Cycling UK Forum

st599_uk

Just wondering if anyone has any good apps for finding campsites in the UK and EU?

I'm going to try a couple of little cycle tours next year, but I'm not sure I'll be able to book all the sites I need in advance.

Do any of the various discount cards I can see advertised online work?

st599_uk

I think I remember reading somewhere that there are 2 competing back-end systems for UK train bookings, one of which allows bike reservations, one which doesn't. Each TOC and reseller is signed up to one or other. To book a ticket with bikes on all stages requires the reseller and all of the train firms involved to use the one which allows bike reservations.

Can't find a link though.

st599_uk

gaz wrote:
Brucey wrote:... Not sure when the CTC winged wheel first appeared ...

The original logo was officially usurped by the Winged Wheel in 1886. Trademark 1885.

st599_uk wrote:Very nice, but I'd spend the entire ride with my OCD going mad about the missing apostrophe.

It is not missing, it is absent by design. The company name is officially registered without an apostrophe .

And yet the one on the Cycling UK website has one:

st599_uk

freiston wrote:
JakobW wrote:
gaz wrote:https://shop.cyclinguk.org/cycling-uk-shop

I'm not aware of where to find such stickers and I suspect that they are no longer in production.

IIRC H. Lloyd Cycles (the purveyors of frame transfers) occasionally have them on their eBay shop; they don't seem to have them on their main website.

At least CUK are now selling nice retro winged wheel patches suitable for saddlebags/panniers/etc. again; not quite as cool as the vintage ones, but they'll do the trick...

I bought a couple from H. Lloyd about three years ago:

https://h-lloyd-cycles.myshopify.com/pr ... -be-missed

Very nice, but I'd spend the entire ride with my OCD going mad about the missing apostrophe.

st599_uk

Wow - they're certainly loud.

The manual is very confusing, but I think that:

Start Deep Sleep Mode
Press unlock button until LED on remote goes off and comes back on, then press bell button. Alarm should emit a long beep.
Stop Deep Sleep Mode
Press lock button until a beep is heard, wait a few seconds, shake alarm unit until 3 short beeps are heard.
Adjust Sensitivity
Press unlock button and hold until "DoReMe" is heard then press lock button repeatedly as it scrolls through levels. Press unlock button to store.

I haven't dared try to see what "SOS" mode is.

st599_uk

Thought I'd have a little go in Python to see if it was do-able. Needed to install two libraries to get it to work: osgb and gpxpy.

First I made a csv file copy of the first three lines of the document listed in the OP's post:

Code: Select all

NG_Letter,Easting,Northing,Height,Dat,Net,Ord,Type_of,Height_Above_Ground,Verified,Level,Description
SH,5329,4160,136.9632,N,0,1,FL BR,0.6,1973,1953,FL BR G2623 BETHEL CHAPEL W SIDE RD SE ANG S FACE
SH,5331,3965,28.145,N,0,2,,0.2,1973,1973,WALL NEW SIDE RD 20.0M NW ENT CAREG FELEN

Then I wrote a short Python Script to take the CSV file and create a GPX file:

Code: Select all

### CSV to GPX ###

# Import required libraries
import csv
import numpy as np
import osgb
import gpxpy
import gpxpy.gpx

def parseAndConvertPointsOSGB36toWGS84(filename):
    print("...Parse CSV Input File: ", filename)
    # Import CSV File and automatically parse
    with open(filename, mode='r') as csv_file:
        csv_reader = csv.DictReader(csv_file)
        wptList = []
        rowNum = 0
        # For each row in the data...
        for row in csv_reader:
            rowNum = rowNum + 1
            # Read in the relevant data
            ng = row['NG_Letter']
            east = row['Easting']
            north = row['Northing']
            elevation = row['Height']
            obj_height = row['Height_Above_Ground']
            obj_desc = row['Description']
            # Convert from OSGB Grid Ref to Easting and Northing
            osgb_str = ng + " " + east + " " + north
            (easting, northing) = osgb.parse_grid(osgb_str)
            # Convert to Lat and Long
            (lat, lon) = osgb.grid_to_ll(easting, northing)
            # Create Wpt object and add to list
            wpt = [lat, lon, elevation, obj_height, obj_desc]
            wptList.append(wpt)
        print("......Parsed Entries: ", rowNum)
        # return list
        return wptList

