I've decided that a goal this year is to increase my square size (currently 8x8), but there are one or two problem squares. For example there is one NE of Drem: Has anyone managed to get there without riding through someone's farmyard?
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Veloviwer: Difficult explorer squares
(175 posts)- Started 4 years ago by stiltskin
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Posted 4 years ago #
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I've not managed to get into that square, no.
Strava's heat map shows that at least one person has done so, though. Quite possibly someone who lives there, of course. They also seem to have a personal BMX track
https://www.strava.com/heatmap#14.31/-2.76801/56.01976/blue/ride
Posted 4 years ago # -
A quick dart around the perimeter of the field from the B1377?
Posted 4 years ago # -
There's one on Auchencorth Moss which is literally a peat farm. Not sure how I'm going to get it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Sometimes you just have to roll up your trousers and get muddy feet.
Isn't that right @paddyirish?
For the Drem square I would probably do as @Murun says although there is also the path at the north west on Veloviewer mapping which skirts the farmyard rather than going directly through it.
Posted 4 years ago # -
To get my square up a notch to 13x13, my crunch square is off Fala at Cowbraehill, with easier squares to add east or west. But I'm more aiming at the total number of squares and perhaps the max cluster.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Does anyone know if the square north of Fisherrow is accessible without taking to the water?
Posted 4 years ago # -
I did that by walking across the sands at low tide at the eastern end of the square. You'll need a gps to work out whether you've made it. The sands are a wee bit damp but it's a key square.
Posted 4 years ago # -
It is, yeah, although you'll want to avoid high tide.
EDIT: I was less methodical than @amir. I went (by chance) at low tide and just walked as far as I could go in a roughly straight line from Mountjoy Terrace. You only need to go ~100m, but at low tide you can go almost half a mile out.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Don't scare the birds though :) They get enough hassle from the dogs and stray humans
Posted 4 years ago # -
Thanks, It sounds a lot simpler than @paddyirish's knee deep quicksand square of Dalmeny.
Posted 4 years ago # -
Didn't manage the one NE of Drem, but have only done one ride out that way. Fisherrow was fine at low tide- you can get 2 for 1 easily there.
Have got a couple of muddy feet ones - the one NE of Snab Point and also the one E of Hound Point.
The one that was hardest to get for me was the one South of Rosyth Europark- there is a tiny part of the NE of the square that is outside the port fence - it may have been 4 attempts, possibly due to my phone not being sensitive enough.
When I get back on my bike, I have a few tricky ones targetted. I want to get one S of Torryburn and 2 squares at Leuchars Air Base. Keen to try taking to the water to fill all the inner Forth squares W of the bridge.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I know the Rosyth one. It took me 2 attempts. First time I was too quick and either went through the square without registering a data point or my phone and watch were recording slightly differently.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I tried going through en route to somewhere else and the data points weren't recording. I ended up getting the tile by knowing exactly where I had to reach, stopping and turning around.
Posted 4 years ago # -
I stood with my device against the fence for a minute to ensure the record. Probably just as well security didn't spot me.
Posted 4 years ago # -
About 10 days ago, chose an early morning low tide as an opportunity to pick up the tile due South of Torryburn.
Got knee deep in mud getting across a river bed, losing shoes twice and falling over once. Once past that had to paddle knee deep into the sea to pick up the tile.
Found the riverbed was avoidable by choosing a different route back. All good fun!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Great work. Puts my few miles of gravel on road wheels up above Falkirk into perspective.
Posted 3 years ago # -
IANA Veloviewerer, nor a collector of things, so the notion of tilebagging is somewhat foreign to me (though I can look on Garmin Basecamp to see where I've ever been when I had my GPS running, and decide where I might go next). But it seems faintly reckless trying to reach tiles that are borderline inaccessible for safety or proprietorial reasons.
Back in my day, we went Geohashing*, but it was always subordinate to whether or not it was feasible, rather than possible.
* not geocaching
Posted 3 years ago # -
I picked up the Fisherrow tile a couple of days ago. I may have looked a bit odd wandering around on the sands in the pissing rain.
