A GPS map of France in the streets of Paris

7 hours and 33 minutes - that's how long it took Nicolas VERDES and his friend Olivia to draw a map of France in the streets of Paris, using the STRAVA application.

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It's called "GPS drawing". In practical terms, the idea behind this challenge is to follow roads, streets and cul-de-sacs in order to draw a recognizable shape on a map or GPS. You've probably heard of the shark created by blogger Marine LELEU at the end of 2018. This time there's no question of a shark, but of a map of France, perfectly realized in the streets of the capital. The author's name is Nicolas VERDES, and he's registered for the 80 km EcoTrail Paris on March 17.  

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We caught up with Nicolas and asked him 3 questions about his unusual feat:

How did you come up with this crazy idea?

I run quite a lot, as well as swimming and cycling. When I saw the shark designed by Marine LELEU, I thought it was really original.
I regularly go up to Paris to see my friend, and as I'm preparing for the EcoTrail Paris 2019 (this will be her 4th participation in the 80km trail), some sessions "fall" during my Parisian stays. I thought it might be original to replace my 3h session on February 2 with a longer one in active walking mode in Paris. And while I'm at it, let's combine originality with usefulness.

How did you go about preparing this project? We can imagine that it involved scouting, hours and hours of Googling... ?

I took a screenshot of the Paris map on Google Maps and then got the outline of France from the Internet. I then superimposed the 2 to position France as well as possible in relation to the center of Paris, but also in terms of size, so that it was neither too small nor too large. Using Google Maps - in "pedestrian" mode - I then worked out the route in portions, transferring them at the same time to the openrunner platform. After around 5 hours, I obtained the desired route, which had to be slightly modified to adapt it to Parisian streets, with the "bugs" that this entails: stations, bridges, buildings... At the end, I made screenshots of all the sections of the route (about thirty A4 sheets) so as to have an easy-to-use road-book for the challenge.

Is GPS drawing over for you, or do you have a next challenge?

No, it's far from over. On the contrary, I'm just getting started. There's a kind of challenge every time... First, you have to come up with an idea for a drawing. Then you have to find a city that lends itself to this type of challenge, which isn't always easy: for example, in Paris, I've already tested a dozen or so projects on the computer, but as I want the rendering to be fairly realistic and clean, most of them have gone into the garbage can. Then you have to be able to set a time to carry it out, both on the computer and afterwards in the field. In the end, we have to hope that the watch doesn't fail us and doesn't crash while we're drawing, otherwise it's garbage and we have to start all over again. The next challenge will take place this Monday, February 25, 2019, in the morning and "still" in Paris. A 32 km challenge, perhaps even longer if, as with the carte de France, the original route has to be altered to accommodate construction work or traffic.

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