like it.

I found another path yesterday so got one tile I've had like 5 goes at finally, but I know the ones south of it are all fenced in as far as the eye can see save for a bit of highway I might be able to jump the barriers at and then use a farm track on. But it'll be a sketchy get if I manage to get them.

Endless loops of the A4010 and A413 probably didn't help my tile bagging.

When I saw your big picture I thought you had a lot west of the Chilterns - probably more than me. In my case doing the same audaxes for several years didn't help - like multiple loops of the Dean / Severn Across and Upper Thames.

If only we'd known about the importance of tiles earlier, we would have all made different life decisions!

I just need to think of a reason to ride round the South Circular to Catford and back to get that lone square that is blocking my London square's eastward expansion...