Desiging tips

[Robyklebt]

Just some tips... others will have other and maybe better tips



1. Download the Excel or Openoffice editor. See here: viewtopic.php?f=38&t=178
2. How it works... fairly easy to understand, no need to explain..One thing though. If you work with altitude and not percentages the following problem can occur.
50-45-40-35-30: If you give those numbers in, you will get -1 -1 -1 -1 in the percentage column. And that what will finally appear in the race. You lose 40 meters when you should only lose 20. So you have to adjust it yourself. One solution is what I do. I just work with 10. If the start is at 7, I put in 10, goes up to 15, put in 20. Then ok, use the brain as well, if the altitude is 4 5 4 5 4 5 making it 1 -1 1 -1 etc is idiotic... Or you can put in the real height always, but pay attention that cases like the example above don't happen... if you have something like there put in 50 46 40 36 30 or so. And to check that in the end the altitude is correct you can copy the percentage column from the "altitude inputsheet" to the "percentage input sheet" Then there you will see if the altitude is correct.
3 I recommend saving your file, not only as a etn file, but also as a normal excel/open office file on your computer. Especially if it's a real race. Will be much easier to correct possible mistakes later, if it's a one day race and the parcours changes slightly you still can use the profile from the year before as a base, makes it much easier.
4 Click on the big button that says "save the race" It then saves it as an etn file.You'll see where it's saved on top on the right somewhere.
5 Go to the online editor, see the first link, rest should be easy. Don't forget to check with preview to see if the profile looks ok.

Designing itself:

Use all the available resources. Some races have excellent data, the RCS races for example, very good altitude profiles that in my experience are more precise than the other online resources. But don't fully rely on that either, use the other things as well.

General resources

http://www.tracks4bikers.com/ Good, fast and easy to use. 2 sets of data. 1 GMAP. Advantage, it has more roads, disadvantage, it's less precise. 2. OSM, less roads, but more precise. REad somewhere (don't remember where) that OSM has the srtm data integrated. Ah, srtm is: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuttle_Ra ... hy_Mission or read here, this guys site is fun anyway... http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/ Back to tracks4bikers: It works well enough in Europe. the USA. But in my experience not in most other places. The roads too often 500 meters or 1 km or so away from where they really are. And then of course in mountains or hills it becomes useless. Other problem, this one in Europe too: Pay attention to what route it chooses. Sometimes it does some extralaps for nothing, sometimes it takes shortcuts (a nice one on the cipressa for example). So always check if the road it takes is really the one it should take. Then cut the route in 25-30 Km pieces, then it's easier to read the data than if you make a 200 Km thing and then spend ages looking for every km. I think it's perfect for early flat parts of a race, much less for mountains. Did a test with the Stelvio from Bormio, it gave me one km at 11% both for GMAP and OSM (so maybe OSM after all is not more precise, maybe misread..) which doesn't exist on any of the climb databases.

google earth: Download it and test yourself. As far as I know it has the same data as google maps, so the same data as tracks4bikers using GMAP. The advantage is: tracks4bikers only takes the altitude every 300 meters. With google earth you get it whenever you want. Then by tilting the view you can see obvious mistakes, the river that is not on the bottom of the valley but 30 higher up somehow etc. Of course track4bikers etc has the same mistakes, but there it's more difficult to catch them. The big disadvantage of course is that it takes ages to do it.

http://www.bikeroutetoaster.com/ Another thing like tracks4bikers, but much worse to use. Almost unusable by itself. But.... one advantage.

http://www.gps-freeware.de/Beschreibung.aspx All in german... but it's good. GPS Track Analyse 2 ways to use it:
1: Use bikeroutetoaster to make a route. then Save it as a GPX file. Open the GPX Track analyse thing, open your GPX file. (Datei-öffnen) Then add the srtm files (Höhenwerte-SRTM-Höhendaten zuweisen). You won't have the file on your computer, so you have to download it. Important step, because otherwise you will just have the normal bikeroutetoaster data, which is less precise than srtm. And then the whole exercise with the GPS Track analyse becomes worthless. AFter clicking on SRTM zuweisen, it will tell you which srtm files you need for this route, and there are links to where you can download them too. Download them. Done.(well, click SRTM Daten zuweisen...) Then all you need to do is to put in the thing in the excel/open office file. A good help is: Extras-Optionen then click on 2D Höhenmodell mit vertikalen Längenlinien, so to see the km on the profile on top. Took me ages to figure that out, wasn't the default setting, grrr, was a real hassle doing it without it.... Then if you have the whole course, cut it into 25-30 Km long pieces Mark km 25 for example (I usually do 25...) then track-Trennen bei markierung. And you'll have a 25 km thing that will be easy to read and copy (by hand..) into the excel file. Theoretically this works as well if you download it from tracks4bikers, but each time I did that the track then got shorter when I opened it in the GTA

