[Closed] Exmoor explorer

I did a recce up there yesterday in advance of next Fridays EE warm up ride & its still very soggy in places!
Also if you're doing it, I'd recommend a good insect repellant.
Took this pic from Bossington hill looking west
[img] [/img]

I'll be there with a mate, but we're going up early Sunday morning. Looking forward to the half-way cakes already 😀

We were riding there both days this weekend, sat was ace and sunny/dry sunday was very different but most of it drains quite quickly 🙂

Woo Hoo <waves> yep me & my mate will be there for another blast on some of Exmoor's finest next Sunday.

I would be grateful to any locals letting me know the trail conditions say next Friday so I know whether to bring my 'slicks' or my 'wellies' 😆

CB at the moment I would have to say wellies:) but we'll be up there Friday and sat so may be able to give you an update.

Cheers dropoff - appreciate any help you can give on the type of tyres to bring front. Can you let me know on Friday please, only I'm travelling up on Saturday.

Hi CB, would be glad to, but as I'll be camping in porlock I'll not have any internet. If you want to drop me an e-mail with your mobi no. I'll text you on Fri.

dropoff - ygm 🙂

CB, received, nice title:) Have you ridden on Exmoor before ?

This will be my 4th Explorer on the bounce plus I had a two day tour bimbling round Dunkery Beacon/Selworthy Common/etc with a mate a few years back & I've loved it everytime I've been there. Oh and I took part on the recent STW Q's ride too.

I think this one will have a great feel to it, it's so cheeky it even uses our Friday night pub downhill run. 🙂

is anyone having probs downloading the mmo file???

We will be there on the Tandem 😀 should be a good one

And yeh couldn't open the .gpx or mmo files so have had to do it the old fashioned way !

I'll be there with a few mates.

Staying at Exe Valley Caravan Site [url= http://www.exevalleycamping.co.uk/ ]here [/url] and making a weekend of it. 😀

I've booked my place but I'm not sure I can be arsed.

gpx and mmo files opened ok for me.

Fine for me also - need to join all 3 and make a course out of them to follow instead of 3 separate gpx files!

My Mate and I are doing it as we were too late to register last year - did it the year before - hope its dry 😉

We missed out last year too!!!! But did the route mid September, some very big puddles, top of the wheel deep!

Looking forward to it.. Does it take in Stoney Lane again?
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hope so - stoney lane is my favourite part - i get to ride it then go back & ride my gf's bike down as well.

I'm doing it for the first time and also stopping at the Exe Valley Caravan Site to make a long weekend of it:-)

I'm going to be riding it for the first time.

Does anyone know what the access to the campsite is like? I've got the option of borrowing a comfy campervan to get a good nights sleep it, but it's a reasonably wide coachbuilt that I've not driven before so I'm not overly comfortable with taking it down lots of narrow lanes.

In fact, does anyone know the specifics of where the campsite is? Either the details on the website aren't that great or I'm having eye site problems today.

which is stoney lane - I can think of a few places that would qualify?

which is stoney lane?

Had a look at the map and it looks like we aren't going down Stoney Lane. 😥

If you look at the map, where it says "2009 Exmoor Explorer Aug 2nd 10.00am", its the bridlepath just to the left of that.

Not sure if the organisers would be too pleased if we took a detour?

What can I use to add my maps together? My mac doesn't seem to make it that easy.
I just want a whole GPX or course to upload if poss?

Has anyone noticed that the GPX is not available on ExmoorExplorer.com?
It now says available soon.

Yup thats because I informed Stephen that one of the files seemed a bit dodgy - references in it to a walk in the mendips and wouldn't display properly on my comp. I have sent him 3 GPX files I exported from my MM V5 and they seem to be OK - I guess he'll put them up very soon. FXR

I have used TCX convertor to merge the 3 GPX files into a GPX and TCX course file - I uploaded it last night to my garmin and seems to work OK but have not tested it compared with the supplied route as yet - PM me if you want a copy but as I said I haven't made sure it works 100% yet but my garmin shows it OK as a route so....
[url= http://www.teambikeolympo.it/TCXConverter/TeamBikeOlympo_-_TCX_Converter/TCX_Converter_ENG.html ]
TCX Convertor website (free)[/url]

BTW - Got a reply off Stephen and so should be up again soon.

I've just been looking at the route on MM and there seems to be two slightly different versions of the long route, 09 POR POR and LONG EXP09, I also seem to have gained a load of walking routes from Walking World. 🙁

To bring you all up to date.............
The camping is the sports field right in the middle of the village, because of the village fete no access until after 5pm on the Saturday. You are welcome to camp Sunday as well at no extra charge. If you want to come on Friday that's fine too, but let us know as we have a different (but very close) field organised for that so you don't have to move on Saturday.
Pretty much all the tracks are no problem in the wet, there will be serious puddles, but no bottomless perdition. The forecast is quite decent for Sunday, so fingers crossed.

