memorising maps/routes

[kiriyama]

Can anyone else here memorise maps? I know everyone's brains work differently but my friends always seem baffled by my ability to always know where I'm going. A quick glance at a map the night before and I'm fine.

I like to record my rides with gps. Currently use strava on my phone and bung my phone in my back pocket. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than a gps on my handlebars, especially one with the audacity to tell me where to go!

I'm I some sort of freak?

 

[winjim]

I can usually find my way around even if it's not the exact route I intended. A general sense of direction sort of thing. I often get back home and look at where I've actually been and find it was a few roads away from where I thought I was.

 

[Deleted member 1258]

Can anyone else here memorise maps? I know everyone's brains work differently but my friends always seem baffled by my ability to always know where I'm going. A quick glance at a map the night before and I'm fine.

I like to record my rides with gps. Currently use strava on my phone and bung my phone in my back pocket. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than a gps on my handlebars, especially one with the audacity to tell me where to go!

I'm I some sort of freak?

I've been riding the same roads for over 30 years and I generally know where I am, having said that there are still some roads round here I haven't ridden and I can get lost still, though only for a few miles until I come to somewhere I know. I haven't got GPS, if I'm doing an event I will normally look at the organizers route and then spend an evening or two with google street view learning the junctions and which way I turn.

 

[HLaB]

I tend to know an area rather than an exact route or have a sense of direction. I do have a garmin and do occasionally use its routeing features but for me its not that distracting.

 

[Ajax Bay]

OP - go and test yourself with 'mountain bike orienteering' or even foot orienteering. You'll soon discover how good your map memory is (or not). @User76 @Afnug JK this weekend - lovely weather too (not).

 

[biggs682]

Can anyone else here memorise maps? I know everyone's brains work differently but my friends always seem baffled by my ability to always know where I'm going. A quick glance at a map the night before and I'm fine.

I like to record my rides with gps. Currently use strava on my phone and bung my phone in my back pocket. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than a gps on my handlebars, especially one with the audacity to tell me where to go!

I'm I some sort of freak?

no you are not alone you ask my daughter , she can never understand how i can drive to the exact point without any real instructions or help from the sat nav

 

[Velominati]

Can anyone else here memorise maps? I know everyone's brains work differently but my friends always seem baffled by my ability to always know where I'm going. A quick glance at a map the night before and I'm fine.

I like to record my rides with gps. Currently use strava on my phone and bung my phone in my back pocket. I couldn't imagine anything more distracting than a gps on my handlebars, especially one with the audacity to tell me where to go!

I'm I some sort of freak?

Yes, in my book you are a freak,
I am, unfortunately one of those poor souls that suffers from an inability to remember routes, I'm the type of person that can get lost in a supermarket car park. If I cycle anywhere unknown to me, I tend to navigate by map and compass, some time ago I cycled across Salisbury Plain, GPS would have been absolutely useless up there. I spent the entire day finding my way around using the old fashioned method of referring to an OS map. It can be time consuming but the satisfaction of finding my way around without any modern aids was very rewarding. I wish that I had the ability to study a map and memorise a route but its never going to happen, sometimes I struggle to remember what I had for breakfast in the morning.

 

[Ajax Bay]

You allow a sat nav machine to display in your car, @biggs682 ?

 

[slowmotion]

If there's a complicated junction/turning on a route I don't know, I sometimes look at it in advance on Streetmap. It jogs the memory when you get there, and saves fumbling with a map.

 

[NorthernDave]

No you're not a freak. I do the same thing and reckon that I have at least a 90% success rate.
Even on the rare occasions that I had to refer to Garmin (or even worse, ask someone!) I'm usually somewhere near about.

 

[raleighnut]

I'm with @winjim on this, every time I go through Derby I seem to end up on different roads through the middle but always end up in the right place on the way out (the Ashbourne road, I think they keep changing the city round to confuse me)

 

[derrick]

I do not know all the roads, but i do know what direction i need to go in. Get lost every now and then but i never let on to anybody.
Have been leading club rides for a few years, Never had a complaint.

 

[biggs682]

You allow a sat nav machine to display in your car, @biggs682 ?

yes we have a sat nav used mainly to avoid traffic congestion where poss and route timing

 

[MiK1138]

Me, I can get lost between my front door and my bike, but a couple of guys i cycle with are great at remembering routes

 

[summerdays]

I love maps and so will pour over them... I have a sense of direction, not completely fallible. However I managed to prove myself the other week by knowing where we were going on the map, I occasionally checked we were in the right place but I was definitely the most clued up about where we were, which was good as I was the one at the back.... so they had to wait for me to find out the next direction