Basic roadbook navigation
First we need to talk a bit about safety. It is up to YOU to follow motor vehicle laws and signs on the road. You are responsible for your own safety. Our roadbooks take you on public roads and private trails. The roadbooks cannot be relied on to tell you of all hazardous situations you will encounter. Be aware of road conditions and hazards around you. Be careful with looking down at your device while riding. It is ok to stop in a safe location off the road to look at the roadbook. If you have to turn around to go back to a previous note, look around and make the turn safely. Be careful of oncoming traffic.
If you are riding with others, help each other figure it out for the first few notes. Have fun out there!
Following the roadbook
A roadbook looks intimidating when you first see it. There can be a lot of information in each note. But once you understand what the info means in each section of a note, it quickly becomes second nature to understand.
Take a look at the example roadbook above.
Each note has 3 main boxes going horizontally across the page.
The left box (Distance Box) contains the distance traveled in KM from the starting point. You will also see an interval distance to the next note as well as the number of the note. Waypoints will be indicated in the left box too. A Distance Box shaded in green indicates it is within .3 km of the previous one. If the Distance Box is shaded in blue, the note contains a WPM or WPE. If it is shaded in red, it contains a WPS.
The center box (Tulip Box) contains the “tulip”. The “tulip” is a drawing of where you will be and what you will see. It contains as much or as little information as the roadbook author chose to share. The actual location of the note is marked with the tic mark. You may see an intersection or the road crossing a bridge or some other landmarks. The Tulip Box may contain other symbols or text information related to the location to help you find your way. Pay attention to the lines for the roads or trails in the tulip as they tell you what road types you will see.
The right box (After Box) contains symbols and info about the route between the location of the current note and the next note. The bottom of the After Box may contain a yellow highlighted CAP heading (indicating the CAP you will be on as you are leaving the tic mark in the tulip) and/or a GPS location for the note.
To follow the roadbook, you start at a set location where you reset (or zero out) your tripmeter. You will follow the road, trail or track you are on until you are told differently in the roadbook. When your tripmeter and the note match, follow the directions in that note’s tulip. Verify you leave the location defined by the tic mark in the tulip at the correct CAP shown in the bottom left corner of the After Box of the note. If you see the CAP somewhere in the Tulip Box, it indicates you should be on that CAP at the arrow of the tulip. Look at the After Box for the note to see if there is any information about the section between this point and the next note. Ride along the trail or road until your tripmeter matches the distance in the next note in the roadbook. Once your tripmeter matches the distance in the next note, you do what that note says and head off to the next one. You do that a bunch of times and eventually you make it to the end of the route and hopefully a cold beverage.