2: Open google earth, make a track. Save the track as kml file after it's done. Then open it with the GTA. There is one problem for non germans though, to make that method work you have to change a setting somewhere... forgot where and what, swiss and austrians etc can probably find out on their own in the forumlink given in the link up here, that's where I found it when it didn't work, french, english or whatever, if somebody wants to try I'll go and look... Disadvantage, takes time to make those damn tracks, especially if you have a jumping mouse like mine...Advantage, you can have more trackpoints than if you do it with the toaster, so you can really get the exact km, with bikeroutetoaster sometimes the closes trackpoint was still 200 or more meters away, by doing it with google earth you can have it almost to the meter, if you want, really depends how much you zoom in... My test with the Stelvio from bormio, looks better than the track4bikers test, no 11% km. Max 9%


Mountains:

Databases with climbs:

http://www.altimetrias.net/default.asp Mostly spanish climbs, the problem is that sometimes the names are not the same... the Vuelta calls it Collado de Roby, the Volta a Catalunya calls it Puerto del Simio and altimetrias calls it Cima Klebt... sometimes. But for me maybe the best of the databases, not too many climbs though.

http://www.cyclingcols.com/ Good too, although you need good eyes. LCBs favorite site, the percentages are given in steps of 0,5%. Altitude to the meter, but hard to read. That's why when both have it I use altimetrias.

http://www.salite.ch/struttura/default.asp?Ultime=10 has most climbs, but the least reliable. while Altimetrias and Cyclingcols are from guys that ride the climbs themselves (As far as I understood) salite just has it, not sure how or why...my test the Stelvio from Bormio looks almost the same in all 3 places, altimetrias starts from a bit further down, and has steeper sections than the 2 others, slightly steeper. But sometimes the differences are bigger, and when in doubt, go with cyclingcols or altimetrias. Double and triple checking with altimetrias, cyclingcols, google earth and GTA shows that salite.ch is not really reliable. It's the oldest of the sites as well I think, they probably started with barometric readings..But of course it's still fairly good.

For mountains I recommend using those profiles, tracks4bikers can really only give a general idea, GTA better, but srtm isn't perfect either, especially in mountain areas with narrow valleys etc. Of course if you can't find the climb in one of the 3 places (or others) then go for t4b or GTA or google earth. GTA the best I think, but then depends how important it is... Finaly climb of a real race... rather do it with GTA. Early climb in a fantasy race? t4b is enough.


That's it for the moment, hope other designers will add their own tips!

[Cerro Torre RT]

little recommendation I'd like to add to Google Earth - tracks4bikers or gps comparison, some more detailed for those who are interested:

tracks4bikers and gps seem to work very good in industrial countrys like west and central Europe, USA and so on due to a good match of terrain and roads on the maps (As i didn't work with it, this is only what i read from other track designers in the forum). But in "exotic" countrys, such like many regions of South America, Asia, and also some eurpopean countries like for example Iceland, there are often delays between road and terrain that can result in large altitude mistakes. This is the same in Google Earth but as you can see the terrain you can correct that because in most cases it's obvious where the road has to be. So for exotic countrys I recommend Google Earth, but to make a race can get difficult due to bad satellite pictures. In general, if your profile has very many short climbs and downhills (espacially if passing narrow valleys large mistakes are possible), giant percentages of climbs, short downhill passages in long climbs or in general unexpected profile characteristics, please check those passages with Google Earth. Nothing of that necessarily has to be wrong, but often it is a sign of a road to terrain delay. Measuring the right profils is not possible by using Google Earth, too, but you see the errors and can correct them by thinking about how a normal road may go.

A second thing I like to mention:

Creating realistic races in exotic countries is almost never easy, if not completly flat. I would say beginners should try to focus on european countries with good map material to get used to the way of designing races, to try the tools and find out or develop their prefered method. You can create a lot of good races by that, and after a short while you can handle the disadvantages of the tools and cope with the worse data you have to use for races in exoctic countrys.

