Cue sheet assistance

[CS60CXC]

I am planning a 6-month bicycle tour of the US starting April 10th. to celebrate my 6oth birthday (in June).  I am taking a little less traditional approach as I don't want to camp or carry all of my gear with me.  My husband is going to be my support and will drive a travel trailer for us to sleep in every night.  My 28 y/o son is going to bike with me.  I have purchased the TransAmerica, Pacific Coast, Southern Tier, and Atlantic Coast Adventure Cycling Maps.  I have been studying them and mapping out the specific route.  I have one major concern, however, and that is my ability to read the cue sheets while I am bicycling, since the type is quite small.

We have considered resizing them with a copy machine, using Google Maps via an android telephone for GPS or having my husband type it out every night in advance. None of these solutions seem ideal. Does anyone have any other ideas or advice to help with this issue?

[whittierider]

covered at http://www.adventurecycling.org/forums/index.php?topic=6165.0

[FredHiltz]

I'll underline the GPS suggestion that Jenn wrote in the referenced topic. I use one on every out-of-town ride, and really like having it beep and show "Right on NY 22A in 0.2 miles" in big letters. It is also useful for navigating to places that are off the ACA route, and of course it works in the support vehicle too.

Indeed, if you budget for this, you may have to consider one for him, too. There's a lot of information in the GPS Discussion forum about what models work well for us. The dedicated GPS devices work better than the GPS-assisted cell phones out there in the boondocks.

I must admit that the GPS receiver is a nice entertainment device most of the time. But it beeped late on one rainy afternoon and showed me an arrow pointing to the campground behind me. Who knows how much farther I would have gone that day?

Applause for getting out there on the big 6-0!

Fred

[valygrl]

Most of the time there aren't that many turns.  I almost never need to check the map continuously as I ride.  When you get to a turn, stop, put on your glasses, note the distance to the next turn & name of the road or landmark, and ride to it.

For those few days where there are lots of turns, you could just write out turn directions in readable print the night before.

[Pat Lamb]

Have to agree with valygrl, except for the towns.  Charlottesville was the worst (I got lost), with Carbondale a close second.  Other than that I missed exactly one turn somewhere in Kentucky -- fellow on his porch a quarter mile up the road set me straight.

[bogiesan]

while you can rely on the GPS forum to narrow your shoppiing down to to two or three models, you should make this decision SOON. Buy the unit. Get the support mapping software.
Explore every menu and setup option. Push every button a couple of times. Check out every book on the topic from your library or even buy one or two to keep in the camper.
Mount the devices on your bikes and get out there and pedal with them.
You want to be absolutely conversant with the devices and the underlying technology long before you are utterly dependent on them.
One thing you really want to know about your GPS unit is how long it works on a charge.

david boise ID

[staehpj1]

I have one major concern, however, and that is my ability to read the cue sheets while I am bicycling, since the type is quite small.

I didn't have my bifocal prescription in my riding glasses when I rode the Trans America and could generally not read directions while underway.  It really wasn't a major hardship other than that it annoyed my traveling companions sometimes when I stopped to look at the map.

As has been said you really make surprisingly few turns most of the time.  At least that was my experience on the TA and subsequent tours.  Lots of days I was on the same route all day.  Some other days the turns were few enough to remember the whole day.  There were a few towns here and there where I stopped a lot to read the map.

I did later get riding glasses with my bifocal prescription and while they are very nice they are not an absolute necessity.

[indyfabz]

How about making paper cue sheets in a type size that suits you?  It will be somewhat labor intensive in areas where there are numerous turns.  In others areas, there will be so few turns that you might get a week or two out of one 8.5x11 sheet of paper.  Buy a cue sheet holder (or make one out of a strip of velocro and an office binder clip), attach it to your bars and you're good to go.

If you PM me with your email address, I can give you an example in Word of a cue sheet for one of the club rides I lead.  The form has columns for leg distance, total distance and for a description of the cue.  You could use it to make your own.

[gordonharris912]

I have the Garmin Edge 705, but don't use the cadence sensor, so I use it identically to the 605.  I was skeptical when I got it, but it's the best cycling computer out there.  The 800 model is still a bit sketchy with uploaded files.   You can read about the Garmin Edge at http://www.bikenewengland.com/edge.html  and that site also has a lot of links to great cycling maps, gpx files and cue sheets for New England.

[CS60CXC]

Thanks for all the great posts.  I am new to posting to Forums and thought I would get an email for every reply.  I only received one email and when I checked the forum there were no other replies.  I am now off of work for last minute preparations and had time to look at the posts only to realize all this great information is now here.  We will use a combination of the suggestions and I am now more confident about not being lost!
CS

[DaveB]

How about a more optical approach?  There are "stick-on" plastic lenses that turn any pair of plain clear or sunglasses into bifocal reading glasses.  I've used them and they work well.  Here is a link from the maker:

http://optx2020.com/p-2-hydrotac-stick-on-bifocal-reading-lenses.aspx

You can get them in a variety of strengths to let you read at any comfortable distance while still keeping the distance section of you riding glasses unaltered.   Walgreens drug stores sell them here in the US.