Californication

It’s been forever since I posted but I’ll make up with a very long one – about a very long ride.

The Plan

I went up to Tahoe the other weekend with a plan: circumnavigate the entire lake by bike, on trails, as much as possible. Bikes are only allowed on parts of the Tahoe Rim Trail (TRT) and some sections on paved road would be unavoidable.

My planned route: South Lake Tahoe to Tahoe City by road, then up the Tahoe Rim Trail to Brockway Summit, road to Kings Beach and Incline Village, road climb up to Mount Rose / Tahoe Meadows, TRT to Flume trail, North Canyon road to Spooner Lake, TRT to the Bench and Kingsbury, followed by the section of the TRT known as ‘The Punisher’ (Monument Pass to Star Lake and Armstrong Pass), to Big Meadows and back to South Lake.

I’d try to do it solo and unsupported (except for Starbucks breaks), in a day-and-a-half, and I wanted to camp out in the wilderness so I’d need to lug quite some stuff along. My original route proved to be a bit over-ambitious as you’ll find out, but I did manage to close the loop (didn’t have much choice, actually…).

South Lake to Tahoe City

Driving up to Tahoe on a Friday in mid-summer was my first challenge – after some traffic trouble I finally got ready to roll some time in the late afternoon. Besides the normal biking stuff I also had to carry the camping gear – lightweight pad and sleeping bag, camping stove and food were shoved in or attached to my backpack and I felt like a snail on my Yeti those first couple of road miles. But after a while I got somehow used to it, and was starting to enjoy the beautiful scenery and rolling roads around Emerald Bay.

Twenty five miles later I made it to Tahoe City and had my first major stop: water refill, a quick chill out near the beach. Then it was time to hit the TRT for the first time, but it was fair to say that the TRT hit me instead – going north out of town the trail climbs up steeply, gets very rocky and at some point turns into a mere trace through piles of stones and scree. It was as if the entire mountain was made of loose rocks.

Counting stars

I made it through but it took a lot out of me; luckily there was a short but sweet downhill break before the climbing ensued. It was getting late (past 8pm) and darker, so it was time to set up camp. I found a nice spot in a corner behind some big rocks with a lake view – that would do. I got out the camping stove to cook up dinner – on the menu was ramen noodles and soy beans, truly a balanced meal! But a real relief after the diet of power bars and goos from the past couple of hours. I didn’t have a tent, and I didn’t think I’d need one, until I got bugged my mosquitos – I was far from standing water and thought at this elevation there wouldn’t be a problem but either I was wrong or I’ve managed to find the one spot in the area popular with the buggers. Anyway, at least I didn’t run into a bear, and watching the stars and near-full moon illuminating the lake was an eerie experience.

To Brockway Summit

The next morning, after a pretty sorry excuse for a good night of sleep, it was to time to get rolling again. I started the day with some more technical climbing – instead of my usual double shot of caffeine. A slow-motion uphill stumble and fall didn’t improve my mood. But the very sweet descent towards Watson Lake did.

Meanwhile, I was running out of water – this side of the Tahoe basin seems really dry, no streams with running water to be seen (perhaps the mountains on this side are too low in elevation to have any snow melt left). I finally arrived at Watson Lake, but found the water there look rather disgusting. I poured a some in my water bottle with built-in filter but the iodine didn’t really make it taste very appetizing. So I took out the stove again and started boiling some water, and added a tea bag – the cooked water/tea went into my Camelback and have to say was rather tasty.

Some more technical climbing and I was worried about how it was wearing me out – was it the altitude, the lack of sleep, the heavy load? Not a good sign, as this was just an appetizer for all the climbing that was still to come. A low speed endo in one of the downhill rock gardens didn’t help to lift my spirits either – I only ended up with some bruises, nothing broken – except for the latch that kept my saddle bag in place (nothing that zip ties couldn’t fix). The rest of the downhill to Brockway felt great though, and soon I was cruising on the road into King Beach and later Incline Village.

