New Travels and Stats Discussion

[mapcat]

Last week I had Thursday and Friday off, so I took a 4-day trip to complete the new segment of I-49, and thereby finish the interstate highway system (not counting paper interstates). Having the extra time allowed me to go out of the way a bit to clinch three US highways (64, 160, and 270) and pick up some more US mileage in Kansas and Oklahoma as a bonus to bring my completion percentage for that system up to 89.76%.

Overall mileage increase: 1,370
New clinched routes: 24 (the interstate and US routes mentioned above, plus 11 auxiliary US routes, a few state routes in Missouri and Kansas, and the Kickapoo Turnpike in Oklahoma)

[michih]

Here's the 100k club. Active mileage is more North American-centric.

Code: [Select]

Rank Username ActiveMiles Active% PreviewMiles Preview%
1 mapcat 193715.29 31.44% 197206.58 23.91%
2 oscar 189021.63 30.68% 201423.44 24.42%
3 vespertine 168141.30 27.29% 171585.30 20.80%

It will take another year or two, but I hope to crack 100k before long. 90K will happen this year. Admittedly, it is much easier in North America.

This post is "to blame" that I traveled almost all European countries in the last five years, and developed so many additional systems throughout Europe to have more routes to travel!

I have clinched 101,002.42 miles now, thereof only 1,450 miles in USA and Canada. Almost 100,000 miles just in Europe!

Unfortunately, I won't pass the 100,000-miles-in-Europe-only milestone soon because my car is broken now 
I bought the car in early 2016 and it fucked up just the very next day after I reached the 100,000 miles. Head gasket. I had a rental car and could continue my travel when the engine was repaired. I picked up my car and drove just another 100 miles when it broke down again. A cylinder of the engine has a crack and I either need a new car (lead times for a new car are currently up to one year, used car are currently rare and expensive) or a new engine. I have no info about engine lead times yet. Hell, it's already broken with just 178,000 miles

Nevertheless, thank you for the motivation

My personal stats per year:

End of 2013:   9,615 mi   
End of 2014:  16,818 mi = + 7,203 mi
End of 2015:  19,169 mi = + 2,351 mi
End of 2016:  36,983 mi = +17,814 mi (~5,500mi deub system added)
End of 2017:  58,190 mi = +21,207 mi (~2,500mi deubyst, deubwl, deuhel, deunwl, deurpl, deusll systems added)
End of 2018:  70,811 mi = +12,621 mi (~400mi remaining deuxxl systems added)
End of 2019:  84,520 mi = +13,709 mi
End of 2020:  92,967 mi = + 8,447 mi
2021-10-24: 101,002 mi = + 8,035 mi

I have clinched five regions now: Berlin (145mi), Bremen (65mi), Hamburg (143mi), Liechtenstein (13mi) and Malta (110mi). I've also almost clinched Baden-Württemberg (96%) with more than 9,000mi but there are some road closures till Mid 2022. My Bavarian mileage (almost 14,000mi) also rapidly grew during the pandemic but it's only at 78% so far.
In addition, I have 17 systems clinched. I have reclinched chea and deua this year, and there are another 3 systems to be reclinched. I also try to clinch the (non-Autobahn) federal German road system (deub with almost 23,000mi) but I'm only at 67%. Still a long way to go


btw: The "100k club" has 19 members now. aaroads also joined it last week.

[yakra]

Ugh, that sucks about the car.

Finding a throttle cable for an `86 Volvo Turbodiesel is damn near impossible.
Might be able to make a DIY one out of a bike brake cable... grumble.
Thankfully, walking or biking takes care of my transportation needs.

[mapcat]

Congratulations on the milestone, but really sorry to hear about the car.

[oscar]

btw: The "100k club" has 19 members now. aaroads also joined it last week.

Now up to 20 (don't know who is the new member, unless it's you). But it'll drop back to 19 with tonight's update, since one of the 20 is my ovoss_old.list file (rough display of my travels up to mid-2010), which I'm finally deleting as no longer needed for my "round 2" county-counting project.

[michih]

btw: The "100k club" has 19 members now. aaroads also joined it last week.

Now up to 20 (don't know who is the new member, unless it's you). But it'll drop back to 19 with tonight's update, since one of the 20 is my ovoss_old.list file (rough display of my travels up to mid-2010), which I'm finally deleting as no longer needed for my "round 2" county-counting project.

I didn't count ovoss_old.

[michih]

Congratulations on the milestone, but really sorry to hear about the car.

