Odos, the newsletter of RouteYou.com
Nr 3, March 2007, (c) Ontrack Navigation
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HiptriptipTrip-advice of the month |
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The route we would like to bring in the spotlight is the Amstel Gold Race. It's actually a set of routes: several versions of the Amstel Gold Race. This famous cycling classic of the Netherlands will be held next month A variety of lengths and difficulty level of this race is provided on this site. They all visit the hightlights of the race in the region. You can find the route as well in the group of GPSCyclingTour as of the group Waypoint Notter For more information, check out www.amstelgoldrace.nl. |
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FarosRouteYou-ers in the spotlight |
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The group De Katharen achterna gets this month the group-spotlight of Odos. The group plans a route from Belgium to Carcassonne in the south of France. They deserve some extra attention because we made them wait to bring France on-line with routing-support. But that is solved now! As menioned above, you can now route via the nicest-shortest-fastest route in France. With great interest, we will follow their activity on the site and their trip to Katharen-country. |
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KnuggetsThe route-knuggets of last weeks |
- What's the link between Footbal, King George, Belgium, Loppem, Maredous and King Albert?
- What's the link between judoka Gella Vandecaveye- Vaclav Havel - Tsaar Peter de Grote - Victor Hugo - Jacques Offenbach and sources
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Pytheas's ChoiceGlobespot of the month |
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Every month, we ask somebody here to be a modern Pytheas and tell us something about the most amazing place they have experienced, and explain why.
Globespot of the month: Middlepoint of Flandres, Suske and Wiske and a stuborn farmer in Opdorp
Source: Wouter De Smet
During our talk about new research-projects with Wouter De Smet, we got in to Monte Carlo simulations.
'I used this once for my calculation of the Middlepoint of Flandres, located in Opdorp! ', he told me.
I filled up his coffee-mug, hoping to get all the details of this story.
'We got this task as students Civil Engineering at the University of Leuven, by professor Van Der Waeteren. He calculated it first, because he wanted to get some press-exposure with this story ... And you can't afford a student-mistake when you go to the press. There were a few difficult and intereseting aspects linked to this calculation, such as how to deal with the small islands of Belgium in the Netherlands, known as Baarle-Hertog. I also investigated the effect what would happen to the locaiton of the Middlepoint if the country-border was available in a more detail. That's where I used a Monte Carlo simulation. You get a cloud of points of +/- 5-10m around the calcualted point.
The fact that the Middlepoint of Flandres is located in the middle of a field got a funny outcome. The village of Opdorp wanted to buy a piece of land to put the monument upon. The farmer didn't feel at all to sell his land, and definitely not to have a statue in the middle of his field. As a consequence, the result of the calculation got a bit adapted. The monument is moved a few hundreds of meters in the corner of a field.'
'The idea to calculate the Middlepoint of Flandres came up when professor Van Der Waeteren heard a story on the radio about erecting a monument for Belgium's famous cartoon characters 'Suske en Wiske'. They wanted to place this statue on the Middlepoint of Flandres, but they didn't know where this was. As such, after our exercise, this problem was solved. But no monument of Suske en Wiske got erected. A monument was put on this spot of a local artist'.
Read here more about the Middlepoint of Flandres
Pytheas of the month: Wouter De Smet
Wouter De Smet saw RouteYou growing and has indirectly supported this site a lot. His company Subsideaal (Stationsstraat, 153, Waasmusnter, Belgium) advises since a few years Flemish organisations how to set-up and submit R&D projects. This lead to two succesful studies by RouteYou, supported by the Flemish Institute for Science and Technology (IWT).
Who is/was Pytheas?
Pytheas, the Greek was one of the great travellers during Greek-Roman times. He travelled to all corners of the then known world. Click here, to find out more about the The Extraordinary Voyage of Pytheas the Greek
Let us know about your most amazing globe-spot you have ever experienced! Or alternatively, convince somebody else to be Pytheas of the month and ask them to create a route around the globespot!
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Nadar's ChoicePicture of the month |
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The selected picture of the month is of the RouteYou-group, Flanders Tour 2007 . |
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Gluring TuringTechy-spot of the month |
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Every month, we nominate a technical item here which is linked to RouteYou activities, directly or indirectly. We have named this item in honor of Alan Turing.
SMS your position to a site
| The Website www.POI66.com lets you SMS your posiiton. This way, you can leave a trace of your travel-path and inform the family and friends at home. And you can also reconstruct your path when you are back home, but forgot about it already! |
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ContactThe editors of the newsletter |
Mail us with a question, remark, suggestion or your story via info@routeyou.com .