richwolfblog

3 Of us met in Julian for Sam’s birthday ride. The trio consisted of Sam, Steve Boland and myself. The prior day’s rain had given away to bright sunshine and a beautiful day. The goal was to ride to Borrego Springs (which I have renamed Burrito Springs!) and then back again.

Fun descent down the toll road. Shed a layer at the bottom, then on the highway to Grapevine Canyon. Up Grapevine and then a soft sandy but mostly ride-able climb up Jasper Trail. Hooked into Culp Valley road for a great downhill and then we caught Montezuma Grade for a high speed ride down into Burrito Springs where of course we dined on burritos.

Then the ride started getting tough for me. Yaqui pass just never seemed to end, my legs felt poorly and the wind didn’t help matters much, plus my tire kept going low!

Regrouped at Tamarisk and then another soft sand, uphill with a headwind climb over to Hwy 78. The plans for more dirt riding quickly was put on the back burner, so we took the highway up to Banner where Sam and I had Chad and Carlos drive down and pick us up. Still got in 60 miles with a ton of climbing. Mr. Boland refused a ride and climbed up the toll road and got back just as it got dark.

Fun day! Just need to bump up the weekly mileage in order to go farther, but I am sort of in a holiday eating and short biking routine, but watch out after the first of the year! Ha ha!

This was my first bikepacking adventure race. Never thought I could complete it much less in the 5 day time frame allotted the racers, but I did!

Start and finish was in Idyllwild and the course took in a lot of San Diego County, including the desert, mountains and coast. A great ride and a lot of new friendships were formed.

Well here is my first foray into a large picture post. The Coconino race was a lot of fun. We turned it into our own personal race, the Coconino 100! Met up with friends and had great weather and lovely riding.

Beautiful late November day riding the Lagunas. Tried out my new front sling pack and rear seat bag. Shirley was able to check out the outdoor store up there for the first time.

Meet at Julian Pie company in Julian on Jan 1, 2013 at 9:00 A.M.

We head out for a ride based upon weather and group consensus. Probably around a 20 mile ride tops. Head back to our house for Chili. Bring something to share and your beverage of choice.

RSVP me via this blog or e-mail me at julianactive@sbcglobal.net

Well my foray into blogging isn’t as smooth as I thought it would be! I really want to display my photos that I saved from facebook into my blog but I am having problems trying to figure out an elegant way of doing it and categorizing them.

I tried downloading some plug ins but I can’t get them to load into wordpress. Now I am learning an FTP client.

I spent waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too much time rooting an old HTC smartphone. I added some apps to it, including a couple of gps apps. I was very excited because I could now load topo basemaps to one app, but in the end it disappointed. Still love the smartphone for it’s music player and web browser when I am able to hook into wifi. Even the gps apps on it are pretty cool for short trips or where I don’t want to drag my dedicated Garmin GPS with me.

Sooo I did some searching on the internet and came across an awesome web site that allows you to download  topo basemaps onto your GPS  free! Garmin sells topo basemaps but they are not cheap and to buy all of the ones that I need would run hundreds of dollars.

The downloads are legitimate and the maps are designed by enthusiasts who make up their own maps off of USGS maps. They publish them to the web site and allow free downloads, so there is no illegal stuff going on. You can contribute to the site via paypal to help keep it going and I would recommend that.

You should download Garmin basecamp (which is a free download) and use that to to help get the maps downloaded to your computer. I bought an 8 gig micro SD card and I downloaded the maps directly off my computer onto the micro SD card, using the card adapter. I then put the micro sd card into my Garmin 60csx and viola the maps appeared!

In the end I came to the conclusion that for my purposes, particularly for longer adventure races that a dedicated GPS is superior to a smartphone for navigation for the following reasons:

1. A GPS is much tougher and more waterproof. During the Tour Divide, my Garmin 60csx fell off my bike a couple of times, once at high speed and no problems. Since then I have come up with a more secure mounting system.
2. The GPS has real push-buttons that can be used with gloves on. A smartphone touch screen is more sensitive and will not work with gloves.
3. The altimeter and altitude gain reading are much more accurate on a GPS (provided it has a barometric altimeter optional)
4. Dropping basemaps, and tracks into the GPS is easier, and following a track is easier.
5. A GPS with AA batteries allows you to not get stuck without power in the middle of nowhere provided you have spare batteries. A smartphone has a dedicated battery so either you need to keep it charged or bring along a cable and an external power supply.

So now that you were good and read my entire post, following is the link to your free maps!: http://www.gpsfiledepot.com/index.php

Sam and I got down to Pearl Izumi before 5:00 A.M. Scored some killer deals. You should see the kit Sam got

Well I am bailing on facebook. Too much spam and stuff appearing without my knowledge or approval. I am downloading info from Facebook and will re post pictures here. This way I can control content better and people who are truly interested in what I have to post will still be able to find me.

I think I will rename facebook to “in your face book”! Ha ha!