Thanks. The repair was expensive, but I have my car back! I took a 7 hours train ride to pick up my car in the north of Germany. The return trip was a 7 hours car ride including a little detour for 27 new TM miles

[Markkos1992]

Congratulations on the milestone, but really sorry to hear about the car.

Thanks. The repair was expensive, but I have my car back! I took a 7 hours train ride to pick up my car in the north of Germany. The return trip was a 7 hours car ride including a little detour for 27 new TM miles

I have wondered at times how I would react if I was told I could not drive anymore.  It would be a much worse reaction than any car repair or getting a new car I think.  Thankfully all seems to be well on your end.

[Markkos1992]

So while the damage on my car has not been fixed yet, I felt comfortable enough to finally get some more Pittsburgh clinching in (and of course to reclinch PA 576).  Oddly enough, this ended up being a trip entirely in PA.

Clinched:  US 220 BUS (Bedford, PA), PA 31, PA 576 (reclinch due to recent extension), I-279 (PA), US 19 TRUCK (Pittsburgh, PA), PA 288, PA 65, PA 351 TRUCK (Ellwood City), PA 28, PA 60, I-579 (PA), PA 121, PA 310, PA 756, PA 867, PA 868, PA 829
New Mileage: PA 655, PA 56, PA 281, PA 601, PA 381, PA 711, PA 136, PA 51, US 119 (PA), PA 819, PA 201, I-79 (PA), US 19 (PA), PA 68, PA 168, PA 108, PA 351, PA 910, PA 50, PA 66, US 322 (PA), PA 36, PA 271, PA 403, PA 160, PA 26

[Ib3kii]

This whole year I've been focused on finishing Wisconsin (finally) and knocking out the great state of Illinois. I am still in college so I took many weekends and went H.A.M. on central Illinois. These trips have bumped my rank up from the upper 50s all the way to rank 22. One weekend alone I drove for about 47 hours (over three days), only taking breaks to sleep in rest areas during the daytime. I have two more trips until Illinois is finished, as I live in Milwaukee the southern section will take 57 and a half hours to complete, and the other area will take about 30 hours.

[Bickendan]

Have a gig up in Longview, so I picked up the missing segment of WA 411 between Kelso and Castle Rock, and planning on grabbing WA 505 tonight.

[oscar]

I returned earlier this week from a two-week road trip to Arkansas and Louisiana. With less daylight as winter approaches, and having to deal with the stress of the seasons, that is likely to be my last significant road trip until my usual mid-winter trip to Florida.

I did a little state route clinching in Pennsylvania and Ohio on the outbound journey, and some in Ohio on the return leg. Then more US and state route clinching in southern Illinois. I also added the rest of Illinois' counties to my "round 2" totals, making that the 31st state I've re-completed since my 2010 "round 1" completion of all the U.S. counties. More "round 2" counties were added in other states as well.

From there, I made my way to southwestern Missouri and northwestern Arkansas, to clinch the newest segment of I-49. Then some rapid-fire clinching of U.S routes in Arkansas, Louisiana, and Mississippi, including US 49 (with both west and east branches), US 171, US 190, US 371, US 425, and the Arkansas part of US 71. From there, I adjusted my itinerary back home to clinch US 641 (instead of US 43, as initially planned), and the Kentucky part of US 68 (only missing about 100 US 68 miles in Ohio), to set up my re-clinch of the recently-relocated US 35 in West Virginia.

As a result, I've traveled just over 90% of the mainline U.S. route mileage (usaus), though that number falls below 90% if business and other bannered U.S. routes (usausb) are added in.

[Markkos1992]

I took advantage of having a rental car to do some more central PA clinching Saturday.  I did drive through State College, but that was at 9 AM before traffic became an issue for those heading to Happy Valley to watch Penn State cream Rutgers again.  I finished my clinching by seeing what was left of Centralia (which was just four-wheelers, and some guiderail graffiti on the southside).  I did enter MD three times along PA 928, PA 655, and PA 26 to immediately turnaround since these routes do not become MD Routes.

