Excellent info
@Jaeger! If/when you want to give your GPS masterclass (for DSBC members only of course), I'll be there!
Yeah, a classroom here at the East Kootenay end of the Redding Creek Pass, filled to bursting with students who just returned from riding to Crawford Bay for brunch and then back.
The world of GPS for riding has gotten as wide as what is considered dualsport riding and dualsport motorcycles. I.e. there's guys like me on my WR250R, essentially a gravel road tourist wandering the FSRs, ninja camping along the way with my flyfishing stuff in my bags for a few days, to the guys riding supertankers of 1000+ccs, to the guys riding all the gnarly single track. Definitely a wide world out there.
Generally speaking, other than for those who want to map routes and points of interest as they ride (to add to their map geodatabase and/or share with others) for which an actual GPS is still the best, I think GPS apps running on tablets of various sizes are probably going to fit the most people the best for the time being. And with ever more companies getting into the BRMB model of selling detailed topo maps for gravel road touring, hunting, backpacking, etc - all running on an Android (maybe iPad) device with a big enough screen to be really useful - I suspect it's going to just keep getting better.
For the foreseeable future the biggest problem, I think, is there is no assurance that the maps you are using on either your actual GPS or a GPS/map app on your phone or tablet is accurate.
The hypsography, streams, lakes, etc - the actual geographical features that we ride over and through doesn't change very much and doesn't change very often. That mapping is generally pretty accurate.
The cultural data i.e. the roads, bridges, etc changes regularly, and especially features like FSRs, mining exploration roads, what is fenced private property and what is not. So the primary sources for the shapefiles that topo maps are created from are governments. In Canada, the 1:50k NRCAN series comes from the federal government. I doubt that many people in the recreational mapping biz pay provinces like BC what they demand for the price of a single tile of 1:20k TRIM mapping, even though the BC government keeps TRIM fairly current. Other sources are asking lumber companies and other private entities if they will share their data on their roads, etc, or sell it at a reasonable price.
The problem with that is those sources may not have new roads in their geodatabase. And they may have roads in their geodatabase that no longer exist. Many of the local G series tiles of 1:50k NRCAN topo mapping haven't had the cultural data updated since late in the 70's or early 80's. A lot of FSRs, for example, can be built and others decommissioned over 40 years. Or around here, simply overgrown with alders to the point of no longer being passable. And lumber companies, mining companies, etc. don't always have all their road infrastructure up to date as well.
And from that it follows that individual .gpx tracks that can be downloaded along with metadata for the person who submitted it might be just as valuable as the map itself. Even that is problematic to a lesser extent. A .gpx track uploaded to a geodatabase of dualsport maps might be invalid a couple of years later. For example, about ten years ago I uploaded the .gpx track for the Ram Creek/Lussier River ride from Kimberley to the exit onto the highway in Kootenay National Park, complete with pics, to DualSportMaps.coms interactive map based geodatabase. Shortly after I had done that, there was quite a spring flood on the Ram Creek portion, washing out a portion of the road. It was still somewhat passable by two wheels and quad, but not for most locals who used that road in their pickups, SUVs, etc for hunting, fun, etc.
But the BC government's solution to repairing that FSR, was to instead take the far cheaper solution: they permanently closed the road to motorized traffic. There is no other road nearby Ram Creek that you can divert to in order to cross over into the Lussier to do that ride. About the best you can do is pop out of the bush at Skookumchuck, ride the slab until just outside of Canal Flats, and then ride back in on the White Swan Lake road to pick up the track again. The BC government has been closing long existing FSRs rather than repairing them for a long time now, and every time they do that, dual sport riders, hunters, back road roamers, etc lose more and more access to the back country. The ones who suffer the least impact are the ATV crowd - as long as the government doesn't accompany decommissioning with a prohibition on motorized access.
Anyways, somewhere out there I'm sure the .gpx track for Kimberley-Ram Creek-Kootenay National Park that I posted for others wanting to ride in the southeast corner of BC is still out there in the wild, either being shared or available for download. I can't find it to delete it, or at least attach a note that Ram Creek FSR is permanently blocked. So some guy comes into this area with his collection of downloaded topo maps and that .gpx file. Only when he gets to the closed section of Ram Creek does he realize that it is no longer a through road. And if he isn't familiar with this area, whichever end he is coming from, he doesn't have any idea of what choices he has after that "Now what do I do?" moment.
Some would call it part of the adventure of dual sport riding. For those with relatively small gas tanks on their bikes who are always aware of what they have left for range and where the next gas is, a dead end like that can be a pain in the ass or even worse.
All kinds of things to keep in mind as far as GPS, mapping, and tracks are concerned.
On the other hand, there was nothing but NRCAN 1:50k maps and better yet local knowledge prior to 1993. That would be the same year that Berniers-Lee (or whatever his name) developed the WWW and the US military made their GPS constellation operational (that military-industrial complex supposedly screwing us again...).
The first GPS I ever held was a military Magellan issued to me on a deployment to Croatia/Bosnia in 1993. About the size of two very large building bricks, and often it couldn't even get a signal, but when it worked we were sure grateful to have it to help us avoid walking into the minefields they casually threw everywhere during their battles and war. Now you have a better GPS and capabilities in your cell phone, which probably uses the Russians GLANOSS constellation as well as the US's GPS constellation.
Anyways, if I'm going to try and fool a few Westslope cutties on the Mary before it gets too hot, I better get out of the house and down to the river.
