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POLICIES AND PROCEDURES
Individual GPS Units

On Road RoutesIn Town RoutesSecurity


Navigating via individual GPS units is a groundbreaking, cutting edge, state of the art tool for following cycling routes. We strongly believe it is the wave of the future for cycling events and we will continue to incorporate, support, and encourage and the use of GPS technology on all of our events.

Since 2006 we have been widely incorporating GPS technology into our navigation systems and now heavily rely on it ourselves. We use the actual GPS track points we take in person to define all of our master routes and we use these master GPS routes as the actual route on our road maps. In fact, the routes printed on our paper maps are exact same as the ones loaded onto individual GPS units since we generate our paper maps directly from our GPS mapping software. We also use the master GPS routes to determine the specific distances listed on our cue sheets, acquire elevation data, and generate our elevation and gross climb profiles.

On Road Routes
We will use individual GPS units to support all on road routes, including the route itself and also all on road service locations (rest stops, starting and ending locations, main lodging sites, supported hotels, etc.)

Even if we do not paint the entire route, we will still paint road markings and put orange flags up at a limited number of places on the route where it can be tricky and confusing to follow on the GPS, such as at triple points where the route does not proceed in only one direction and can become confusing to follow, such as at the start/end of options and doublebacks or where the route crosses over itself. So when you reach one of these points look on the ground for our road markings to get more information about how to properly proceed.

In Town Routes
Information about in town routes and services (grocery store, swimming pool, etc.) will only be provided on paper cue sheets and maps and will NOT be provided for any GPS unit. This is because the paper cue sheets and maps contain pertinent information about the in town service locations such as phone numbers, hours of operation, etc. that cannot be loaded into the GPS units. In addition, the numerous overlapping routes in each stopping town can easily become very difficult to follow on a GPS unit. However we do recommend using the GPS unit in conjunction with the paper in town cue sheets and maps so that you can know your exact location in each town at all times.

Security
You should prevent your individual GPS unit from being lost or stolen by never leaving it unattended. If you are not directly using it for navigation, it should be off your handlebars and stored securely. You should remove it from your handlebars when you are finished with that day's ride and never leave it on your bike in any town.

Click on one of the links at left for more information about riding with an individual GPS unit.

P.O. Box 8454 • Chicago, IL 60680 • (877) TOUR-ILL [868-7455]
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