[Bear]

I think Cerro and especially Roby mentioned the main things. And as Cerro said, beginners should start with races in countries with good track information. That makes it much easier. Designing "Real Races" can be very frustrating when it's hard to find the right road, depends on the roadbook of the race organizer. So I just tell you my way of designing (for sure it's not the best way).

I work with a combination of tracks4bikers, Google Earth and GPS-Track Analyse. With tracks4bikers you can have the problem that you have to go through a one-way-road in the opposite direction (while designing real races). In these cases I use Google Earth because t4b goes around the right road. And if there are weird climbs which are maybe wrong (like the others said) I use Google Earth, too. The basis of the profile I do with t4b, download it and load it in GTA. And I also take just parts of 20-30km. Important climbs I also try to check with sites like http://www.altimetrias.net/default.asp. If I don't find the profile somewhere, I design it with Google Earth.

[olmania]

And this topic for the classic races, springtime :

viewtopic.php?f=15&t=67

[Luna]

@Bear: At t4b you can change the setting "follow roads" to "offroads" for inconvenient sections of a course. Then you can go in any desired direction, even through water. But you have to move in very small steps, especially if you want to follow a curve, because it simply connects the new mark with the last one directly in bee-line.

[Bear]

@Bear: At t4b you can change the setting "follow roads" to "offroads" for inconvenient sections of a course. Then you can go in any desired direction, even through water. But you have to move in very small steps, especially if you want to follow a curve, because it simply connects the new mark with the last one directly in bee-line.

I know. But in this case I prefer to use Google Earth because it's almost the same work and it's more precise.

[Robyklebt]

Ah yes, I add a little bit here:

Designing: Download the Excel/OpenOffice editors from here:
viewtopic.php?f=38&t=178

Then first do it there, not directly in the online editor. And I recommend saving it offline as well, as an Excel/Openoffice file, so that if you want to make corrections, it's much easier.

For beginners, easiest way to design is probably tracks4bikers, mentioned above.

It's ok, not perfect but ok. I prefer the google-earth/gps analyzer method, just takes longer, so lately I end up using t4b more often too. But question everything. Strange steep climbs followed by a similar downhill, more often than not it's a tunnel and of course t4b goes over the hill. Double check the route t4b choses. Change to satellite view to see how close the road actually is to the real road. In Europe most of the time ok.
And USE other resources, especially the info from the site, sometimes they have separate profiles for some of the mountains etc. Crosscheck the distance with the organizers roadbook. But don't trust the roadbook blindly either. Adapt climbs, a 1 Km 10% climb that starts at x,5 km don't make it 5 5 but 0 10 or 10 0.

With t4b make 25-30km stretches then read the altitude from under the profile, go to km 1 with the cursor, then the altitude appears under the profile. Etc.

Putting the numbers in the Excel/OpenOffice editor: 2 methods
1) percentage, then do it by percentage.
2) altitude, that's what I do. But there you have to adjust the altitude yourself. The programm otherwise will round the numbers, the result often then is not good.
Example 40 44 48 52 56 60-55-50-45-40 the altitude. If you put in those exact number the 9 Km will be: 0 0 0 0 0 -1 -1 -1 -1. But obvioulsy not good. you end up at 0 meters when in reality you should be at 40. What I do is I just put in tens... 0 10 20 30 40 etc. here I would do 40 40 50 50 60 60 60 50 50 40... But then of course if it's 14 15 14 15 14 15 etc. I would put in all 10 or all 20.

Once you have all in the Excel/OpenOffice editor, save the etn file, you see where it lands on the top right. Load it in the online editor, check if everything works, save.

No points (.) or capitalized letters in the database name. Basically only small letters, numbers and _ are allowed (unless something changed and leso didn't tell us)

No need to be ultraprecise in a hill 150 Km from the end. But the closer to the end you get, the more precise the design should be. (if that's english)

Good idea probably is to start playing around with it a bit and do a fantasy race or 2 first, to get used to everything etc. And to see if you actually have some fun doing it, makes no sense to do it if you hate the designing thing. Short training, you like it, want to do more, real races, excellent. Go for it. Announce it in the respective thread (calendar coordination somewhere) and do it. Just plan enough time, don't try to do a 5 stage stage race in one day. And don't give up if your profile is criticized, even we old designer still make mistakes, good if somebody sees it and it can be corrected.

[Schartner Bombe]

Maybe we can discuss the profile layout here?

