Wouldn't a good cycling navigation app on a smartphone be handy? As I have related in previous posts about problems with my Garmin and trying to use my smartphone for tracking my rides, I have put some effort in to taking advantage of all the smarts that are packed into my smartphone. With just a little bit of fiddling, I was able to drop the Garmin and use my Android phone to track my rides in Strava. Although tracking a ride can...
One Less Device When my Garmin died the second time, I was travelling away from home. I had noticed that some people use a smartphone cycling app to record their ride directly on their phone, without a dedicated GPS device, like a Garmin. I got out my phone, connected to a WiFi hotspot, downloaded the Strava app, and decided to gave it a try. The first time recording a ride using a smartphone cycling app on my phone was a disaster. After...
Did you have a model globe in your house when you were growing up? I remember spending hours examining the globe, the vast oceans, the continents and the countries. I noticed that on a particularly open part of the seas, usually the southern ocean, was what looked like a big figure 8. At the time, I didn't pay it much attention. Now, however, I now know why it was there, and what it is: the "analemma." As a year-around cyclist, winter...
For cycling navigation, I used to ride around the Yorkshire Dales with an Ordnance Survey map in my jersey pocket. It was a clumsy affair. I would study the map before the ride to decide on my route. But I never was able to remember more than a few turns if I went on new roads. Inevitably I would take out the map, find my current location and orient myself from there. Sounds like easy cycling navigation, eh? Try opening an...