Flume trail

Starbucks break and decision time. The thought of having to tackle the 12 mile road climb on the Mount Rose highway to Tahoe Meadows was weighing on me: it was hot, I felt not too great already and it would be a soul-crushing boring affair with cars and trucks flying up the road inches from me. There was an alternative: climbing the Tunnel Creek dirt road up to the Flume trail; I would have to miss one of my favorite sections of the TRT but wouldn’t have to deal with the Mount Rose Highway Hell.

So I went up Tunnel Creek: 2.5 miles for about 1400 feet of elevation gain: how bad can that be? Answer: very, very bad! Tunnel Creek is steep but more importantly: very loose. Last time I went down this trail I didn’t quite appreciate the latter fact. The loose sand all over the place makes climbing it in the mid-day heat a death march from hell. Maybe the Mount Rose option would have been better after all. Oh well. Just keep going and it will be over at some point. As soon as I hit the Flume trail, my worries went away: this five mile stretch was all I needed now: really relaxed cruising, with jaw-dropping scenery all along the way. The biggest hurdle were the shuttle people coming from the other direction, but everyone was friendly and enjoying themselves and what else can you on a place like this?

Climb to The Bench, descent into Kingsbury

After the Flume, there is Marlette Lake, then a short climb and a long descent to Spooner Lake. Another refueling station for me as there is water and a bike shop selling power bars and goos. After my lunch break, it was time to take on another major challenge: the five mile climb up the TRT to the Bench – when I last did this a while ago, I was relatively fresh and not carrying so much stuff, and still I remember it to be quite painful. Now, it felt like a mind-numbing test of willpower. For every hard section or rocky turn I managed to clear, there were two more that forced me to hike. It was an ordeal, but I concentrated on the great descent I knew was in store for me after that, and struggled through it.

The final stretch

After having taken in the gorgeous vistas near the Bench, it was time to take on the rocky goodness of the descent into Kingsbury. It was great fun, but the short climbing intermezzos that I usually don’t even notice, were hurting and stinging like crazy – I was getting really worn out. I then took the ‘Kingsbury Stinger’ downhill trail, but couldn’t muster the courage to even consider tackling The Punisher after that, so I cruised back into town.

I still had to ride about 12 road miles to the car, but was delirious because I knew I had closed the loop: 95 miles total, of which 65 miles this second day. An excellent stretch of the legs, as Jeff (TahoeBC) would say.

It was tough but a great and rewarding experience – only noticeable really after it was done . The GPS track and many more photos can be checked out on the MTBGuru trip page.

Last friday I got this message from a bike friend:

He was planning on doing a ride with a few folks in Henry Coe State Park the next day, and the 10k from the picture was referring to 10000 feet of climbing.

Henry Coe is notorious for its steep trails, and 10k feet of climbing in over 40 miles sounded like… a good challenge, though of the rather nightmarish kind.

It turned out to be one of the greatest and toughest rides I’ve ever done – Durango was perhaps a bit harder but that was mainly because of the weather conditions and altitude. Some of the climbing on our ‘Kitten ride’ was brutal and relentless and we had to hike-a-bike more than we’d hoped for. A lot of the downhill on the other hand was fantastic and my Yeti was great on this – though a bit heavy and with a non-ideal gearing for the steep climbs (largest cog in the back only 32 teeth), it was coasting like a dream on the rollers and felt awesome on the fast, winding descents. The two thoughest climbs, Mac’s Corral and Vasquez, felt like they would never end though.

As per Jeff, a very nice stretch of the legs indeed!

Here are links to the MTBGuru trip page, to a thread on MTBR on this ride, and to a gallery of pictures including ones not found elsewhere.

Tags: mountain biking, mtbguru

Het is opnieuw Sea Otter Classic tijd, en het was geweldig. Mijn race startte uitermate vroeg (7.44am!) waardoor ik gelukkig de ongelooflijke stortbui rond de middag niet op de fiets moest meemaken, en ik heb mijn voornaamste doelstellingen met verve ingelost:

• Een stuk rapper rijden dan vorig jaar


• Niet crashen!


