Modern Vespa

This weekend, four of the Quitters are going to get on our scooters and head North with a group of motorcycles. This will be a three-day trip, and the route takes us through some wonderful and scenic riding territory.

This is our official report thread. We'll be updating it live whenever we have a free moment and an internet connection.

Stay tuned...

Wait, which way is that again?

Why don't I have an emoticon for facepalm?

It looks something like this...

No, that doesn't look anything like a facepalm.

well... Turn your head to the left a bit an squint...

Kinda?

Jess, we need a popcorn eating emoticon for watching a ride report.

T minus 36ish hours for this mini mods vs. rockers

I'm pretty excited, gotta be honest.

Am I the only one who thought that sentence was going to end differently?

Have a great time, guys. Looking forward to the ride report updates!

I suppose I meant, "tilt", didn't I...

Yeah, me too. The last two weeks has all been kind of focused on getting to this weekend, with bike at the ready.

Jeez, I gotta go pack.

Packed

So when are you guys leaving?

A few friends and I are heading up north too. Prolly only get as far as Ft. Bragg.

Maybe we'll see you guys on Hwy 1.

packed?!?!

Fuck. I should pack.

Packed

Kickstands up at 9am. Should be at Skaggs around 10ish. Look for a group of 4 scooters and 5 MCs. I'm equally excited about the Humboldt county fair!

Is that on a sheet?
Thanks for reminding me to get money...

horse racing, son! Horse racing!!!

- thanks Benny

Well, if you see this stripey bike:



Or this shiny shiny bike:


Then stop and say Hi.

Hmmm, does Steve still have that stylish Tigger jacket from the Zeitgeist bouncer? If yes, we'll go the other way.

I think the bouncer jacket was returned.

Decisions

Did you know...

I had that problem, too. I tried to load two at once and ended up with one of them named the same as a pre-existing route, but clearly the wrong route for that name. Or something.

Seems like a bug. I ended up loading them one at a time as well.

well I'm sure all my routes are wrong and shit from trying to load them about 10 billion times. I look forward to my confusion and getting lost.

seems like it'll be a gas.

Not to worry. You'll run out of battery power on your non-hardwired Zumo long before you get lost.

Popcorn?

I've loaded multiple routes on my Zumo 450 without problems. What are you guys doing to load them? I just drag the gpx files into the appropriate folder in the Zumo.

I did it by hitting the Send button in Road Trip, which copies it somewhere into a temporary folder. The next time you boot up the unit (without the USB cable attached), it sees the temp folder and asks if you want to import the new routes and/or waypoints. It's at this point that things seem to go south.

I manually drag the gpx files into the correct folder on the Zumo when it is in USB mass storage mode and have not had problems with the Zumo loading multiple routes at once.

Does it still require an import step after it comes out of USB mass storage mode, or are the routes already in place once you boot up?

When you boot up, it still needs to import, it will list the newly found files and you have to choose which to import. Is that the step that you think your Zumo is having problems with?

That's what I thought, but perhaps it's the step where Road Trip copies the data -- presumably into the same folder -- that's the real culprit.

No matter. I'm leaving in a bit. If the maps aren't right, then I'll be winging it.

Let's just all agree that Garmin software sucks donkey balls.

If someone had an easy app to transfer Google map routes to the Garmin, I'd buy it in a heartbeat.

yes. Lots of yes.

In the mean time I should pack

Michael, someone sent me a link to a little app that converts the Googlemaps routes into a gpx file. It works well and then I drop the gpx file into the Zumo.
There is a way to do it in Mac that involves converting the GoogleMaps route to a GPX file and transferring to your unit, here's a description that might make you think twice...

1. Generate directions from point A to point B in Google Maps.
2. Adjust route by dragging it around in Google Maps.
3. Use the gmaptogpx bookmarklet found here http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/gmaptogpx/ to create .gpx file content.
4. Select the "Full" option at the top to extract all possible data out of the route.
5. Copy the text generated by gmaptogpx and paste into a .TXT file (note: if using TextEdit make sure preferences are set to save new documents as Plain Text instead of Rich Text).
6. Save and replace the .TXT suffix with .GPX .
7. Copy it into the Zumo's gpx folder.
8. Eject the Zumo and start it up to import the data.
9. Rename the newly imported route in the Zumo (it will be called "Google Map Route" or something like that).

Here's my SPOT Messenger tracking page. If it says there aren't any messages, don't panic -- I haven't turned on my SPOT yet.