Keeping Track of Your Ride

The summer months offer great opportunities to get that bike out of the garage and go for a ride on one of the area’s many bike paths or country roads. While Mother Nature has not been very cooperative in the sun department, there is still ample opportunity to get in some quality pedal time. Many serious cyclists use mobile phone apps to record their rides and workouts. There is one app that is worth a look for even the occasional cyclist.

Map My Ride provides a set of applications designed to help you keep track of your route and your training regimen. The full featured app is a bit pricey, but a free version provides some great tools and fun.

Once loaded onto an iPhone, Android or BlackBerry, the app uses the GPS function to gather a ton of information as you ride. Not only will you get a summary of your bike ride with mileage, average speed and the actual time you rode, you can see a map of your route. The elevation of your ride is reported including the lowest point and highest point on your trip. It will also compute the total number of feet of climb. You will be surprised at the number of feet you climb even in the shortest ride around the Harrison area.

Another neat feature is the “split” calculation. You can see the speed and time you set for each of the miles you ride. A quick glance will show how well you ride both at the beginning and end of a trip.

Using the Facebook feature, you can share your ride info with your friends including a map so they can try your route.

Perhaps the coolest feature is the “Course Fly-By Video.” After your ride, using your computer you can recreate your ride. It plots your bike on a map and from beginning to end shows the roads, relative speed and other neat data about your ride.  It is like watching yourself from a drone overhead.

There are several similar apps for cyclists and runners. Many have more functions and are geared for the serious competitive riders. The free version of Map My Ride is a great starter and perhaps will motivate you to get that old clunker out of the garage and on to the road. 

Keeping You Connected

Many of us will be going on vacation over the next few months.  While I don’t recommend staying 100% connected, I am sure that there are many who will feel that they need to keep up with email, Facebook and other things digital while they travel.  I have collected a few hints that can take the hassle out of staying connected and help keep all those digital devices charged up.

If your vacation plans call for you to be in remote areas, you may have trouble keeping your smartphone battery charged up.  The reason is that in remote areas there might not be robust mobile data service.  As a result, your phone may be constantly trying to search for and connect with a mobile data service that is not there.  This constant searching really saps the battery. 

When traveling in these areas, turn off the cellular data and data roaming function on your phone or tablet.  Same for the GPS.  The actual phone, as in talking to someone, will still work most of the time as well as the camera functions.  At the end of the day or when you need to send email, turn these function back on.  If a data service is available your phone will connect and download any waiting messages and emails.   Of course if you are in a car and have the phone plugged into a charger you need not worry about the battery

Speaking of charging, if you plan to bring along several devices, you may not need to bring all those chargers.  For example, if you have an iPhone and an iPad, take along only the iPad charger.  With the proper cable, the charger can be used to charge both.  Be sure to bring the iPad charger and not the iPhone charger since the iPad charger has more amperage which is required to efficiently charge the iPad.

For some, the availability of electricity can be an issue.  For those backpackers and other back country enthusiasts who want to stay on line, you can purchase a small external battery which, when connected to your device, will charge it.  I have one that will recharge an iPhone twice and an iPad once.  It is about the size of a hot dog and is rechargeable by plugging into any 110v outlet.  I have seen these sold on line and in many big box stores for about 20 bucks.

I must admit that I feel guilty giving out these hints as I am convinced we would all be better off if we left all the digital stuff behind when going on vacation.  Perhaps, instead of leaving them behind which I know most of us (myself included) will not, we agree to keep them turned off most of the time.