• Lol hebben


• De titanium hardtail die ik voor de gelegenheid geleend had, niet (al te fel) beschadigen

Meer hier en hier.

Fantastische dag, afgelopen zondag – zonnig, rond de 20 graden. Ideaal om rond te toeren in het geweldige Henry Coe state park, alwaar we Mount Wilson hebben bedwongen, zie de MTBGuru trip hieronder voor meer foto’s etc. Komende dagen worden evenwel bakken regen verwacht, wat dan weer betekent dat het skiseizoen in de Sierra’s eindelijk eens een degelijke aanvang kan nemen…

Tags: Henry Coe

Zoals elders gemeld, het is hier de laatste tijd nogal koud.
Van de nood dient echter een deugd gemaakt te worden en dus ben ik vorige week een hybride sport gaan beoefenen, mountain-icebiken:

Tags: Henry Coe, mountain biking

Tijdens de kerstvakantie in Belgie ben ik nog eens ‘my old stomping grounds’ gaan opzoeken – de bossen van Oud-Heverlee en het Meerdael-woud, alwaar ik indertijd ben beginnen mountainbiken. Uiteraard was ik gewapend met GPS en camera teneinde fatsoenlijk materiaal voor MTBGuru te genereren; interessant te zien dat het totaal hoogteverschil van de twee lussen van het Bloso parcours toch zo’n 1600 voet bedraagt – beter dan ik verwacht had, de heuvels zijn er toch meer dan wat molshopen. Ondanks de koude en de mist, een erg fijne trip.

This is were I started offroad biking: one of the few remaining forests in Flanders, the forest of Meerdael.

A new feature on MTBGuru, and it’s a real cool one (or so we’d like to think): publish your own map. If you have a trip on MTBGuru that you’d like to share using your own website or blog, you can just insert a snippet of code and tada – the map, including the GPS track and clickable picture thumbnails appears on your site! Let’s try for instance our Mount Whitney hike; this is the code:

<iframe src="http://www.mtbguru.com/trip/iframe/88?width=500px&height=500px"
width="510px" height="565px" frameborder="0" marginwidth="0"
marginheight="0"></iframe> 

and this is the result:
(doesn’t work yet in Safari but it does in most other browsers)

Websites maken is veel werk en een dag heeft niet voldoende uren!
Zeker als je nog een day job hebt, voldoende aandacht moet overhebben voor je ‘significant other’, familie en vrienden en af en toe zelf nog een fietsritje wil maken. Enfin, laat ons stellen dat de afgelopen weken een goede oefening waren in ‘hoe gezwind de dag doorkomen met luttele uren slaap’. De Ayatola kan daar overigens al langer van meespreken.
Bij deze nog even een link naar de rit die ik in Death Valley gefietst heb terwijl R aan haar marathon bezig was, en melden dat ik nu ook een ander blog – MTBGuru support and nieuws – dien te onderhouden. Wij trachten evenwel op alle fronten paraat op post te blijven.

Broeva, haro!

• Using Google Earth


• MetaFilter
  (voor die laatste zeveraar in de comment thread: het logo is wel mooi )


• Geobloggers

Allemaal redelijk positief, toch?
De MetaFilter link heeft zover het zwaarste effect gehad…

We’re finally ready to out our Project. In case you were wondering why the post rate on this site has been so low the past few months (not that it ever has been that impressive), then you’ll get an answer now: because of MTBGuru.com – brought to you by Ayatola Hombre and yours truly.

As we’re mentioning on our about page, MTBGuru is a web application for people who like to ride, hike, run – yes those types that can’t seem to stay in the house and sit still. You can upload and share GPS data and photos taken during your outdoor adventures to the site. In case you don’t have a GPS unit… those things make a great birthday or Christmas present, politely suggest it to your loved ones!

After uploading the data to the website, trip statistics and graphs such as a route map and elevation plots are generated, and photographs taken during the trip are automatically being geotagged – that is, the location at which each photo was shot will be indicated on the route map. This cartoon summarizes things:

What are the basic features?

