Rally Navigation Roadbook Creation

Get a couple of guys who like to do it and make roadbooks for each other. Thats the brute force method. Use GPS to create them, fine but if you can find somebody up to the task of making one for you, thats grassroots sport building in action!

I've never significantly used any roadbook making tools except my own. I've studied many of them, but never saw one that would do what I wanted to do. The one Mike is working on aims to do all the stuff I want, so when it becomes available, I'll test the hell out of it and help him get the bugs out.

In my view the point of the roadbook (in a rally race) isn't to avoid GPS, it's just a navigation tool from times before GPS was available. But navigating with a roadbook introduces challenges that are not there with a GPS, especially in places where there is no road or trail. Using GPS tracks to navigate in a cross-country rally would be like running the Baja 1000 on pavement. It misses the whole point. Including challenging navigation forces the competitors to THINK about where they are going.

On the oher hand, if you're creating a roadbook for others to enjoy, then using a GPS to help you create that roadbook makes perfect sense. And if you're checking a newly created roadbook in places you've never been, which is almost 100% of the time for me, then a GPS is almost mandatory to keep yourself alive and to deal with unexpected course blockages. But once the roadbook is checked and all mistkes and issues are corrected, then the GPS should not be needed (except maybe for compass headings or emergency escapes).

I don't understand that? Any path that is above ground can be captured in a GPS track, which will show up on a GPS that supports tracks. And that GPS track can be recorded while riding, or hand drawn in Google Earth or MapSource or some other tool before you ever go there in person.

The routes I have roll charted don't really need a GPS, some of them I can ride from memory. I suppose I could map the route on the GPS map in my living room but I would prefer to ride it, that's why I bought a bike I guess I'm dense and I'm missing the point. Since the route is roll charted already, I have the mileages, so all I need to do is add the tulips and I can do that while I ride. Well, I can stop and add the tulips is what I mean.

All my local riding is woods roads, dirt roads, snowmobile trails, seasonal roads, logging roads, quad trail and ancient roads that are still legal to ride.
Maybe making routes is easy here compared to the desert where you ride?
We don't have the wide open spaces here in New England, it's almost impossible to run out of gas here From an open source point of view, I like the idea of sharing my routes with other rally minded people. An awful lot of people go all the way to California for rally training, so why not have a few routes in the North East for Rally racers in training?

Goal for this year is to RB two of my routes and I'm starting on Sunday! A riding buddy of mine is an Apache pilot and He's offered to help me, so I'm sure He's had plenty of navigation training and can really help me out.

As Charlie would say fun fun

I'm with Hogwild...

here is a small(ish) video of Dimitris - who makes the routes for our Rallyraid Cup here in Greece- scouting tomorrow's race


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I borrowed his bike a while back when mine was bust, the cockpit was pretty daunting. He writes down the whole route by hand. Makes sense as that's the only way to include dangers, reference points (fence, spring, water tower, small roadside chapel at 6:32 etc) but also has a GPS on board and carries a satellite tracking device (like the one we racers get given) and has a friend track him from a PC. Tracking is by mytrack.gr and works on an iphone as well:


From the Serres race last year

Notice the modified RB cover which allows him to roll the paper over the cover, giving him a flat surface to write on, plus the fugly pen holder contraption next to the throttle.

This particular route didn't have many intersections, I can dig up some more which included navigation by heading (last month's race at Kalavryta)

After riding the course he transfers all hand-written notes manually into a custom-made program someone made for him and it gets printed with digital fonts/tulips etc, like this one from Serres last year:



I'm not a fan of full colour road-books, but I am starting to get used to them (Albania last week was a perfect example of good use of colour in road-books, especially in the speed limit sections where all three columns had a faint pinkish background)

Another in black & white:



notice the stop sign on the intersection. Good info when there is a small asphalt connecting bit on a special, with no speed limit, and you don't want to end up as a hood ornament

Time consuming? Hell yes. But his roadbooks are considered bench-marks around this part of Europe, I even think Edvin (Kassimati of Rally Albania) learned the art from him, and we were surprised by how good the Albania ones were

Great information, thank you! I'm determined to try the iPad program, at least as a test. If it sucks, I'll let everyone know and then save everyone from spending the money. A free iPad and then 9.99 app, it seems like a no brainer to me.

The color RB's are nice! Last year, I was emailing Evin about running the Rally. Nice guy!

Got started today on my local RB training loop. We had a nasty rain earlier in the week and two bridges got washed out, good thing I did the pre ride

Are there any roadbooks that read from bottom to top?

Arabic?

A Chinese one rotated 90 degrees to the right

heh, maybe.

For some reason I want the next tulips to come out of the top, like i was riding up on them. tulips exposed from the top, almost like a GPS in 3-D mode.

Personal preference.

How did your ride go today? Find anything good? Are you doing the paper and pencil method?

Everywhere i went was private property or locked gates. I have to go looking harder. I just did some F'in off the rest of the two days.

I found a gate and a tank trapped road on State land myself. I did discover that Rally wheelie's are a bit sweeter than your garden variety wheelie's however I pick up the iPad tomorrow and with luck the mount will show before this weekend, so I can start writing the route. My riding buddy also has an iPad and is going to download the app and help me out. Even if the routes are crappy, it's a good start!

Yes, ORGA (the outfit behind the TUAREG Rallye) and some other German organised rally events, use a roadbook format that goes from the bottom of the page and reads upwards;

All kinds of roadbooks you can search for last week.

we have lots of illegally gated roads here too... What is a 'tank trapped' road?




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A huge mound of dirt piled up with a bulldozer in these parts. One at the entrance isn't enough to stop us on bikes but 10 in a row seems like a good indication that they don't want you there I was on the 390, so I could go over them but didn't want to push my luck.

Wow, very cool. I think they call the one above a dragons tooth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon's_teeth_(fortification)