My nice bike-run-bike in the Pentlands the other day was in search of tiles too. I have several overlapping 13x13 squares. I, too, need to investigate Auchencorth Moss. I'm hoping I can take a Right Of Responsible Access to it somewhere. That actually bothers me less than cycling through a farmyard (which is not covered by access rights in the same way, I think.)
I can see Arellcat's point, but a lot of people climb the Inaccessible Pinnacle just because it is on a List, and that is rather more dangerous than getting a bit muddy. I'm not getting the impression that PaddyIrish put himself at risk from the incoming tide, and I certainly didn't.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@fimm A firebreak in the forest takes you quite close to the square I imagine you need. Rough walking but doable after a dry spell.
Choose your time well - I was there at 7am on a weekday and the peat farm had already started work. Am going to go back on a Sunday...
Posted 3 years ago # -
I took a trip along various tracks and up some hill climbs in the Lammermuirs and ticked off more squares to take my cluster down to Cockburnspath.
The trickiest square, however, was on the road over the hills from Garvald. The road goes through the corner of a square but as I discovered last time I rode it you can easily fail to register a visit as you are in and out within a second. This time I stopped and thought I had spent a while in the square, only to discover that I had only just taken the square with a single point inside it. The Veloviewer map doesn't even show the square as being hit.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@acsimpson, that was great work, thought you might have had something like that in mind from your strava feed. I spent time in Norfolk and built a minicluster there. More to work on there in terms of a max square. One square was obtained by reaching my phone over a garden hedge right on the corner and other off road ones were picked up during a direct path 'walk of shame' across farm tracks.
Further East managed to pick up a couple of water only access tiles whule canoeing on the Broads
Posted 3 years ago # -
Oh yes, I had a fun ride out bagging tiles the other day:
https://www.strava.com/activities/3746179174The two tiles in Deepsyke Forest were easily gained by a pleasant sandy track, while I got the other Auchencorth Moss tile by going up the track from the A701 towards the ruin at Rosehill.
I then wandered into a field to get a tile to the east of the A702, before having fun taking the track across Spurlens Rigg to Cockmuir. I found that the track from Cockmuir to Kingside was a bog, so I put on the fell shoes I'd brought along in case of such things and splashed my way across to pick that square up. I think it would be easier from Kingside. Then I wussed out of trying to take the track all the way to Tweeddaleburn and came back to the road once I'd got the square.
I did get my 14x14 square!!!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Nice!
I was until now blissfully considering that Auchencorth Moss square as completely inaccessible...
Posted 3 years ago # -
@Frenchy the Rosehill one? There's an adequate track as far as the farmyard at Blaircochrane, which is good and wide. Then I think I lifted the bike over a gate and pushed it up a field, and then walked the last little bit where it got muddier.
I always ask myself "If I wanted to walk through here in order to get to a hill, would I do it?" and I felt that going that way was fine from that point of view. "I want to take photos of the scenic ruin at Rosehill" is a reasonable reason to go there, IMHO.
Posted 3 years ago # -
This is a great video from someone tiling in Shetland- some pretty rugged country to reach an offshore island by a stunning causeway.
Someone has achieved a C2C cluster in England across the pennines no less.
Rideeverytile club in Strava and this forum very good for some fun tales.
Posted 3 years ago # -
I only discovered the delights of tile bagging about a month ago and realised I had a paltry 8x8 square, which I increased fairly rapidly to 10x10. There are a fair few tiles I can aim for which will increase it further but I had been put off by the thought of doing a bike/walk/bike type thing as I thought that would be a bit daft. Reading this thread however has identified that it isn't daft at all, or at least, if it is daft, I am not alone.
Interesting to see how others get into tiles too. Some had appeared impossible, but glad to see this is not the case after all. I shall aim for 12x12 during August!
Posted 3 years ago # -
Kenny, what bike are you riding? I don't recall any squares in my 13x13 which I had to walk to get to. 14x14 is different though as it will go deep into the Pentlands.
Posted 3 years ago # -
@paddyirish, pushing 8 Kms through a peat bog. They seemed happy. Rescued sheep, dive bombed by Skuas.
The guy on the flat bars is wearing a Torm jersey. Made in Kent so has travelled as far as it could and still be in UK territorial waters.
Posted 3 years ago #
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