ALL THE PLACES

Mapa Mundi: all the places I’ve been with my race bike in red.

I have a strong cold. Fever, headache, body pain, etc. Typical of beginning of autumn. Because of that I can’t do much more then sit on the couch and enjoy the dripping nose. I can’t do my weekend house chores or cycle and I’m bored to death. And because of that I went browsing the Golden Cheetah cycling software and found a way to export my heat map: a export to Google maps that shows all the places I’ve been riding in the last 3 years if I was wearing my Garmin computer. It is really nice to see where you’ve been and even recognize some of the memorable rides and remember who was with you just by a line on the map. From the above map, of course Holland and Belgium are heavily marked, but also the Alps and Pyrenees, a bit of Italy and a small dot in Brazil. Take a look after the link how my heat map appear in more detail.

Estou com uma gripe infernal. Febre, dor de cabeça e no corpo, etc. Típico começo de outono. E por causa disso eu não posso fazer muito mais do que ficar no sofá fungando. Não posso nem fazer meus trabalhos domésticos e estou completamente entediado. E por causa disso acabei começando a brincar com o Golden Cheetah, que é o programa que uso para seguir meu treino. E encontrei uma coisa interessante: o meu heat map. O mapa que mostra os lugares que eu mais andei de bicicleta. É muito interessante ver por anda você anda e inclusive reconhecer alguns treinos e lembrar quem estava com você só em dar uma olhada num risco no mapa. Olhando o mapa acima dá prá ver claramente que a Holanda e Bélgica são obviamente meus territórios, mas também estive nos Alpes, nos Pirineus e na Italia, E mesmo no Brasil. Dá uma olhada depois do link que eu entro em mais detalhes.

First zooming in where I live and closest rides. Central and South Netherlands are well covered. From Amsterdam to Rotterdam (with occasional ride to Bergen op Zoom) and to Apeldoorn and Arnhem, in the east, I’ve covered quite some ground. In the Southeast, Around Maastricht, Aachen and Spa, region of South Limburg or going a bit into the Eiffel region in Germany is a often playground. Most of the rides around Maastricht were the team rides and the Klim Classic races, which I haven’t attend last year. The ride in the Eiffel is well marked in red, which is one of the nicest team rides of the year.

Zooming even more in the central region, I can clearly see my network extending with favorites routes. The Lekdijk (strong red line on the lower part of the map) became my favorite ride both going west and east. To the west it passes thru Schoonhoven and you can do both sides of the canal, which are complete different experiences. To the east is even nicer going towards Wijk bij Duursteede, Amerongen. Another clear strong line is the way to Hilversum, my commuting route to work and the direction thru Loosdrecht via the Vecht river and the Amsterdamrijcanal, which are often routes traveled with Peter in the beginning of the year. Looking closer I can see also the line going above Amsterdam, which were the rides going to Jos house, both on his funeral and visiting his family with Peter. Both memorable days.

To the right, a couple of rides around Haardwijk, two with the Nike team and one with Richard. Arnhem is also a common place both to train with a small group or participating on races like Veenendaal-Veenendaal (first official ride of the year) or Jan Janssen or Classico Boretti.

Looking even closer to my city I can see that there is very little roads that I didn’t travel yet. the light green are the ones I did only once or twice and the red ones are the heat areas on the map. Roads that I used several times. Again, apart from going to work, I can see that riding in the direction of the Utrecht Heuvelrug thru Doorn and Maarn, to the right, is a preferred route (not surprising). Last year I also rode a lot in the direction of Breukelen to get a longer route to work, but that didn’t happen this year anymore due to earlier daily meetings in my calendar at work. I expect that line to faint with time. Nice to see that I’ve covered a good ground around my house.

Looking now broader, I can see the heat map in Europe. Those are main events like the L’Etape du Tour or Tour du ALS.  From left to right, I can see the Etapes on the Pyrenees, Mont Ventoux, Etapes in the Alps and in the far right last year trip to Italy to climb the Stelvio/Gavia/Mortirolo.

2 Etapes in the Alpes plus week cycling for fun: Gallibier, Glandon, Madeleine and other climbs. I liked specially the week riding prior to the Etapes. They were tough but fun without the pressure and hurry of the race days.

Pyrenees: Tourmalet twice and Sourlour a couple of rides in lesser known mountains. The very cold ride of Tourmalet and Hautacan last year is still a strong memory.

Mont Ventoux: 10 times = enough said. The little line isolated on the bottom is the Gorge de la Nesque, a mandatory prep ride for the Tour du ALS in a very beautiful gorge and not too tough gradients.

And last but not least a very nice ride in Brazil. There were other rides there around Natal but I didn’t have my Garmin. Nice ride with Marcos, a cousin of my wife in a undulating terrain and  nice strong group. Met him on the Etape this year, unplanned even if we were riding amount another 13 thousand cyclists!