Cycling to work
On Wednesday I found myself without any motorised transport to get myself to work, so after a lot of thought I decided to cycle.
Its about 26 miles to work. A long way, lots of hills (up and down) and bumpy country lanes.
I managed to go 22 miles or so to the bottom of the hill by the Fox Inn in the Barringtons before accepting the offer of a lift up the hill from my colleague Paul. After 2hrs and 45mins I was ready for it!
Here's part of the route I took, recorded on my Nokia N95 using the SportsTracker facility. I created a little Google Maps application which I've loaded here to show where I went. You can zoom in and see the roads in quite some detail. It was a lovely ride.
If you can't see it embedded here - the page is at http://villages.co.uk/maps/cycletowork.html. The KML can also be downloaded and viewed in Google Earth from here http://villages.co.uk/downloads/W20080827063539.kml, you'll need to right click - "Save as" I suspect and then load it from local file.
I then worked all day and cycled about 8 miles towards home before Liz picked me up in the car. My bum is not used to the hard seat! I don't feel any worse for having done it, and if summer were just coming I think I'd try and do it once a week or so...
9 comments:
It might have been easier if you had cycled on the road instead of the ditch!
(Interesting to see the relative accuract of GPS data vs. Google Maps. have you submitted any of your GPS traces to openstreetmap?).
Oh Simon what a light weight! Phil cycled from London last year 200+ miles!
At the end of September they are cycling around the world! Well from her to Boston (Lincs) and visitng places like the Thai and chineese restuarants and pubs with worldly names! Still, they will be cycling 40 miles each day for the weekend.
Simon, I too have an N95 - but apart from making calls, texting and taking pictures (poorly) I havent got a clue how to do the things you do on yours. Is it coz I iz blonde..
Hey James! Good to hear from you. I've not submitted any yet, but have a little project underway showing good cycling and walking routes around the area I live. I'm also going to relaunch "villages.co.uk" quite soon with some of that sort of technology in there - just finding the time is so hard! Users will be able to submit KML layers for their villages etc to show on Google maps. As well as geotagged images. All stuff we've had to figure out how to do for HF too.
I think it's the N95 loosing contact with the satellites that puts me in the ditches! Its not so good when there are trees and powercables overhead it seems.
Thanks for commenting.
Jo - search for Nokia N95 Sportstracker in Google. Then download the sis file onto your phone. Its great for recording that sort of thing. There is also a Photo Location Tagger which Geo codes your photos - things like Flickr understand the embedded GPS coords and show where the photo was taken on maps. Very cool.
Yeah - lightweight indeed. Would have been easier if i didn't have my computer on my back, and was fit. I'm no lightweight either at just over 17stone at the moment! So I was quite pleased with myself.
I was surprised by how hard it was as I am used to cycling 8 miles or so with the dog quite regularly.
Well done Simon.
Reckon any cycle journey over about 15 miles is hard work for a commute.
I do a 40 mile round trip twice a week .. going to try to up it to three times a week after watching Mark Beaumont's trip around the world (he was doing 100 miles per day with next to no rest days!)
Dax
That Mark Beaumont's trip around the world was amazing - no rest and hardly a thing to eat. The places he ended up sleeping on/in. Fab, what a trip to do. Well done Mark.
That Mark Beaumont's trip around the world was amazing - no rest and hardly a thing to eat. The places he ended up sleeping on/in. Fab, what a trip to do. Well done Mark.
I have to cycle daily and dont realy notice any more how far.
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