When I woke up after ten hours, I observed that my front tire was flat. It hadn’t been when I rolled the bike into the room, so it must be a slow leak. Time to see what caused it…
Merrily changing a front tube. Only the second flat in ~1000 miles of riding, some of it pretty rough.
Merrily changing a front tube. Only the second flat in ~1000 miles of riding, some of it pretty rough.
I detached the wheel and cleaned it off, then used the tire levers to remove the tire and tube. I drew out the tube and disposed of it, then ran my fingers slowly along the interior of the tire, looking for any sharpness. Oho, look at this! An ugly thorn punched clear through the kevlar.
During the usual tire inspection, I found this. Time to bust out those little pliers I keep for such occasions.
As I did the repairs, I had a long, introspective talk on speakerphone with Erika. It was nice to reconnect, and to work further through some of the myriad things that were distilling in my brain as I rode along.
I only left the warmth of the motel room to walk across the highway and eat at the local restaurant. Other than that, I monkeyed with pictures, surfed the web, and watched episodes of The Daily Show all day! Quite restful.
I have a lot of riding to do if I’m to stay on schedule. The good news is, the weather outlook has changed and now I’m promised two days of sun. Thank goodness!
Before you raise me on your shoulders and declare me an olympic medalist, I should tell you that I didn’t bicycle 503 miles! I haven’t started bicycling yet. I’m still enroute to the route.
I’m here with the lovely Erika (who has a cold; poor thing) in the living room of some family friends, getting some quality computer time after nine hours behind the wheel. Mostly what I’m doing is trying to get this crazy blog set the rest of the way up. I think I’m just about at the stage where I haul the printing press onto the flatbed trailer (see previous post).
As I write this, the iPhone 4S has been out for a few days, and people have been going nuts with the new voice recognition features. Since I don’t have the very latest hardware (only the second-latest, boo hoo, poor me) I’ve set up the following for on-the-road bloggery:
The sequence goes like this:
See something interesting along the side of the road.
Take a picture of it using the camera app, while – of course – poking it with a stick.
Open Dragon Dictation and blither out some appropriate commentary.
Open the Flickr app, and upload the photo with the commentary.
If I feel like composing a novel, use the WordPress app.
It’s amazing to me that this works. All I need is a decent data signal, and with this little device that’s smaller than a pack of cards I can take a photo, embed my GPS location in it, turn my speech into text, and put it all online for others to see, in seconds. I am astounded.
Of course, for longer writing, like this blog entry, nothing beats a keyboard and a mouse. And for keeping a precise record of my movement even without cellular towers, nothing beats a dedicated GPS unit. And for getting really marvelous photos, nothing beats a real camera with a real lens. The trouble is, getting these specialized instruments to cooperate with each other is worse then herding cats — it’s like teaching cats to herd mice. They’ll chase things around with great enthusiasm, and at the end of the day, the paddock will be suspiciously vacant. Just so with your data.
Luckily, I’ve written some AppleScript to help with the herding. I’d Blog About that on The Internets, except I’m too exhausted now, and should sleep. I’ll conclude this with the award that Erika just drew me as a congratulation for making my second post:
Erika drew this for me to congratulate me on my first post
At first it seemed like a brilliant piece of hardware to bring on a bike trip. It’s always connected, easy to show people when asking for directions or trying to communicate, it charges with only 5 volts, and it’s capable of doing most of the things I would want a laptop for.
But as I traveled I found that there were common situations where a laptop did a much better job. The biggest one was working with photographs. Aperture and 4GB of RAM and a real CPU just beat the pants off any low-power iPad setup. The second biggest was correspondence. A trackpad and a responsive keyboard with no Bluetooth lag made long letters and journal entries and chats much easier. The third situation was trip planning. I could open many browser tabs of maps, plus Google Earth, and drag route markers and points all over them, and cut-and-paste notes, rapidly and easily. The only unique advantage the iPad offered was that I could put it inside a waterproof bag and use it safely in the rain. … But I have a phone for that.
Don’t get me wrong; I love the iPad and use it in many situations in my “normal life”. But on long bike trips where I was passing through civilization, and guaranteed to find electricity and a room out of the rain, it was frivolous.
Away from civilization it’s a different matter. Unlike a laptop, you can charge an iPad with a meager portable solar cell, and it can be charged with the same cable you use with your phone. You can put it in a very nice case to protect it from impacts, and it can be used easily while still inside a waterproof bag.
Elsewhere I’ve done even more dithering about the iPad / no iPad travel decision.
An iPad is a bulky device, relative to a phone. How well does it perform as a piece of kit on a bike tour? Well, that answer is bound to be a bit subjective. Here are my own impressions.
I used mine extensively when traveling in Australia. My local host Celia took me to a phone store where I got a month-to-month data-only SIM for the iPad. So for 25 bucks, I was able to use the 3G in the iPad all through Australia, including Tasmania.
I used it every day, multiple times a day. I used it to find motels and restaurants, read local news, chat with people on AIM, make reservations and book tickets, send email trip updates from cafes, look at my environment in satellite and street view, etc. It’s even got Skype on it, which is MUCH cheaper for international calls to the folks back home. When the battery was low I could (slowly) charge it using the same adapter I used for the phone, saving a bit of weight.
