Hey guys, I have just been able to take a look at the recording of the Facebook Live broadcast you did. I was especially keen to get the update about the upgrade v1.1 on the roadmap. It was good to get an early glimpse of what the timed waypoints will be like, and to really get to see the distinction between via waypoints, shaping waypoints and the easier to see in-between waypoints. It is looking good and I am keen to see the upgrade when it is ready, although I understand you have to make sure it all works perfectly, so I will be patient. Congratulations - this is looking really good. Gary.

Gary France
@Gary France
Gary, who formed and runs Harley-Davidson motorcycle tour operator Tour1 (www.tour1.com), is an experienced international rider, who has ridden in many countries. The list currently stands at…..
Andorra, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Croatia, Cuba, Czech Republic, England, France, Germany, Gibraltar, Holland, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Lichtenstein, Luxembourg, Morocco, New Zealand, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, United States, Wales.
A regular at many international Harley-Davidson events, as well as many in the UK, Gary is an active member of HOG. Gary mainly rides Street Glides, a Road King, plus he has a passion for custom motorcycles. He also rides an old Yamaha TTR 250 off-road.
In 2010, Gary rode 21,475 miles around the USA in a single four-and-a-half month road trip. He wrote a huge book about his journey called ‘France In America’. Search Google for 'France in America Harley'.
Best posts made by Gary France
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Congratulations MRA
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RE: Surprise launch: MRA Routeplanner 1.1. is now available for everyone
Break out the champagne!
The ability to add start times to a days route, add pause times that reflect the likely timing of the riding day and see what time you will arrive at each waypoint is brilliant. Congratulations MRA, for me this is a real game-changer that allows me to use MRA as a tour leader, organising many multi-day rides over the course of a year.
As you know Timo, I have been wanting / needing this for a long time and I am delighted you have been able to add it so early in the Road-Map. As soon as I do some testing to make sure I know how it works, I will then be at the stage where I can now start to use MRA for all of my tours and to start to convert all of my existing tours to MRA. This is just BRILLIANT. Christmas has come early!
I am delighted.
Best wishes,
Gary.
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RE: Starting time, ending time or both? (Timed Waypoints)
My take on this is both, but with one caveat. One of the really good things about MRA is its simplicity. If doing both options makes things a little too complicated both in terms of programming for MRA and in terms of usage, then only do the start time. Remember, the reason many of us want to move away from Basecamp is, it is too challenging to use partly because they tried to cram too much in.
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RE: MRA refuses Google adress retrieval price hike
@Timo-Martosatiman-MRA Weel done MRA. Clear, open, honest and transparent. What else could we ask for? It is terrific you are this open with your users.
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The Road Map is really good and praise is due.
Well, after waiting a while, the Road Map has been issued and this shows how MRA will be developed going forward. I have to congratulate MRA for publishing this. I really like the format and the content is clear and provides enough information to show what is coming, without being too detailed - the balance is exactly right.
It is a bold and unusual move for a software business to do this and I have to applaud this open way of communicating with users. Top marks!
Well done to all involved, it was just what is needed.
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I'm loving MRA now!
I have gone through a few changes of opinion about MRA. When I first saw it, I thought it was good, but for me it was missing a few things, so I couldn't use it. Like so many other people I posted my ideas and suggestions via this forum in the hope they might one day be incorporated into the software. I didn't hold back on my views!
I was then delighted to see my ideas and suggestions had been listened to and incorporated into the changes 'road map'. Even better, they must have been close to the top of the users suggestion list and well, I was very happy to see they were incorporated into one of (the first?) updates following the road map being made public.
Since then, I have started to use MRA for my route planning for my motorcycle tours and I have to say, I'm loving it now. It is easy to use, does exactly what I want and does it in a way that is logical and all makes sense. Bye Bye Basecamp and hello MRA!
It will take me a very long time (I do them one tour at a time) to convert all my Basecamp routes into MRA but that is now my intention. If I could give the MRA developers and staff a hug, I would.
Well done everyone.
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RE: CAST YOUR VOTE: MRA final RoadMap vote
Users have to be able to do a back-up of their route data. This is such valuable information to users, they need to make sure they can back this up. Once a year is nowhere near enough. I currently back mine up once a week.
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RE: Gary France, Motorcycle Tour Operator from the UK, saying hello
@Nick-Carthew I see the whole world as somewhere to be explored! I have previously ridden in many countries and this year I will be taking a tour to New Zealand for the first time. Looking forward to that!
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RE: MRA Video is now available!
@Guzzist said:
If I'm right, then MRA Video produces only a kind of dynamic 3D views of the track log on a map ( like Google Earth) combined with a kind of slide show of existing Fotos (moments) You Made in track log.
I agree that it seems to only produce a 3D view like in Google Earth. I was expecting something like a moving pointer that built the route taken, such as happens in Relive, which is dynamic and interesting to see, especially as the terrain changes and you get an impression of what the ride must have been like. Relive is also free! It is difficult to even see in MRA Video what was the direction of travel as it is simply a line on a 3D map where you can add some photos. Sadly, I have to say, it is not as good as I had hoped for.
Latest posts made by Gary France
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I'm loving MRA now!
