RouteGadget unpopular?

[DJM]

It's cumbersome to add routes without gps

Takes only a few seconds ... and most of us don't take gps devices round courses either.

[mrmoosehead]

Personnally I find it incredibly useful in comparing what I did to my peers and other runners on the course.
It forces me to look at the choices I made and the mistakes I made.

A combination of RG and splitsbrowser/winsplits means I can analyse things better.
Not that I seem to get any better, mind.

I am encouraging my M14 son to do the same.

Critical mass is important though. It's disappointing when few people upload their routes.


(and I agree, the GPS functionality is too fiddly to use, but that's not necessarily the fault of RG, just the difference between a GPS track accuracy and the accuracy of an O map)

[Spookster]

It used to be really fiddly to upload a GPS route to RouteGadget. With RG2, and assuming the background map is correctly geo-referenced, it is stunningly simply. For all three moorland days of the JK my uploaded GPS track needed no manual adjustment at all.

I think for sprint and urban it's probably still preferable to draw the route manually, though a GPS upload is still better than nothing.

All my 4 runs from JK are up...

[andypat]

Similarly RouteGadget isn't all about the routes - split times, hesitations and GPS timing all add to the interest even if people take the same routes.

Although I always used to prefer splitalyser for that purpose - whatever happened to it?

[Paul Frost]

There are better tools for individual analysis, Quickroute and DOMA to name a good combination. If it was really beneficial to the top elites they'd all be uploading routes and they aren't, most of them are using a combination of QR and DOMA for training/training races, for top level competitions they have it ready made with gps tracking.

What I'd really like to see is a good way of accessing courses online, if they are uploaded just after the race it gives people the ability to use them in QuickRoute without having to scan a map and they can be useful in the future. There are bandwidth issues with the image upload approach though, one of the benefits of RG is you can look at all the courses while only having to download the map file once. Perhaps RG2 could be tweaked to allow downloading an image of the course (in fact I've just googled this and looks do-able!)

With RG2 now having the option to show speed on GPS tracks I would have thought it was a much better/easier option than QuickRoute, unless people don't want their mistakes made public?
You can't do any side by side comparison with other competitors with QuickRoute, and the map image quality is pretty poor (manual scan of a used map) so I've never seen the attraction, other than having a personal copy of it. I only tend to use it when the organisers don't put up RG, or are slow doing it, and I want to see what happened when I messed up a control. But I'm not an elite so don't know what it is that makes it more popular than RG with them?

The amount of extra effort to provide hi-res images of the map with every course option is not going to be popular with clubs. There may also be copyright issues with the Ordnance Survey.

The transfer of GPS track from recording device to tablet is generally a big problem, so whilst you can use a tablet for viewing or drawing routes manually, you will probably need a PC to upload a GPS track. But I don't think you can use QuickRoute on a tablet either.

I suspect part of the problem with the lack of people using RG is that often it's not available at the same time as the results, with sometimes hours or days between. You then miss that opportunity for them to add a route, as they have no reason to go back to look at the results again and they forget about RG.
Then it can take days for a reasonable number of people to get around to adding their route and giving you something to compare yourself with. The instant gratification culture of Twitter & Facebook means that yesterday is history (and forgotten) and now is all that's important.

RG2 does need more publicity, but as it has been in a constant development it didn't seem sensible to start promoting it and providing tutorials how to use it until it had stabilised.

[rocky]

There are better tools for individual analysis, Quickroute and DOMA to name a good combination.

But I'm not an elite so don't know what it is that makes it more popular than RG with them?

Quickroute->DOMA->2D/3D Rerun. All the analysis you need (unless you're a sprinter).

[usuallylast]

unless people don't want their mistakes made public?

Maybe this is part of the problem?
I'm not shy about putting my routes on, mostly to give people some entertainment when they see just how many k a person can add to a course...