Clinched:  PA 655, PA 928, PA 484, PA 731, PA 26, PA 150, PA 64, PA 973, PA 864, PA 42
New Mileage: PA 550, PA 44, PA 287, PA 87, US 220 (PA), PA 118, PA 487

[vdeane]

I don't normally post updates here, especially for daytrips, but this one is special.  Today I took a clinching trip to southwestern Chautauqua County from my parents house, despite the weather.  I went up I-390 north, looped over NY 390 to exit 22, south to exit 19, north again to exit 21, and south again to exit 19 to fully experience the new southbound configuration of the 390/490 interchange.  After that, I took I-490 west to the Thruway and headed west, my first time out west since the AET project was recently completed (for Ripley, the first time since it started, even!).  I got off at exit 61 and took Shortman Road and US 20 to NY 76 (clinching a reference route in the process, since I already had it north of there).  This is where I was certainly not impressed with Region 5's plowing effort, and was dealing with snow-covered roads for the next couple hours.  I took NY 76 south, NY 474 east, looped NY 426 to the PA border, looped NY 474 to the PA border, and took NY 426 north.  The entire time I was averaging 30-40 mph, sometimes down to 20 or below, trying to avoid skids (mostly but not always successfully, though I only had one of significance, fortunately with nobody else around).  From Findley lake, I looped NY 426 to it's other end at the PA border (in many ways, it's really a PA route that happens to dip though NY long enough to change shields, much like NY 440 in the other side of the state).  I then looped NY 430 to the PA border, and noticed that it seems like PennDOT was doing a better job of plowing than NYSDOT!  Interesting.  I took NY 430 east, and around Mayville (at noon) the snow on the road finally melted and I was able to drive normally again.  It sure felt like I was making good time at 55 after so long on snow-covered roads!  I looped Fluvanna Avenue (former NY 430, before a recent re-route) and completed NY 430, taking NY 394 east.  I stopped at the Wegmans east of Jamestown for a quick lunch and also finished my Christmas shopping nearby as well.  I took a slight detour to loop the remainder of NY 474, noting how much better it was from just a few hours ago (and noticing the reference markers all said "74"; it must have been renumbered around the same time NY 73 was split into NY 73 and NY 74; on NY 394, they all said "17" or "17J").  After that, I resumed taking NY 394 west and hopped back on the Thruway to Rochester.

Now, what makes this one special?  Well, not only did I finish Chautauqua County or Region 5, this also finished off the TM-clinchable routes in NY for me, making me the third TM user to finish it (right now TM is only showing one person with NY done, but I'm sure the other is only showing as less than 100% due to changes that happened after he entered all his data for NY).  That said, there are a few notes on some routes that may make finishing it debatable, depending on one's clinching standards:
-US 11: This is by far the most egregious note.  I haven't actually crossed the Canadian border here.  I've gone as far as is possible without going through customs and then turned around, which unfortunately is US 2.  This isn't the only route I've turned around before the border on, but the others have customs closer to the border and have better sight lines.  I have at least virtual clinched it with the real-time roadwaywiz video, but when or if I'll be able to clinch it properly is unknown.  IIRC, at least one other person has claimed US 11 in NY clinched prior to crossing there properly, so it's not completely unprecedented.
-NY 9A: Going by signage, there's technically a short piece between Battery Park and where FDR Drive comes in.  It's not inventoried as part of NY 9A, so I'm currently counting it as clinched under "one point per interchange".  What TM will ultimately do about this is unknown; claiming a sight clinch is hard there as I was going NB when I clinched it, rather than SB.  Might need to find an excuse to go back, depending on how TM handles it.  Might need to anyways, if the group trying to remove FDR Drive gets their way.
-Long Island Parkways: I treated a couple of these parkways similar to border crossings.  In both cases, I've driven at least part of the segment (given the way TM sets points and the interchange configurations) and had a sight clinch to the booths.  Then there's Sunken Meadow State Parkway, which is inventoried as ending at the booths (in fact, the road in the park isn't inventoried as a public road at all, unlike the Bay Parkway, where the remainder acts as a local extension of the reference route); signage is ambiguous as to what actually occurs.  I've never been on the road in the park here, but fortunately, it doesn't appear likely that TM will re-extend the route to include it.
-NY 206: Technically, the route goes to the WB ramps, while I've only used the EB ramps here.  TM has it one point per interchange, and I've probably at least sight clinched the rest.
-NY 232: Similar to NY 206, it technically goes to the NB ramps; the road to the SB ramps is a reference route.  TM has it one point per interchange.  I think I might have looped this portion (I used the SB ramps when clinching it, I'm pretty sure), but I don't recall for certain.

[clong]

Made it into my 35th state, Iowa, over the weekend. Next closest state I have not visited is Wisconsin at nearly an 11 hours drive.

Also clinched MO I-35 en route.

10 states in a week from the Saturday before Thanksgiving to the Saturday after - AL, TN, KY, IN, GA, SC, NC, MO, IA, KS.