Tag Archives: Cycling

The Steel Wheels Coming to Town

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If you are fortunate enough to live in or near Marlinton in Pocahontas County, WV, make your way to the Opera House this Saturday, November 12 to see The Steel Wheels in concert at 7:30 pm.  I’ll be there!  I’ve been a fan of these guys for a while now, but this is the first chance I’m getting to see them live.  I can’t wait.  I learned about them from Bicycle Times magazine’s June 2010 issue which reported on their  pedal-powered, seven night, concert tour.  They strapped their instruments and merchandise to their bikes and headed from town to town, covering nearly 300 miles.  This wasn’t some stunt, followed by a support vehicle in case they got tired and needed a lift; this was a genuine concert tour on bicycles.  In fact, they did another this year.  As I read I learned that they were based in Harrisonburg, VA, a place I knew well having gone to James Madison University for my first two years of college.

Those two things alone were reason enough reason to like these guys.  They hail from Virginia, and they tour by bicycle.  (Not always, of course.  They have a national following, and a bicycle tour across the entire country is impractical, at best.)

They were praiseworthy, but were they any good?  Now I had yet to check out the music.

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An Exciting Three Weeks So Far!

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I could leave here tomorrow and this will already have been an extraordinary experience.  I’m not planning on it, mind you.  I’ve only been here three weeks and have barely gotten started on the project that is my main reason for being here, and I’m really just getting settled in.

Nonetheless, it’s been an exciting three weeks.  I’ve heard some amazing bluegrass music played live, nearly run over a black bear, spent some time riding along one the best bike trails on the East Coast, seen a stunning display of fall foliage, been visited on my front lawn by a family of deer in the wee hours of the morning,  learned that Pearl Buck was a much more fascinating person than I ever gave her credit for, met some really interesting people, and hopefully made a friend or two.  That’s just some of the highlights of these three weeks.

I’m no stranger to the countryside.  Between the Boy Scouts and family trips, we did a lot of camping when I was growing up.  Yet I’ve been astonished by the wildlife I’ve seen in just a few weeks, ranging from the wide variety of birds, to small mammals and arachnids.
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Biking 2,500 miles!

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This is an official challenge to anyone now writing in the Tour de France or, for that matter, any cyclist in the world who comes across this post. Yesterday, on 5 July 2010, at 4:19 PM, I left my house for a bike ride. I used an iPhone app called MapMyRide to–well–map my ride. My ride ended at 5:11 PM, making it a 50 minute ride. I thought that I had ridden about six or 7 miles, at a leisurely pace, stopping to take pictures here and there.

But I don’t know my own power! When I looked at the map of my route as uploaded, I had biked 2487.1 miles: across western Massachusetts, through upstate New York, through a little piece of Ontario on the Great Lakes, through Michigan, across Lake Michigan (there must be a ferry), through Wisconsin and Minnesota into Canada, across Manitoba and Saskatchewan, and well into Alberta just above Edmonton. I’ve embedded the map below, but it’s impressive to list them out like that, don’t you think?


I remember none of it, nor how I got home… I did get some pictures, but I stopped taking them a few miles from home. I’m not sure why. Did I fall asleep on Ambien during this 2400 mile ride? I don’t take Ambien! Anyway, here’s my six, not so interesting pictures.
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My Ride Tonight

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My bike ride from today is on the map below. It was longer than I planned because I took a wrong turn, maybe two, and went a route I hadn’t intended to go. It was alright, though. It took me on a road that runs through the Broadmoor Audubon Reservation, which is bigger than I ever realized. I’ve walked the trails back there, but the trails don’t go all the way through.

I went out too late, so I barely got back before dark. I just haven’t been able to accept the shortening days yet. So I wento out at 5 thinking I still had a few hours of sun left. I didn’t. I was also late getting out because I am constantly saying to myself that I need to finish this, that and the other thing before I go out. I put off my bike rides in the same way I put off the gym, and yet they are so different.

I always really enjoy my rides. They are explorations. I never really have a plan, I just go. And I’ve gotten even more adventurous, now that I have an iPhone with GPS, because I know I can always get back. It is a sad state of affairs when procrastinate so much on something I like to do because I have work to do. That, my friends, make me a workaholic.

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Anyway, here’s the map of my route. It’s not a bad ride. I took it at a really leisurely pace. I wouldn’t do at around dusk. I charted it using iMapMyRide. I like that service, though I am still using the free version and that ads are bothering me. But is it worth the price of an upgrade just to get rid of the ads? Other features don’t seem all that useful.

Tracking Your Bike Rides

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I took a short ride today, mostly to test out two bicycling apps and a mount for my iPhone. I was reasonable pleased with all three.

iMapMyRide

iMapMyRide

iMapMyRide is an application from the folks at MapMyFitness.com. It’s a GPS application that maps your route as you ride, calculating speed, distance, elevation and other factors. All of this is then uploaded to the MapMyRide site, where there is a social networking component. You can share stories about your workouts, view other peoples and comment on them, set your goals, form groups, etc. You can download maps to Google Earth and there are tools for sharing the route in a website, blog or other social networking site. There are also Facebook and Google Gadgets plug ins. Though MapMyRun, MapMyWalk and others are separate applications, you don’t actually need them all, ad the applications give you a choice of which kind of workout you wish to upload.

There are additional features to the site that come with a paid membership. The Blackberry App is only available to premium subscribers, as are ad-free versions of the program. Premium members get discounts at events or on merchandise, too.

B.icycle

B.icycle

B.icycle is a cyclometer app that plots values for current speed, average speed, maximum speed, total distance, trip distance, current altitude, climbed altitude, burned calories as well as trip time while you ride. It also provides you with a map that updates as you go.

When you are done with your ride, you get a report that includes the distance traveled, calories burned, average speed and altitude climbed. It also keeps running totals of this information for all your rides until you reset the counts. Like iMapMyRide, it generates a kml file that can be used in Google Earth.
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There are two major differences between this and iMapMyRide in terms of function. The first is that this application is intended to show you the map and information while you ride. The display remains lit and the information displays in real time, showing you where you are on a map. iMapMyRide darkens the screen of the iPhone and must be unlocked after the phone has been paused due to non use for a certain amount of time.

There is also no social networking component to this B.icycle. The only web site is the informational what is this app page.

GoPhone IBikeMount

GoPhone IBikeMount

A mount is particularly useful with B.icycle since it is meant to be used live. I just started using GoRide. It’s incredibly easy to mount and stays in place surprisingly well. Having it mounted in this way keeps it visible and accessible to the GPS satellites.