def writeToGpxFile(gpxfile, wptList):
    print("...Write to GPX File: ", gpxfile)
    # Create GPX Object
    gpx = gpxpy.gpx.GPX()
    # Get num waypoints
    numWpts = len(wptList)
    # For each waypoint
    for row in range(numWpts):
        # Get Waypoint from list
        wpt = wptList[row]
        # Get data from waypoint object
        lat = wpt[0]
        lon = wpt[1]
        height = wpt[2]
        obj_height = wpt[3]
        obj_desc = wpt[4]
        obj_str = obj_height + "m -- " + obj_desc
        # Create entry in GPX
        gpx_wpt = gpxpy.gpx.GPXWaypoint(latitude = str(lat), longitude = str(lon), elevation = str(height), name = str(row), description = obj_str)
        gpx.waypoints.append(gpx_wpt)
    # Write GPX to file
    with open(gpxfile, "w") as gpxF:
        gpxF.write(gpx.to_xml())
    print("......File Write complete")

def main():
  print("Parse CSV Files - Convert to GPX")
  print("v1.0 - ST599")
  print("")
  wptList = parseAndConvertPointsOSGB36toWGS84("test.csv")
  print("")
  writeToGpxFile("test.gpx", wptList)

if __name__ == '__main__':
  main()

Which when run creates the following GPX File:

Code: Select all

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<gpx xmlns="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1 http://www.topografix.com/GPX/1/1/gpx.xsd" version="1.1" creator="gpx.py -- https://github.com/tkrajina/gpxpy">
  <wpt lat="52.95167672360433" lon="-4.185196934466839">
    <ele>136.9632</ele>
    <name>0</name>
    <desc>0.6m -- FL BR G2623 BETHEL CHAPEL W SIDE RD SE ANG S FACE</desc>
  </wpt>
  <wpt lat="52.9341657676583" lon="-4.184016721257831">
    <ele>28.145</ele>
    <name>1</name>
    <desc>0.2m -- WALL NEW SIDE RD 20.0M NW ENT CAREG FELEN</desc>
  </wpt>
</gpx>

It seems to work, so I'd assume it would work for the full document - is it available somewhere? Does the description format work?

Need to check that the output of the OSGB library conversion is in WGS84 and implement something which allows you to set the input and output filename

Is there somewhere that members can store code/spreadsheets that other members could find of use?

st599_uk

andrew_s wrote:
backnotes wrote:The .CSV on the OS benchmarks site has alpha grid sheet, and numeric eastings and northings in 3 separate columns, so I had to concatenate these as text to get a 10 character OSGB reference in a 4th column. I did this in Excel but I assume Numbers can do the same. In Excel, I can add in missing leading zeroes from eastings / northings with a number formatting option, and again I expect you can do the same in Numbers.

Note that "add in the missing leading zeros" only applies for grid square SV, and that to get full eastings and northings, you've also got to add a trailing zero.

Grid Refs and Eastings and Northings:
Eastings and Northings are metres east and north of the grid origin, which is SW of the Scilly Isles.

The grid letters are based on a 5x5 array, with the first letter denoting which 500 km square, and the second letter denoting which 100 km square within that 500 km square
The letters go like:
ABCDE
FGHJK
LMNOP
QRSTU
VWXYZ
(no "I")

The UK falls within* the 500 km squares S, T, N and H, with the boundary between S and T being a N-S line passing through Lincoln and Windsor (approx), the boundary between S and N passing through Windermere, and the boundary between N and H passing through Scapa Flow.
The SW corner of SV is at easting = 0, northing = 0

If we take the top row in your screen shot => SH, 5329, 4160, ...
The SW corner of SH is at easting = 200000 metres, northing = 300000 metres, counting 2 columns across and 3 rows up from V to H in the letter array.
The 5329 and 4160 are the next most significant digits, rather than meters, and there are only 4 of them, so if you add you've got to add a trailing zero beforehand (or 2 trailing zeros if you've got 3-digit easting and northing values).

That gives SH, 5329, 4160 as being 253290 grid metres east and 341600 grid metres north of the grid origin.
When converting from OS to lat/long, it's these easting and northing numbers you've got to use, though I'd suppose than many online converters will work from 3 fields, or 1 field (SH53294160), and derive the full eastings and northings for you.