My suggestion would be, at least on a tour, to choose the scale for each stage so that all stages are comparable. otherwise we don't need this profile picture and only look in the numbers on the left side
Mostly good in my opinion 1:2000. If a stage goes to 3000 it doesn't matter. but I noticed that stages that are actually flat then look at 1:1000 as if they were hilly or mountain stages - even though there are only 2km 8% or something.

You can see it best in the profiles for the December tour - firstly you can't compare the different tours and using x-different scales within the same tour is, in my opinion, really bad - because you can no longer see whether it's flat , hilly or mountain.

But just a note from me - don't know what you think.

[Gipfelstuermer]

In a tour, I normally use 2000 as the standard for exactly that reason.

[Schartner Bombe]

In a tour, I normally use 2000 as the standard for exactly that reason.

Great, I'm with you on that, then tell the race designers. but where? race chat? spectators chat? editors chat? or in any chat RKL started?

[Schartner Bombe]

In a tour, I normally use 2000 as the standard for exactly that reason.

also AAD could look on this tours and say please give your tours a scale? but he didnt?

[Gipfelstuermer]

I already tell the designers which races to design throughout the season. They don't need more rules from me

I mean, in the end it is designer freedom. Maybe some have good reasons to use 1000 or 1500 or whatever. The discussion is good, but I am not telling anyone that they have to do it like that.

For the December Tour, you can simply vote for the best design and consider that as one of the things that make a good design

[flockmastoR]

In a tour, I normally use 2000 as the standard for exactly that reason.

also AAD could look on this tours and say please give your tours a scale? but he didnt?

Designers choice!

You cannot SEE what slope there is on the profile, no matter how standardized the scale is. There is a reason the y-axis has this information, if you see a rather wavy profile and the scale ranges just to 1000 you already have enough evidence to assume there might not be too many sieb km.

I think it makes sense to some degree to have the same scale, if the tour has similar stage profiles but not in general.

[Schartner Bombe]

I already tell the designers which races to design throughout the season. They don't need more rules from me

I mean, in the end it is designer freedom. Maybe some have good reasons to use 1000 or 1500 or whatever. The discussion is good, but I am not telling anyone that they have to do it like that.

For the December Tour, you can simply vote for the best design and consider that as one of the things that make a good design

didnt mean you should tell them as rule, meant give the designers this info somewhere. because if I look at dec tours I dont think thats clear with the scale. but if you dont want also ok for me. than everybody should do what he wants. was only a tip.

[Schartner Bombe]

In a tour, I normally use 2000 as the standard for exactly that reason.

also AAD could look on this tours and say please give your tours a scale? but he didnt?

Designers choice!

You cannot SEE what slope there is on the profile, no matter how standardized the scale is. There is a reason the y-axis has this information, if you see a rather wavy profile and the scale ranges just to 1000 you already have enough evidence to assume there might not be too many sieb km.

I think it makes sense to some degree to have the same scale, if the tour has similar stage profiles but not in general.

ok I am with you - didnt mean in general - but for tours it could make sense. the same scale in every stage doesnt work always, I know. also often a problem with the text on top, so that I have to take a scale inbetween. but I would try to use nearly the same scale in a tour - the tour will then be easier to read in my opinion - but ok its a peanut
nearly the same scale is maybe not expressed correctly. but think you know what I mean.

[Schartner Bombe]

Schappy's race today in Fuerteventura would be an example to make clearer what I mean.
Here there are 3x 8%, otherwise only a few km up all under 5%.
For me it doesnt look like a nearly flat or soft hilly-stage with 3x 8% Sieb km. At first glance it looks more like a mountainstage I would say.
ok, you will say I should look in the km/% tab or that I see that the y axis is 1000 and then these can't be high mountains - can follow this arguments, but than the profile picture isn't really interesting for me.
In my opinion the profile would be better depicted with y axis (between 1500-)2000. Maybe it's easier to understand what I mean now.
and if I think more about, I think we can forget what I am writing here - I see its really a peanut designer can only change y-axis, if there are higher mountains we cannot hold some scale - often a scale between is needed because of text and so on.
first think, then write ...