The route will be all marked out, but check the map anyway.

GPS has been giving me aggro!
This evening (thanks to Foxy) fresh verions of gpx and mmo will go up. We've been using Memory Map all winter in the planning with no probs, then when we start posting stuff all sorts of old stuff seems to get sucked up from MM's bowels.
So apologies, I hope it's all correct now.
I've done it as 3 separate sections for 2 reasons, smaller files and leaves the Long Loop as an extra. Can you join it up OK?

Any MM geniuses on here? How can I "clean" the map of any old routes? I used to just delete, which worked fine, but this time it's taken all the lines away but left waypoints behind.
Steve

Just a thought, make sure you go to the official site for the downloads

[url= http://www.exmoorexplorer.com ]null[/url]

The .co.uk isn't ours and the downloads may not be correct.

Steve

I thought all this gps malarky was supposed to make it more difficult to get lost 🙂 Think I'll stick to my good old map.

but this time it's taken all the lines away but left waypoints behind.

Same here, I've got a series of Waypoints around Porlock that I'm unable to unlock or delete.

You're all doomed. Gonna ride around porlock for the rest of your days 🙂 Still theres worse things.

Alarmingly, if I click delete on the route showing on the map it clears everything, even in the saved routes.
Dibbs, save elsewhere and then delete the whole lot, my errant waypoints vanished!

Moral of the story? Use a map!

I'm worried now that on my travels around the country I may trip and fall over one or more of these way points. Please pick up your litter from the countryside 🙂

on MM I use the hide tracks routes etc - if you delete the track the waypoints still show up and then you have to delete each waypoint. Goto top left menu option - can't remember which one its the one with import in the list - at the bottom it says hide all or hide certain types of ovelay also you can show all of the overlays and delete them them from there.

Dibbs.... can you just transfer me the route on the day IF i get there early?

The route this year is fantastic surpassing previous years gems. Tough but | am sure no one will be disappointed.

Ps it doesnt go down stoney lane but you get the finest of exmoor views

Team Raven will have at least 3 out again this year.

I've only missed one since it started, still my event of the year, but I;m a sucker for great riding and huge flapjacks.

See yawl at the pasta party 😀

The route is a really good one, the long route loop has some cracking singletrack above Porlock.
It's all on rights of way so can be ridden anytime.

srrc, quite a bit is not on bridleway.

Steve, I've just checked the Download page again and both Downloads are for the MMO file, no GPX file.

I agree with Dibbs..

Click Download GPX - It downloads the MMO file. 😕

Scratches head.

Will investigate the GPS thing, bear with me please.

Dartmoor rocks:
One of the many oddities of Exmoor is that there is much more riding than the maps show. There are many tracks that have landowners permission (on an ongoing basis), unclassified county roads etc. These are seldom shown on the OS map except as dotted or dashed lines.
Rest assured, anywhere the Explorer goes is fully legit.

Steve

Steve,

It's only the link thats wrong. The correct link is below. 😉

[url= http://files.getdropbox.com/u/76981/2009GPXFormat.zip ]Exmoor Explorer GPX Download File - From ExmoorExplorer.com[/url]

Milkie

Thanks for that, will try harder.

Steve

Can you confirm that the route will be marked again this year.

I will be bringing an OS map which i've marked but I hope not to have to use it.

thanks srrc, shall do the route sometime, the landowner is the NT but how do I know a track is legit

Ok thats it the vans packed and were off to Porlock for the weekend. Weather looks good, blue skies for the first time in a month. Looks like you might have got it right again Steve 🙂 See you all there.

All marked route, weather set fair, let's go to play!

See you all Sunday, ride safe.

I've just re-plotted the long route (due to problems merging the three sections into one) and I make it 36.7 miles and 6950 ft of climbing. Does that seem about right?

Anyone got the postcode for Wheddon Cross so I can let the Sat Nav do the remembering?
By the way nearly 7,000 ft climbing seems more than usual?

weather set fair

Postcode TA24 7EB is here http://www.streetmap.co.uk/map.srf?x=292183&y=139012&z=120&sv=292183,139012&st=4&ar=y&mapp=map.srf&searchp=ids.srf&dn=646&ax=292183&ay=139012&lm=0 which is where the fete is today.
6 of us did 22 miles thursday & 26 miles yesterday up there & both rides came out at just over 5000ft of accent

Cheers Snaps, looking forward to the climbs- Newtons law = what goes up must come down 😀

Yup I make it about 36 miles on my GPS!