In restaurants it was a conversation starter. I used it to show people photos from back home. Played a little jazz on it when I was relaxing. I used it with Celia to co-plan my outings the day before, since it was big enough for both of us to see and easily poke at the same time.
I placed the iPad in a saddlebag on the bicycle. Whenever I wanted to know where I was, what was around me, where I needed to go, et cetera, I had to go through a short routine: I stopped, walked around to the back of the bike, fetched the iPad from the bag, and used it while standing there over the rear tire. When I was done I packed it away and got back on the bike. Not a big deal, as long as I don’t have to refer to it often, and as long as I’m in a low-crime environment.
(I had an iPhone on the handlebars but it was for the wrong kind of network, so I couldn’t buy a SIM for it in Australia. The only reason I brought it at all was to use it as a music player while riding.)
The one thing that held me back when using the iPad was that I couldn’t immediately call ahead to the hotels I found that didn’t offer digital reservations. I’m pretty sure some cleverness with Skype would have solved that problem.
So, would I travel with an iPad in the future? After all of these use cases you’d think my answer would be an instant “yes”, but here’s the thing: If I bring a laptop, and I already have a phone with a data plan to tether it, then I just don’t need the iPad. … And I am a huge nerd, so a laptop is probably a given for almost all long journeys.
It’s worth noting one more difference between an iPad and a laptop: You stand a chance of charging the iPad with a solar panel. You could conceivably go camping in the woods for a couple of weeks, and use your iPad the whole time, while the laptop would die after a day or two. But on the other hand, when you’re on a bike trip, you’re on roads – and where there are roads, there is almost always electricity nearby. You’d have to be a very particular individual on a very particular bicycle trip – say, a gadget hound meandering through Kazakhstan – for that to shift the balance.
If I had a phone but could not bring a laptop, would I want to bring the iPad?
That’s a more interesting question. Different people have different ways of navigating or documenting their travel, and personally, I’m used to having a laptop, and would still want to do all the things I usually do with it. Most of those activities are difficult or uncomfortable on a phone screen.
With the iPad along I could:
Import and store photos from my camera without filling up my phone.
Edit and organize those photos more easily than on the phone.
Type journal entries and emails, and chat using instant messaging, a lot more comfortably and quickly than on the phone.
Research my route a bit more comfortably. (Any notes and screenshots I take will sync over to the phone.)
Relax by watching movies and TV shows a lot more comfortably than on the phone.
Conduct video chats more comfortably.
In summary, it’s mostly a matter of comfort. Is that level of comfort worth the extra one pound that the latest iPad weighs? For me, the answer is yes. For others, perhaps not.
Still in Carlsbad, I bought some tools to round out my kit, then began to work on the bike. I listened to Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” as an audiobook, and carefully considered each step as I went, fully intending to take all day long with this one task. I felt like a retiree restoring a classic car in his garage.
I removed the front rack and set it apart since it would not be going to Australia. Then I repositioned the front headlight, and removed the seat post, the rear rack, both pedals, and both wheels.
Still in Carlsbad, I bought some tools to round out my kit, then began to work on the bike. I listened to Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” as an audiobook, and carefully considered each step as I went, fully intending to take all day long with this one task. I felt like a retiree restoring a classic car in his garage.
I removed the front rack and set it apart since it would not be going to Australia. Then I repositioned the front headlight, and removed the seat post, the rear rack, both pedals, and both wheels.
Still in Carlsbad, I bought some tools to round out my kit, then began to work on the bike. I listened to Terry Pratchett’s “Wee Free Men” as an audiobook, and carefully considered each step as I went, fully intending to take all day long with this one task. I felt like a retiree restoring a classic car in his garage.
I removed the front rack and set it apart since it would not be going to Australia. Then I repositioned the front headlight, and removed the seat post, the rear rack, both pedals, and both wheels.
In Carlsbad my luggage went from stage 2 to stage 3: I packed up most of the items I would not be needing in Australia into my first backpack, and my Mom agreed to ship them north to Oakland for me. The passport and other documents had been mailed to Carlsbad, so I unwrapped all that, and sent some of it to Oakland and placed the rest in my backpack. I also unwrapped a new pair of shoes, and left my old pair and my ski jacket (used to stroll around looking for Santa) in Carlsbad. Then I unwrapped the box that held my bicycle shipping container, and assembled it slowly in the living room. This travel business is complicated!
At long last I found a configuration that got the entire bike into the box. Everything except the wheels goes on this first layer, then a plastic separator goes on top, then the wheels.
Slightly repacked gear, with my clothing around the bike as padding.
Slightly repacked gear, with my clothing around the bike as padding.
Up in the Simi Valley, my luggage went to stage 4: I split the contents of my suitcase, and packed one half into the bike box, and the other half into my backpack. Now my gear for Australia was contained in a single carry-on backpack, and a single checked oversize box.
If the airline managed to lose my box, I would lose my bike and my laundry, but everything else would be safe. The trip could still be a success.
Here I am, freshly shaved, on the morning of the trip. In retrospect I look very skinny in this picture, which makes sense because I was still in the midst of dealing with my thyroid condition…
