MSBike 2009 New Bern, NC Sept 12, 13
page updated Saturday, Sept. 5 – added discussion to “This Year’s Routes ”
GPS files last updated Sept. 1
The clock is ticking! MS Bike New Bern is less than two weeks away! Here are the GPS files for the event! Download and test these files TODAY and make sure there are no problems using them in your GPS! Don’t wait until a few days before the event! For more information on the event, including maps and cue sheets, go to this website:
GPS FILES
Check back for updates, especially the last few days before the event! The route could still get changed!
Ver. 2d – Sept. 7 (master links fixed, added mps, txt, DeLorme Street Atlas Files)
Change history below.
| File Description | Garmin GDB ver.3 | Generic GPX format | MPS Files |
| Master files with all data | MSBike09.gdb | MSBike09.gpx | MSBike09.mps |
| Saturday routes, all waypoints | SATMstr.gdb | SATMstr.gpx | SATMstr.mps |
| Sunday routes, all waypoints | SunMstr.gdb | SunMstr.gpx | SunMstr.mps |
And just for giggles, here’s one more: MSBike09.txt
Need DeLorme Street Atlas files? Download 2009_BikeMS_Street_Atlas_filesRev1.zip
This (revised 9/9/09) zip file comes to us courtesy of Gary Pearce, KN4AQ and has the corrected arrow colors to match the route colors used by the MS Event staff. Thanks, Gary.
When you download, remember the following:
- Right-click and use the “Save Target As…” feature,
- verify the file extension of the file you are saving. Windows especially likes to rename *.gpx files to *.xml.
The *.gdb files are for Garmin GPS units and the *.gpx format can be imported by most other brands. For more explanation, see my About GPS Files… web page.
If you have a TomTom and have figured out how to import these files, please let me know. So far, nobody with a TomTom has been able to import any of these files.
File Contents
Each file contains 8 routes and either 75 (Sat) or 59 (Sun) named Waypoints. For each day, there are 4 forward routes (100 mile, 75 mile, 50 mile and 30 mile route) and 4 reverse routes corresponding to each forward route. Note that many GPS units can only hold up to 10 active routes at a time. There are some Waypoints that are duplicated between the two files. If you load them all, it works out to around 114 unique Waypoints, give or take.
This Year’s Routes
There are some big changes this year! First, there are 4 routes instead of three. The MS team has added a 50 mile route to the 100, 75 and 30 mile routes each day. Another nice change - except for one route, the beginning of every route has been moved off of Broad Street, the main drag, and onto Queen St. Remember last year when Broad St. was under construction? We took over the one open lane, and it was treacherous for both rider and SAGs. Only the Sat 30 mile course traverses Broad St. and only for part of the route.
Saturday has the familiar start, running onto the freeway and over the Trent and Neuse Rivers, but not the traditional return over the bridge! Instead, the routes circle around to the northwest and then back to town. This is a good thing! Unlike the start where the police close the freeway to traffic while the riders go through in a short time, this was a very hazardous stretch when the riders were strung way out over several hours and miles at the end of the day and crossing with moderate to heavy freeway traffic. It also eliminates the lengthy side trip needed for SAGs to circle around.
The big change on Sunday is that all 4 routes go up on the freeway and cross the Trent River before turning south and west. This is a big change from last year.
Every route but one (Sun 30) is the same from Rest Stop 7 to the finish. This is probably a good plan as well. Traffic should be light to mamageable, with no freeways, and we will all be very familiar with this part of the route.
Railroads
While not all crossings are marked, several railroad crossings are noted in the cue sheets and have uniquely named and numbered waypoints in the GPS files. These are marked because they appear to be hazardous crossings for riders. With unique names on the cue sheets, we should be able to go directly to them with little or no confusion.
Rest Stops
Rest stops are named differently for each day. Here are the formats and examples of each day’s rest stops. Note: Although there are two seperate waypoints for Rest Stop 7, they both represent the same location (to avoid confusion).
| Day | Format | Example |
| Saturday | Sat RS x description | Sat RS1 Faith FWB Church |
| Sunday | RS x SUN description | RS 1 SUN Brices Creek FD #7 |
Please Leave a Comment!
If you download any of these files, please leave a comment below. I’d like to see how much use these files are getting. Also, if you are having problems with them, or find you can’t use these files, please leave a comment with a description of the problem. Maybe we can work out a solution that others will find useful.
