Frequently Asked Questions

If you believe this FAQ is inaccurate, confusing, or missing some key information, please let us know by clicking on the red "Feedback button found at the top or to the right side of all pages.

Why is the McR point system becoming a more prominent part of the McR community? 
To keep McR a dynamic and valuable platform for information on motorcycle rides, events, clubs, and places, it is crucial that we keep the content growing and improving.  And so, we want to recognize and reward those McR members who help the site do that.  We recognize these McR members by elevating their status among the community by assigning our more active members higher McR Rider Levels (see below).  And, we reward those same active members with McR points so the other McR members can see the extent to which each member has made a difference by making this site an even more valuable resource for all of us motorcycle riders. 

How are McR points earned? 
Whenever you contribute your thoughts, ideas, opinions or valuable motorcycle rider info to McR, you'll be making this community stronger.  The following shows some of the activities that will earn McR points:
     - submitting a new motorcycle riding route
     - giving your review & rating of an existing route you have driven
     - adding a motorcycle rider photo or video to a route
     - sharing a route with a friend
     - liking a motorcycle rider photo or video
     - adding a route to your "To Ride" list
     - adding a route you have driven to your "Rode It" list
     ... and many more activities you'll find on the site

It's obvious how some of the above activities benefit all McR members such as when riders contribute a new motorcycle route, a rating/review of a route, photo, or video.  This type of information simply makes McR a stronger and more in-depth source information on the best motorcycle roads and rides in America, Canada, and abroad.  However, some activities on the list above may not be as obvious as to how they contribute value, so let me explain.  Activities such as you sharing a route with another motorcycle riding friend who may have not been part of the McR community can have a big impact.  Let's say that rider wasn't aware of McR or maybe hadn't visited in a while and therefore, when they come to McR they will bring in a new/unique motorcycle rider perspectives and information about favorite roads and rides in their area.  With their new and unique perspective, it is likely they'll turn around and add a couple of their favorite motorcycle roads, maybe add  a couple of ratings/reviews, and maybe even a photo or video.  By doing this, your sharing of that motorcycle road with a friend just increased the site for all of us.   Also, other little activities like giving a thumbs-up to a photo or video you like will help the best content "bubble up" to the top so riders can more quickly see the most popular content.  And, even by just adding a road to your "Rode It" list, your "To Ride" list, and even just "following" a route send out "signals" that help other McR members see which routes are gathering a lot of attention and trending.  For all these activities and more, you'll be making McR a fresher and more dynamic resource of information for riders which will in turn help all of us motorcycle riders put together great motorcycle rides ... and so for that reason, you will really be earning your points!

What are the different McR Rider Levels?

Rider levels are determined by how many McR points that rider has earned through their contributions and activities on McR. The higher the points, the higher the Rider Level. 

	The first level, Novice, is reached when a rider has earned 20 McR points.
	The second level, Expert, is reached when a rider has earned 50 McR points.
	The current (subject to change) highest level, Master, is reached when that rider has earned 150 McR points.

Overall, earning McR points is a way to not only earn status for yourself, but more importantly, you’ll be contributing information & content that help make McR a stronger resource for helping riders improve their motorcycling life by helping them find the best motorcycle roads & experience the best motorcycle rides!

Are McR Points used for anything else other than Rider Level determination?
Not yet but, I have big plans for McR points in the future!  For example, from time to time, motorcycle gear wholesalers and/or retailers contact me about products they are wanting to get introduced to the McR community.  They typically offer to send me a sample.  I have plans to take them up on these offers in the future and in turn offer these samples as gifts/prizes for active McR members based on their points or contribution of certain content (e.g., new roads, new videos, etc.) that the site may need to see some improvements on.  Also, I'd like to feature riders who have either been perennial contributors or are new hard chargers.  

First, navigate to the motorcycle route's description page you are interested in printing. Then, follow the instructions below:  
 

As an alternative to the above, you may want to print out the map along with the information about the route (the route's scenery ratings, the route's drive enjoyment ratings, and the route's tourism opportunities).  To print the entire route description page in one continuous print out, skip Step 1 above (do not bring up a new tab/window with the larger map) and go to Step 2 (select the "Print" function from the Internet browser's "File" menu).