Anyway, I've been plugging RG in our club for a while now, always make a point of having it available as soon as possible, and for everything from level D up. I did a little talk on it at one of our club nights and people were surprised at what you could do with it - some even surprised it existed at all. As has been said, the more people put their routes on, the more useful it is - and I am seeing a bit more interest developing, especially with the larger events, but still not as much as I would like.
Even if routes are lacking, it's great for checking out maps for areas you haven't been to before and looking at examples of previous courses.

[usuallylast]

ps - I was thinking of doing a screen capture video showing how you can use routegadget, but as I've not done anything like that before are there any volunteers who could do something more professional? It would be really handy to be able to link to it from a results page and encourage folk to have a go.

[DJM]

From the JK 2014 results page:-

RouteGadget: JK 2014 is pleased to be supporting RouteGadget 2, the quicker, faster version of the popular RouteGadget. We encourage you to draw your route each day so that you can compare where you went with others, replay your route against selected others, learn from any errors, etc.

A tutorial explaining how to use Routegadget 2 is available at http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/c2VlY0nhDD for those unfamiliar with it.

I suspect part of the problem with the lack of people using RG is that often it's not available at the same time as the results, with sometimes hours or days between.

This wasn't the problem for the first three days of the JK when RouteGadget was up and running on the same day ...

[iainwp]

The biggest problem for me on the JK day 2 is that after forgetting to start my GPS and then wandering aimless around the moors, I'm not actually sure where I was most of the day. 40 minutes for a 150m leg ...

[Sunlit Forres]

Margaret, our web master, gallantly tries to cajole our members to put their Route Gadget up - she usually gets events on there the same evening. This seems to be crucial.

Our last Level C at Roseisle last November ended up with about one third of the TD5 course runners putting their routes up. I think to be effective, RG needs to be available as soon as people log on to see their result. Most people forget about the event there and then, so maybe clubs looking to attract max RG participation should consider delaying publishing results til RG is available?

There was one event this year where RG didn't go up the same day and we only had 1 route out up from 120 competitors.

[Simon E]

ps - I was thinking of doing a screen capture video showing how you can use routegadget...

That's next on my list of things to do, and should happen within the next week or so.

I'm still getting suggestions for updates to functionality, but the main user interface is working OK. I'd guess nearly all of the JK routes were entered through RG2, since we have never publicised a link to the original Routegadget, although you can find it if you know where to look. The GPS adjustment is still not ideal, but with a georeferenced map you don't need it, as shown by the three JK days.

I used RG2 manager for all of the JK events as well as all recent HH events, and that is definitely worth trying if you are in charge of your club site. There may still be a few results file issues, but it should manage BOF csv and IOF XML formats for most events.

For HH events we normally end up with about 10% to 15% of people drawing routes. Whilst the JK may be a little below that this year, in absolute terms it is of course way ahead. I think a large part of the problem is simply lack of (easy) internet access over the weekend. There will also be a large number of people who have had a look at things but not drawn their route, especially those who didn't even go to the event.

[andy]

Margaret, our web master, gallantly tries to cajole our members to put their Route Gadget up - she usually gets events on there the same evening. This seems to be crucial.

My policy was always to get RG up before the majority of people are going to be checking results from their computer. i.e. before they are home and had dinner. I'm always dumfounded when I get home from a race and results aren't even up, far less RG.

[andy]

I'm always dumfounded when I get home from a race and results aren't even up, far less RG.

Although in saying that most orienteering clubs are WAY ahead of other sports when it comes to results, athletics seem to be the worst, especially in Scotland

[Snail]

2013 might have been a higher percentage because a larger proportion of competitors would have been 'at home', with easier access to internet etc.

This wouldn't have been true in 2012 - but there is probably more interest in seeing route choices on say Craig a Barns than on Methyr Common.


Possibly more significantly there may be others like me who haven't yet got around to getting RG2 to work. On my Windows 7 / IE9 laptop all I see on the JK2014 RG2 site is a blank white screen.