[flockmastoR]

Schappy's race today in Fuerteventura would be an example to make clearer what I mean.
Here there are 3x 8%, otherwise only a few km up all under 5%.
For me it doesnt look like a nearly flat or soft hilly-stage with 3x 8% Sieb km. At first glance it looks more like a mountainstage I would say.
ok, you will say I should look in the km/% tab or that I see that the y axis is 1000 and then these can't be high mountains - can follow this arguments, but than the profile picture isn't really interesting for me.
In my opinion the profile would be better depicted with y axis (between 1500-)2000. Maybe it's easier to understand what I mean now.
and if I think more about, I think we can forget what I am writing here - I see its really a peanut designer can only change y-axis, if there are higher mountains we cannot hold some scale - often a scale between is needed because of text and so on.
first think, then write ...

Up to you to convince designers to follow your ideas (as you try to do by bringing the topic on the table). I don't see a need for it and personally won't follow your advice when I design

[Gipfelstuermer]

In my opinion the profile would be better depicted with y axis (between 1500-)2000. Maybe it's easier to understand what I mean now.
and if I think more about, I think we can forget what I am writing here - I see its really a peanut designer can only change y-axis, if there are higher mountains we cannot hold some scale - often a scale between is needed because of text and so on.
first think, then write ...

No no, it is good to discuss it. Personally, I would also use 1500 or 2000 on this race.

But I would not make it a "rule". Anyway, I think now we all agree

[Chense]

In general i am no one that cares to much about scales in other races because i will anyway use the picture only for a very first glance of what a stage could be and then look at the %.
Also when i design myself even if i see surely some reason for same scales i would not follow it strictly because scale will be determined for me after 3 points decreasing in worth:

1. Make the stage look like what it should be - A mountain stage should look like a mountain stage, a flat stage like a flat stage
2. Readability of City names etc. - Here sometimes e.g. i had to swap from 4000 to 4500 in the dectour but also didnt want the swap for all stages cause then others had looked to flat in my eyes
3. Starting height. Here the same thing some of my stages start just a bit over sealevel others over 1000. Unfortunately (or wanted?) there seems to be a problem with starting height in design i somehow forgot to mention before. So i have to adjust that scale also by starting height.

[Schartner Bombe]

In my opinion the profile would be better depicted with y axis (between 1500-)2000. Maybe it's easier to understand what I mean now.
and if I think more about, I think we can forget what I am writing here - I see its really a peanut designer can only change y-axis, if there are higher mountains we cannot hold some scale - often a scale between is needed because of text and so on.
first think, then write ...

No no, it is good to discuss it. Personally, I would also use 1500 or 2000 on this race.

But I would not make it a "rule". Anyway, I think now we all agree

will be a never ending story - but only to get better - Another example: presentation of Andes Tour 2023. the stages would be easy to compare if they were all in y-axis 5000 (or close to) - maybe only in presentation.

[Hansa]

Question espacially for our Calender admins:

What kind of races, in which regions are currently needed the most?

Maybe regularly updating the list here so designers know what to design.

[flockmastoR]

Hello designers:

As I currently worked on an efficient way to plan fantasy one day races here are some infos for you:

What races are needed?
Pavé races for pave lovers, meaning real selective pave races, flat ones, hilly ones in ALL regions you can find
Fantasy races in the following regions are needed for 2024/25
South America (just 5 races left, all kind of races needed)
North America (just 6 races left, all kind of races needed)
Oceania (just 8 races left, all kind of races needed)
Mediterranean Sea & Arabic region (10-20 races available)
Africa (20-30 races available)
Asia (~30 races available, but with a strong concentration on India)
Europe (dozens of races available, few races in Spain/Portugal/France)

Desing Tips
Add ITT or TTT in the Race name if you desing time trials
Add * information as a label in your profiles. So if you program a **** in the profile, add the info as text in the label. There are a lot of races having some pave sections but from the profile view, I cannot figure out how selective these sections are

[flockmastoR]

Hello desingers!

There is a lot of activity currently in the fantasy race designing. I just want to give you a short summary of what is currently needed most (region Europe, North America, all regions that can be raced in Northern hemisphere summer time)

1) hard hilly races, with and without mountain top arivals, something for climbers, 80-70s, strong classics

2) hilly races in general for all kind of riders

3) sprinter races with early difficulties

in best cases without gravel/pave

[flockmastoR]

Hello designers!

Fantasy races needed for summer/late summer season Aug-Sep
1) Flat races, (no sieb km races, early light hill) [races with single +6/+7 close to the end are not needed currently]
2) HC stages/hard hilly stages
3) Hilly pavé races, hilly races with pavé