Pre-approved routes?

#1
Are there such things as pre-approved routes?

For example as a rider you could look up and see there is a pre-approved route from Brisbane -> Warwick -> Goondiwindi -> Miles -> Rockhampton -> Maryborough -> Brisbane.

You could start at any one of the locations, all you then would need to do is send in the photos of the fuel receipts from the various locations and the verifier knows that the route taken was enough to qualify for the Saddle Sore.
 

Brookester

Premier Member
#3
Not for standard rides. Things like Coast to Coast 50CC is a sort of route pre-approved to a point and many other challenging rides.
 
#7
While I'm certainly not in Australia I'm anti preapproved rides. Part of the process is planning the route and with todays tools at your fingertips there is no excuse for not being able to assemble a route that meets the requirements of whatever award you're chasing. Planning is an intrinsic part of the adventure process and this is nothing if not an adventure. Staring at maps and envisioning the tantalizing possibilities is one of the best parts for me. I'll spend hours coming up with idea for this, cycling, and backpacking. It also means that I'm more aware of what I'm getting into and have a deeper knowledge of the route.
 

EricV

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#8
The old timers did this with paper maps. ;) Rule of thumb is to give yourself 3-5% buffer over the 1000 miles, or what ever goal you are going for. And to make it as easy as possible for the verification team to see that you rode the ride you are claiming w/o taking any shortcuts.

Usually the pre-approved routes are named rides, group ride events or city SS1K rides. Everything else gives you the opportunity to ride where you want to ride.
 

Skidoo

Premier Member
#9
The old timers did this with paper maps. ;) Rule of thumb is to give yourself 3-5% buffer over the 1000 miles, or what ever goal you are going for. And to make it as easy as possible for the verification team to see that you rode the ride you are claiming w/o taking any shortcuts.

Usually the pre-approved routes are named rides, group ride events or city SS1K rides. Everything else gives you the opportunity to ride where you want to ride.
What’s this old timers business, I’m only in my 60’s and still reference them especially for overseas rides :p many of my younger workers have never used one o_O
 

EricV

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#10
What’s this old timers business, I’m only in my 60’s and still reference them especially for overseas rides :p many of my younger workers have never used one o_O
I'm in my 50's and still use paper maps too. We ARE "old timers" now. :confused:

When we were kids we were outside any time we didn't have homework or chores and it wasn't raining cats and dogs. Rain itself didn't stop you from going outside to go play with friends. Today's kids think they would die if they didn't have internet.
 
#11
The old timers did this with paper maps. ;) Rule of thumb is to give yourself 3-5% buffer over the 1000 miles, or what ever goal you are going for. And to make it as easy as possible for the verification team to see that you rode the ride you are claiming w/o taking any shortcuts.

Usually the pre-approved routes are named rides, group ride events or city SS1K rides. Everything else gives you the opportunity to ride where you want to ride.
To be fair, I prefer my paper maps and atlas for fantasizing, but google maps can be a good substitute and is a valuable resource for planning for mileages once I know where I'm going. I've tried other planning sites but get frustrated with them for any number of reasons.
 
#13
I don't know. There's a whole generation that doesn't really understand maps and they're starting to have kids. I've watched this with my daughters and they've certainly never had to sort out bad directions and just figure it out. They just use a navigation app that may have bad or out of date info and have no idea. My wife would follow google off of a cliff if it said it was the quickest way!
 

EricV

Premier Member
IBR Finisher
#14
I used to rally with paper maps and just dead reckon my way thru cities I wasn't familiar with to find bonus locations. No GPS. Dead reckoning is a skill too. Part of this is how we grew up and the things we learned along the way that stuck with us because they were useful. I don't know if they teach kids in school about street signs having block numbers and how that works or if the kids in my city know how E/W streets are designated Vs N/S ones, or even if they understand odd house numbers are on one side of the street and even on the other side of the street and that common practice is to place even numbers on the north and west sides of streets and odd numbers on the south and east sides of streets.

Some cities do Streets on one line and Avenues on the other. Making it possible to be at the corner of 200th St and 200th Ave. That gets maddening when some local gives you directions to the corner of "200th". Never mind the Salt Lake City and other Utah grids that start at the Temple, and people that tell you they live at 56th when it's 56000.