GPS/Google Maps Mishaps???
 

Navigation aids like GPS and Google Maps etc are great but not foolproof. I imagine some of you must have had mishaps.

I had one recently. I live in Olinda, Brazil which is near Recife, (in)famous for shark attacks and Zika virus. Sundays I go for long rides with friends but Saturdays I go on shorter rides normally alone, I like to explore. One of the places my friends and I like to ride to is a nearby town called Aldeia. The one part I don’t like is a 1 mile (1.5 km) stretch along BR 101, a federal highway, before turning off onto a state road called Estrada de Mumbeca. The shoulder on that part of 101 is almost unrideable and heavy truck traffic make venturing onto right lane very risky. So I found a couple of alternate routes via dirt roads and enjoyed my exploring.

Two weeks ago, I tried another. I crossed 101 and followed a narrow dirt road (Rua Córrego de Prata) that ended onto Estrada de Mumbeca (or so I thought). I found it on Google Maps and it appeared in “Earth” mode AKA “Satellite View”. I’d noticed this “intersection” a few times while riding by. After about a mile I saw I was getting close to the state highway but suddenly there was no more road! It was totally overgrown; even proceeding on foot without a bike would’ve been very difficult.

To the right there were the vestiges of an old footpath going up a steep hill, it was also in the general direction of the state highway. It was overgrown but there was a clearing above it and I was very close I could hear some of the traffic. According to the GPS the road was between what was left of the road and the path. So I decided to push my bike up the path to the clearing, there was no way I was gonna ride up with my 28mm (1 1/8”) road tires. Soon I was trudging waist high through some sort of wild grass and other plants. I came up to the back of a small farm. Its front was on the highway about 400 feet away. But there was a chest high barbwire fence. I’m 51 and getting over it with the bike was not in the cards. Off to right was a dangerous precipice, to the left was an abandoned school surrounded by a wall taller than me. Heavy plant growth made it impossible to go around the school.

I tried to get back to the dirt road but couldn’t find where I climbed up the hill. It was steep, slippery, and very overgrown, the GPS had the road in the wrong place, so I decided to try the farm again. I yelled but got no reply. I was about to try finding the dirt road again when I noticed a tree had fallen on the fence which allowed me to climb over. Since I was trespassing, I kept yelling out and eventually came across an old farmer. He let me proceed through his land to the highway. He told me the dirt road I’d ridden used to go around the school but had been closed off several years earlier. What I’d thought was the other end of it was actually the access road to a nearby squatter settlement. I assume the satellite images in Google are a few years-old, from before the end the road became so overgrown.

I've found that driveways and even tractor paths to some farmer's fields can sometimes be labeled as 'roads' in Google Maps. You must take them with a grain of salt. Google says they refresh the images several times per year, but I know they didn't update pics of my property for a couple of years. Maybe they mean the more populous areas?

Which is why I looked at the satellite images

Could be, especially in 3rd World countries. Though I was in a municipality with a population of over a million people the area I was in was pretty rural.