Officially, and since the data is from the OS they'll get it right, a grid ref "SH, 5329, 4160" indicates a 10 m square with its SW corner at 253290,341600. However, it's commonplace for people to round rather than truncate, so you may have to make allowances, especially when working with 100 m grid refs like SH532416 (which, in this case you may receive as SH533416).

Over moderate distances (10-20 km) you can just do pythagoras on the differences in eastings and northings to get the distance between points, but over longer distances the curvature of the earth mucks things up

It sounds like @geomannie has access to either ArcMap or MapInfo at work, or QGIS at home.
If you can't find something that converts without excessive copy & paste, I'd recommend taking him up on his offer.
QGIS is free, and a simple enough install, but there's a fair learning curve to driving it, and it would be a bit on the sledgehammer to crack a nut side of things, like using Photoshop or Gimp to crop and resize a few photos.

* There's a small bit of beach a mile and a half the Scarborough side of Ravenscar that's in grid square OV.

Do you not also have to take account of the fact that GPS and the Ordnance Survey use a different model of the Earth so you need to adjust for the datum. I think that GPX points have to be in the GPS WGS84 datum.

st599_uk

Decathlon seem t do a shopping bag pannnier:

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/900-shoppin ... 85333.html

st599_uk

I have a cheap-ish cycling specific GPS that I bought on sale for £85 - the Navman Bike 1000 http://www.navman.com/en/bike-1000.htm

I use plotaroute.com to generate a GPX file which stores both the track and turn instructions as waypoints. Turn-by-turn navigation works with these files, no TCX needed. (Device beeps, shows graphic with distance to turn). I haven't tested with files without waypoints embedded.

Device has Open Street Map maps for most of Europe available included in the price (unfortunately not enough storage to store them all at once - but I've got UK, Channel Islands, France, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Spain, Denmark and Italy in mine). You can route to an address, a point on the map or via a track and choose to route away from A-roads, mainly on cycle lanes etc.

Shows up as a USB drive when plugged in to PC - just drop GPX files in to the tracks directory.

st599_uk

https://www.bahn.com/en/view/offers/europe/saver-fare-europe-london.shtml

I'd ring though to check about bikes.

st599_uk

The bahn.de London Spezial ticket allows you to travel to any German mainline station. I'm not sure if the bicycle option works on tickets that include Eurostar, but they have a UK ticket office you could ring 08718 80 80 66 (they charge a 1.5% booking fee for phone bookings, but that may be worth it for peace of mind that they've correctly booked your bike)

https://www.bahn.de/p/view/angebot/sparpreis-europa/london-spezial.shtml

st599_uk

Many thanks for all the great hints. Exactly what I joined Cycling UK for.

As I really like the geometry of the bike, it's really comfortable for me, and it can carry loads to form shops, sports clubs etc. I'm definitely going to replace the parts that are wearing down.

It's done quite a distance now (mainly before I was ill), so I'm going to hand it over to a mechanic to service and replace the parts. I think that I may go for both the upgrade to a 9 speed cassette/freewheel and the smaller chainset as (if my maths is correct) that gives me both the lower gears I want and a couple that are higher than I currently have - good for days when I'm good and bad.

st599_uk

Hi

Many thanks for the quick reply - the bike is a hybrid with the original drive train:

Shifters Shimano EZ Fire 51 21 speed
Front Derailleur Shimano M191
Rear Derailleur Shimano Altus
Cassette Shimano TZ31 14x34
Crankset SR Suntour XCC 28/38/48
Chain KMC Z51
Bottom Bracket Sealed Cartridge

I've replaced quite a lot of the bike (pedals, tyres, pannier rack etc.), but the drive chain just worked, so I left it.

The teeth are starting to round over, so need replacing anyway, so I thought I'd try and get the upgrade done at the same time.

st599_uk

Hi

I recently had a bit of a life changing illness - I went from riding 100 miles a week to not being able to get to the end of the street. I'm back riding - although I've changed the type I'm doing. On a good day, I'm fine, on a bad day I'm struggling badly with hills. I'd really like to go touring next summer and the crankset, cassette and chains are starting to wear.

So, I'm thinking of trying to change the gearing a bit to give me a lower gear or two. I don't really use the big ring (of 3) on the crankset, so wouldn't really miss the top end speed, but I don't really know what I'm looking for

How do I know which crankset and cassette are suitable?

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