I have gone through a few changes of opinion about MRA. When I first saw it, I thought it was good, but for me it was missing a few things, so I couldn't use it. Like so many other people I posted my ideas and suggestions via this forum in the hope they might one day be incorporated into the software. I didn't hold back on my views!
I was then delighted to see my ideas and suggestions had been listened to and incorporated into the changes 'road map'. Even better, they must have been close to the top of the users suggestion list and well, I was very happy to see they were incorporated into one of (the first?) updates following the road map being made public.
Since then, I have started to use MRA for my route planning for my motorcycle tours and I have to say, I'm loving it now. It is easy to use, does exactly what I want and does it in a way that is logical and all makes sense. Bye Bye Basecamp and hello MRA!
It will take me a very long time (I do them one tour at a time) to convert all my Basecamp routes into MRA but that is now my intention. If I could give the MRA developers and staff a hug, I would.
Well done everyone.
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RE: GPS Visualizer - get an overview of your route and share it with others
Thanks all, that is very useful and I have certainly learnt something new today. There obviously is a technical solution within MRA to what I want to do, but to be honest, as a relatively new user, I didn't really understand some of what you much more experienced guys are saying. I could probably work it our (and will) but isn't this a bit self-defeating? I mean having a solution that is quite a challenge to understand is okay for the real techies, but I think most users would want a much simpler way of doing this. Something like where you see the folder containing all your days routes, there could be a button you click on that pulls together all the routes and presents it as one map for you automatically. I think that would be much better. I agree that wouldn't be high on any priority list, but it would be nice to have.
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RE: GPS Visualizer - get an overview of your route and share it with others
@Hans-van-de-Ven-MRA-Master Well yes, you can, but first you need to join together all of the various day routes (which takes time) and are limited in the number of waypoints you can use. Then I don't think you can export it as a jpg, nor can you hide the waypoints if you want to. I would agree you can do it in MRA, but I think it is more work to achieve that in MRA. I did try to do this in MRA, but it didn't quite give me the results I needed. What would be great is if MRA in the future could automatically produce a map by combining together all of the routes in a folder, and be able to show / not show the waypoints. This would save a lot of time.
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GPS Visualizer - get an overview of your route and share it with others
Here is a tip MRA users might find useful...
Sometimes, you want to share a route that you have planned with other riders, but not as gpx files, but as a simple map so you can show the others where you will be going. You sometimes need this just as as an image of your route, because if you share a gpx file with others, that assumes they know how to import that files and it assumes they have the software to be able to do that. Not everyone does.
I have found a website that allows you to import a gpx file and convert it into a map that you can then share it as an image which you can email to your friends if they cannot open gpx files. This works perfectly alongside MRA.
Many of us plan longer rides one day at a time and the website also allows you to import up to 8 different gpx files to give an overview of the entire route.
I must stress that you can only create an image of your route, which cannot be adjusted.
The website is free to use and it is called GPS Visualizer https://www.gpsvisualizer.com
Over the years, I have found it extremely useful.
Gary, Tour1, Harley-Davidson motorcycle tours.
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RE: Revert to old icons for way points and waypoint management
I like the new waypoint icons. They are very simple to both understand and use, even just a day after being introduced. Gary.
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RE: Surprise launch: MRA Routeplanner 1.1. is now available for everyone
@Nick-Carthew Thanks, I struggled to find how to add a start time to an existing route at first, but it certainly is there, just as you describe it. Gary.
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RE: Surprise launch: MRA Routeplanner 1.1. is now available for everyone
Break out the champagne!
The ability to add start times to a days route, add pause times that reflect the likely timing of the riding day and see what time you will arrive at each waypoint is brilliant. Congratulations MRA, for me this is a real game-changer that allows me to use MRA as a tour leader, organising many multi-day rides over the course of a year.
As you know Timo, I have been wanting / needing this for a long time and I am delighted you have been able to add it so early in the Road-Map. As soon as I do some testing to make sure I know how it works, I will then be at the stage where I can now start to use MRA for all of my tours and to start to convert all of my existing tours to MRA. This is just BRILLIANT. Christmas has come early!
I am delighted.
Best wishes,
Gary.
-
Congratulations MRA
Hey guys, I have just been able to take a look at the recording of the Facebook Live broadcast you did. I was especially keen to get the update about the upgrade v1.1 on the roadmap. It was good to get an early glimpse of what the timed waypoints will be like, and to really get to see the distinction between via waypoints, shaping waypoints and the easier to see in-between waypoints. It is looking good and I am keen to see the upgrade when it is ready, although I understand you have to make sure it all works perfectly, so I will be patient. Congratulations - this is looking really good. Gary.
-
The Road Map is really good and praise is due.
Well, after waiting a while, the Road Map has been issued and this shows how MRA will be developed going forward. I have to congratulate MRA for publishing this. I really like the format and the content is clear and provides enough information to show what is coming, without being too detailed - the balance is exactly right.
It is a bold and unusual move for a software business to do this and I have to applaud this open way of communicating with users. Top marks!
Well done to all involved, it was just what is needed.
-
RE: Starting time, ending time or both? (Timed Waypoints)
My take on this is both, but with one caveat. One of the really good things about MRA is its simplicity. If doing both options makes things a little too complicated both in terms of programming for MRA and in terms of usage, then only do the start time. Remember, the reason many of us want to move away from Basecamp is, it is too challenging to use partly because they tried to cram too much in.