Note about printing from mobile devices (e.g., smart phones, tablets, etc.):  Step 3 above shows what some common desktop browser (e.g., Safari, IE, Chrome) look like and where the "Print" functions are (note: mobile device printing steps vary greatly and can't be covered here.  If you need help, I suggest you do an Internet search on how to print from your mobile device.  Example:  "how to print from a webpage on an iphone").  

Lastly, if you believe this FAQ is inaccurate, confusing, or missing some key information, please let us know by clicking on the red "Feedback button found at the top or to the right side of all pages.  

MotorcycleRoads.com supports the industry standard for map files which are referred to as GPX files.  All you have to do is go to the page describing the route you are interested and click on the red download GPX file button that shows up in the bottom right of all route maps (see image below). 

Then the map’s GPX file will be downloaded to wherever your computer is set up to download files to (probably a folder called downloads or something like that).  From there you can import it into your GPS device or an online GPX editing website like https://www.gpsvisualizer.com/ (that one is handy because you can covert the output to a lot of different formats including a Google maps file).  

The TRICKY PART however is that if you are using a GPS device, that device has to support what they call ‘multipoint routes’ or ‘multipoint maps’.  And not all devices do that.  Some only allow simple 2 point maps … e.g., point A to point B based maps … I personally bought a GPS device (a Garmin Nuvi 52)  a while ago and found out the hard way that it did not support ‘multipoint maps.’  I ended up having to sell that device on eBay and since then I got a newer device that supports multipoint and it does work now (a Garmin Zumo 390LM).  The vast majority of routes on MotorcycleRoads.com are multipoint routes because very rarely can a nice motorcycle route be described with a simple point A to point B  level of detail so make sure you are using a device that can support ‘multipoint maps.’  Hope that helps! 

Bill

Note: I typed up some instructions that I use to download GPX files from the site and transfer them to my GPS device.  I'm pasting these below as sort of extra help.  I'm not a GPS device help desk so I can't guarantee they are fool proof nor can I offer you troubleshooting tips beyond what I'm providing below.  But, it took me a while to figure out the steps I came up with so I hope it saves you some of the pain and time I had to spend figuring it out for my set up.

1) To download a map/route off of McR and use on the Garmin, go to the route page, click on the download GPX and start Garmin Base Camp.  Then highlight (in the left column) in the “On My Computer” area the “My Collection” briefcase icon and then go to file/import into My Collection.  Navigate to the GPX file you downloaded (probably in Downloads) and click OK.  

2) Then (AND THIS IS CRUCIAL) you must have the Garmin Device plugged into the computer (I guess the Base Camp uses the detailed map info off of the device (I think you might be able to buy detailed map info for the Base Camp on the desktop computer but haven’t looked into that yet)). 

3) Then click on the McR route name you want to get to your GPS device in a usable format and it should appear in the bottom left side bar “My Collection” area.  It will probably have a name like “Track 008” in there.  That is the GPX file from McR in some type of Garmin Track format (I believe because the way McR saves the routes are by creating a bunch of lat/longs and somehow stringing them together and the “Save to GPX” button on the McR site assembles those together saves them as a GPX file which Garmin Base Camp apparently considers them to all be one “track”.  

4) Anyway, highlight the track that’s sitting down there (double click on it to see the map appear) in the bottom left and then right click and select “Create Route From Track” and it will bring up a box where you can name it. Also, when you do that, you should see some box popup and say something about “calculating route” where it will then string all those points together into what Base Camp calls a “route”.   And, Base Camp stores this with the track for that McR route in the “On My Computer”/“My Collection” briefcase icon area so if you click on that up there, in the very bottom left side bar you’ll see the track and the route you just created.  

5) Now to export that to your device, you go up to the “On My Computer”/“My Collection” briefcase icon area, right click on the McR Route name (It looks like a document icon but I can’t figure out what Garmin calls that) and select “Send to your device”.  

6) After you do that, and then eject the device, when you turn on the device, it will say something about “New routes found. Do you want to load them into Trip Planner (not sure it says “load”), you select yes and they will show up in trip planner App.