Change History
Ver. 2d – Sept 07 — Added DeLorme Street Atlas files, provided by KN4AQ
Ver. 2c – Sept 01 — Added *.MPS format files and the MSBike09.txt file.
Ver. 2b — fixed the links to the master files. Same MSBike09.* files
Ver. 2 — Created master file with all content, renamed rest stops for more clarity, eliminated a conflicting waypoint name in Sat and Sun files.
Ver.1 – Initial Release, Aug. 29
73,
W4FT
Hey Guys,
My garmin nuvi 265t doesnt support formal routes. The closest it has is a “add as via point” selection you can make. However, it does not allow you to store these in any way. Here is my solution to this minor speedbump:
1) name all of the waypoints for each of the points along a “route” with a sequential number in front
2) if i need to get back on the route, i will plot a course to the nearest waypoint on the route (might not be the very best, but common sense will prevail), and then either the next number up or down, so that i go in the right direction along the route. waypoints are going to be in different catagories to keep them separate
3) I am going to set all of the intersection waypoints to “Red light alerts”. I havent tested this bit yet, but im hoping this will be good enough to get me through, especially if i can name the alerts (then i can provide turn info, as long as i remember to reverse the direction when i go around the course backwards).
I believe this hacked together set of mess will get me almost to where i would be with real “routes”
See ya down there!
Austin
KI4ATB “Haley”
Rick,
There’s another issue that you probably haven’t figured out yet. The 760 (and others) will only let you bring a maximum of 10 of the routes in at a time. Import the Saturday routes first. On Saturday night, deltet them and then import the Sunday routes.
If you have any problems over the weekend, find me. I have the exact same model of GPS and can help you with it. If necessary, I can help you reload the files.
73,
Cliff W4FT
Cliff,
I sent a comment yesterday about problems I was having transferring the routes to my GPS using Garmin’s MapSource program. I have now learned that after transferring the routes to the GPS, you have to import the routes on the device itself. Go figure. There was nothing abiout this step in MapSource documentation.
The routes are in my device now and look great. Thanks again for all your efforts here.
73,
Rick N4VQT
Text file didn’t work either. I looked at the text (and the code for the GPX file) compared to a simple file I generated in Street Atlas. Some similar lines, some different, and too much to compare manually, especially without knowing what was “important” and what wasn’t. I tried swapping the header from the SA file, but that didn’t help.
I haven’t had time to try the babel-whatever site. Might look at that before proceeding manually.
Gary KN4AQ
Added a couple new formats today, no changes in the content though. Still waiting to hear back from Gary, KN4AQ to see if the txt file worked.
Gary, I still have DXF format and GDB ver.2 to try.
73, W4FT
Street Atlas 2009 isn’t reading the gpx files – at least not here. If I try loading it through the DRAW/IMPORT function, nothing happens at all. If I importing through the ROUTE/FILE/IMPORT function, I get this error:
Unable to import the file.
One or more errors encountered while parsing the GPX file: C:\DeLorme Docs\Navigation\MSBike09.gpx
Do you have any other export options?
Has anyone else loaded this into Street Atlas?
73,
Gary KN4AQ
First, I had the wrong links to the master files earlier today. That’s been fixed. Try to download and use one of the master files. Things seem to work better if you can get everything in one file. For the Garmin users, (at least the 7xx series) you should be able to load the master file and then import the 8 routes needed on each day.
Second, yes, there are loops in the longer routes. Generally speaking, all the routes for a given day are included in the 100 mile route for that day. They also loop back to the same points in several cases, especially the 100 milers. The 50 and 30 mile routes cut off parts of the larger routes and may even add an extra leg to cut across and make a shorter loop.
Take some time and download the cue sheets and study the maps at the MS Bike link at the top of the page. This is especially important for Sunday’s routes. They have probably twice as many splits and merges as Saturday.
Any more questions? Anyone?
73, W4FT
Sorry, that last comment was regarding Saturday’s 100 and 75 mile routes.
I got lost trying to understand the 100 mile route in the area of the two rest stops near Craven High and Middle schools. The route seems to loop back on itself or something. I followed the 75 mile route through completely and didn’t see any issues there, Cliff.
Downloaded the Saturday and Sunday Garmin files. The master file links to the Saturday file. Thank you for your efforts! 73