A cold afternoon's cycling

tracks/hoorn.png
With an eye on the coming weekends 200km brevet I figured it would be a good idea to put a longish cycle ride under my belt. I left it a bit late in the morning to make a really long one, given that the wind was really roaring from the North and that was where I headed. Rather than try and battle it, I lowered speed and enjoyed the challanage as well as the picture perfect winter day.
hoorn-winter05/IMG_3618

Cool web mapping application

I found a very cool web mapping application that takes GPS track files from my Garmin eTrex Vista and superimposes them onto downloaded maps that can be saved. Below is the way that I cycle to work ...
6614
The application requires that the track files are in a particular format (.gpx) that Garmin Mapsource speaks, so mapping software needs to be installed on my PC, the map creation magic is all done online. Go to www.gpsvisualizer.com for further details.

Horrible Weather!!

I was hoping the weather forecast would prove to be inaccurate, allowing me to take off for a weekend of cycling on my new bike. Alas, it didn't. All I've managed so far, on a windy rainy Saturday, is to get to the market just down the road. On the way there a van went through a puddle on the road, I just happened to be cycling past. I saw it coming but it didn't change the result, I got soaked! I'm staying home.

New Bike

Last week On Thursday morning when I came back from an appointment in town I found a note from DHL indicating that they had attempted to deliver something. It could mean only one thing, my recently ordered Thorn Audax 853 was here! After a breathless call to DHL I realised that I would need to go and pick the bike up from the depot if I wanted to get it before the weekend. Bloody DHL wouldn't come back with the bike on Thursday and couldn't provide a guarantee of when they would have another go at delivering it, other than to say it would only be during office hours. Getting the thing from the depot was a pain in the arse as it was out in the middle of nowhere. I had to wait over an hour for a cab that would fit the huge that contained it. I should have just ridden it home!