Final ride of the year

The 2011 season ended with an energetic ride through the Sewickley countryside.



The weather was warmer than normal December weather: wet, dark, 45 degrees. I used to ride all through December, January, February when I lived in Kaneohe, HI back in the 1990s. But considering it was December 30 in Western Pennsylvania, which is definitely not Hawaii, I'd say I was fortunate to even get in the mileage.

- A short camera digression -

Here are two pics from the ride taken by my new droid Galaxy Nexus, which has a 5mp camera.

Looking up a wet Magee Road

Looking down onto a gray Little Sewickley Creek valley

The benefits of the droid as a primary biking camera are: 1) no need to carry a phone and a camera--both are in one device, which makes life easier while out on the mean streets. 2) The images from the Nexus are immediately uploaded to my Google+ online albums, which eliminates the need to fumble with micro SD cards transferring images after the ride to my Samsung netbook, and then uploading to Google.

The main downside that I can discern is that the image quality is (arguably) not as great as a typical P&S, such as my 14mp Sanyo. The granular clarity and color immersion fall below my expectations.

Another non-camera benefit of the droid Nexus is that it has a built-in GPS. This along with the free Strava App means that I can instantly upload my rides to Strava without later having to fuss with cables and my netbook. Plus, I can see my location in real-time out in no man's land on Google Maps, which is one-click away on the droid home screen. This ability to instantly see (and to share with other droid users) your location is a terrific, and if you think about how far we've come, stellar feature.

Using Strava with the GPS chews up the battery quickly, and the Nexus doesn't have a barometric altimeter, as does my Edge 705, which led to slightly screwy altitude measurements (total climbing off by about 300 feet) on today's ride.

But overall, using the droid Nexus as a phone and as both a camera and a GPS unit has potential to simplify things considerably. It should be especially good for long, multi-day rides such as the Pgh-DC trip, when I don't have a laptop. You still need a bar mounted GPS unit to show things like distance, speed, altitude, power because a phone is not handy for providing immediate data necessary for in-an-instant decision-making out on the road. And a phone is not rugged enough to be a bar mounted device, in my experience.

- End camera digression -

Final Stats for the 2011 year:

• 151 rides;
• 259 hours on the bike (including several hours on the stationary trainer during non-ridable days);
• 3,281 miles on the road;
• 80,135 feet climbed according to Strava (I only posted to Strava 24 rides covering 980 miles, so I'm guessing my actual altitude gain was at least double).

So, overall a good year, with nothing remarkable, such as, for example, climbing the L'Alpe d'Huez (that will have to wait for a few years) and no major incidents such as crashes (Thank God!).

Lots of good rides with the family, with Ken C., Fred K., and all the gang throughout WV and PA.