2019 Grand Tour

[xander84]

Please see the attached for the 2019 Grand Tour Rules
Hopefully the front page will be updated soon.

[scottheinrich]

Signed up today.

There was nowhere to enter my previous number. Do you have that information? I'm sure you do since I always get the same one, 511.

I already have scoured my paper maps and with the Google, searching locations.

Come on, March!

[xander84]

I have everyone's rider numbers.

[rpmendez]

Where to I sign up? Can't find a link anywhere
Thanks in advance!

[xander84]

It's on ridemaster right now, but the GLMC front page hasn't been updated yet.

[Sleddog]

Below is a link to Ridemaster. You can register there.

https://rides.jasonjonas.com

[StarWolve]

Looking forward to this year's tour. We have a lot of rock, mineral, and gemstone named towns in the Carolinas... I was just planning a ride through the mountains for a group in May, and I guess "Hiddenite" just made the route!

I also ordered a new bike - I'll be GT'ing on a 2019 HD Street Glide Special this year! Picking it up next week!

[dawniey75]

In spirit of the theme, I wonder if Crater Diamonds State Park in Arkansas will be on the list.

[rpmendez]

Thanks Sleddog!

[Sioux Falls]

When will the tee shirts be sent out for the 2018 GT, or did I miss something? It would be nice to get my flash drive back also.
Dave Bourdeaux

[StarWolve]

According to my Excel Voodoo - there's 3680 Populated places in the United States that meet the overall criteria. I'm sure a lot of those are bogus (trailer parks, housing developments, etc.) but it's a good start.

Here's the dropbox link to my GPX files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/854vfa9tis9mv...aybFa?dl=0
I've added the entire US, and have separate files for NC, SC, and GA as well. The master spreadsheet is in there, so you can sort and create your own custom GPX files if you'd like.

I'm planning a ride in May that's probably going through Iron Station, Zirconia, Copper Ford, PalesTINe, Mount GiLEAD, Silverstone, SARDis, Hiddenite, and Barium Springs, and Glass... All within a few hours of Charlotte, NC.

[xander84]

(02-07-2019 08:24 AM)Sioux Falls Wrote:  When will the tee shirts be sent out for the 2018 GT, or did I miss something? It would be nice to get my flash drive back also.
Dave Bourdeaux

Sorry for the delay on the shirts, they are on their way along with flash drives.
Everyone that finished should have them early next week.

[Willie]

(02-07-2019 11:48 AM)StarWolve Wrote:  According to my Excel Voodoo - there's 3680 Populated places in the United States that meet the overall criteria. I'm sure a lot of those are bogus (trailer parks, housing developments, etc.) but it's a good start.

Here's the dropbox link to my GPX files: https://www.dropbox.com/sh/854vfa9tis9mv...aybFa?dl=0
I've added the entire US, and have separate files for NC, SC, and GA as well. The master spreadsheet is in there, so you can sort and create your own custom GPX files if you'd like.

I'm planning a ride in May that's probably going through Iron Station, Zirconia, Copper Ford, PalesTINe, Mount GiLEAD, Silverstone, SARDis, Hiddenite, and Barium Springs, and Glass... All within a few hours of Charlotte, NC.

TY TY TY What a big time saver

Willie

[StarWolve]

(02-07-2019 12:37 PM)Willie Wrote:  TY TY TY What a big time saver

Willie

No problem - I have the excel formulas saved from previous years, so it's just a matter of pulling an update from the USGS databases, and updating the formula for this year's list of names. Although, given the larger number of search terms, it did crash Excel if I tried to do the whole list at once, so I had to chunk it up a bit.

There's actually a lot more towns than I expected, but with words like LEAD and TIN, there's a lot of town names that qualify.

If anyone is looking for a good routing application for your phone, GPS CoPilot is a low cost app I use that has an "offline" map feature. I find this very useful, because a lot of times I have no cell signal riding in the mountains. I usually do the overall plan for rides on Google Earth and then create the route in CoPilot, but my new bike has a nice GPS, so I'll be using Harley's "Ride Planner" app (https://maps.harley-davidson.com/map/create) to create my routes this year. It's actually a pretty decent route planner, and gives you a GPX file that you can load on another device or directly onto the bike.

Anyways, enough from the map geek!

[Babbitt]

That is fantastically helpful. If you don't mind sharing I would love to see your excel formula.

Thanks

[rpmendez]

That is so awesome, thank you!!!

Here's a website that will convert GPS files to whatever format you need, I use it to get files from Google Earth to my TomTom and CoPilot:

https://www.gps-data-team.com/convert/

[scottheinrich]

(02-07-2019 11:48 AM)StarWolve Wrote:  According to my Excel Voodoo - there's 3680 Populated places in the United States that meet the overall criteria. I'm sure a lot of those are bogus (trailer parks, housing developments, etc.) but it's a good start.

A great resource. Many of the listings for Colorado are ghost towns, located too far down nasty roads for the FJR. May be time to blow the dust off the KDX...

[StarWolve]

(02-08-2019 10:38 AM)Babbitt Wrote:  That is fantastically helpful. If you don't mind sharing I would love to see your excel formula.

Thanks

I did a write up on it in this thread - there's a couple posts that show the different formulas: http://www.glmc.org/GLMC_Garage/showthread.php?tid=81

However, I ran into to some trouble and tried a different formula this year - and I think it was less efficient. In the end, it wasn't the formula at all - it was Word messing up the formatting. I cut and paste the location names into Word, and should have used notepad. Word messes with the quotes, and that messed up the excel formula. (left and right quotes instead of a plain double-quote)

The formula I used this year was:
=SUMPRODUCT(--ISNUMBER(SEARCH({"ABALONE","APACHE TEARS","CALCITE","CLINOZOISITE","...ETC...","YTTERBIUM","DUBNIUM"},CELL_ADDRESS_HERE)))>0

In the past, I've used:
=IF(COUNT(SEARCH({"AA","BB","CC","..."},CELL_ADDRESS_HERE)),"TRUE","FALSE")

They both do the same thing - return True or False if the cell contains any of the strings in the formula.

You can also use Shift+F3 to change the case in Word, and =UPPER(cell_address) or =LOWER to convert case in Excel, which is somewhat helpful if your formula is case specific.

Nothing really complicated - no macros or anything, just using the built in formulas to sort the data.

[Willie]

General question and reminder to me. Once we find a qualified town, what objects or signs qualify for the picture

Willie

[xander84]

Qualifying photos include your bike, GT flag and any sign or business inside the city/town that
contains the town name.