• Users create ‘trips’; GPS files can be uploaded in the GPX format, an open (XML) standard for GPS data which is now being supported by most GPS manufacturers (for instance, Garmin’s Mapsource software allows you to save track data to .gpx files). Trips can be created with or without GPS files.


• The site analyzes the GPS data and generates statistics and graphs, such as an elevation profile of the trip, and plots the route on a map (we’re using Google maps). Multiple tracks in a single file can be identified and you can create a separate trip for each track. You can also type in a description of the trip and select whether you want to share it with others or keep it private. The site can be an efficient means to archive and manage your trips and GPS files.


• Photos can be uploaded, either separately or in group (the latter by means of a zip-archive file). A thumbnail gallery will be generated and if the pictures were taken during the trip, the location at which they were shot will automatically be indicated on the map – the latter is enabled by comparing the time stamp in the metadata of the photograph to the timing information in the GPS data, aka ‘temporal geotagging‘.


• Other users can view your public trips and photos and leave comments, but you have of course the option to disable this.


• We also generate a Google Earth file, which contains the route, all picture locations, thumbnails and links to the trip and photos – anyone familiar with it knows that browsing around in Google Earth can be highly entertaining and this is probably one of our own favorite features (example: see screenshot below).

Our mission is to make all this work fast, simply and efficiently and we think we’ve succeeded relatively well compared to our competition – at present everything is not working and looking 100% as we’d like it to do yet, but most features are working.

We’ve focused on mountain biking to date, but it really works as well for any activity where you’re outside and moving around. Some examples:
the ascent of Alpe d’Huez, climbing the highest mountain in the contiguous USA, a fundraising trail run in Cupertino, mountain biking in Auburn.

Why this site?
Because we got frustrated by the familiar routine: looking up directions to the trailhead; figuring out again where exactly the fun trails are; doing extensive searches on the Web when we want to try out some new locations; messing around with GPS data in the proprietary-format tools that usually come with it; forgetting which folder we stored our pictures in; and so on.
Since we didn’t find a good existing solution for what we were looking for, we decided to create it ourselves and so we built this web app.

For the technophiles amongst you: the site is being developed using the Ruby on Rails framework and features quite a number of Ajaxgoodies; Ayatola Hombre is our code kingpin and both of us have been aficionados of the methodology and style of 37 Signals since quite a while. I didn’t want to mention the ‘Creating a free account only requires a valid e-mail address (which we’ll never forward to others). You can view all public trips and data without an account as well, but you’ll need the account to create trips or upload data.
All user data is available in open format, and there are even RSS feeds available containing trip description data. We’ve incorporated some ads and we may do more in the future, as web hosting costs money. But we built this site in the first place because we’re passionate about mountain biking and the outdoors ourselves, and felt it as an itch that needed scratching.

More information can be found on our FAQ pages and the companion MTBGuru blog that we’ve started to keep users up to date, provide support and give people a forum to send us feedback.

As you may suspect, a lot of the mountain biking coverage on Californication will from now be forwarded from MTBGuru.com – apologies for this long, duplicate post, but this was one where I was really eager to have a translation . Finally, as an appetizer here another screenshot:

Tags: Ajax, Google Earth, GPS, mountain biking, mtbguru, Ruby on Rails, web app

Het is eindelijk tijd om ons Project te outen! Als u zich afvraagt waarom ik hier maandenlang slechts neuzelgewijs postjes heb liggen plegen (niet dat ik voordien wel zo productief was, maar bon), dan krijgt u nu voldoening: omwille van MTBGuru.com! Tot u gebracht door Ayatola Hombre en ondergetekende – we waren hier reeds sinds het voorjaar op aan het broeden.

Zoals we op de about pagina vertellen, MTBGuru is een web applicatie voor mensen die niet kunnen stilzitten en buiten fietsen, wandelen, klimmen, lopen en daarbij hun GPS en camera meesleuren (niet echt nodig maar wel nuttig). Op onze website kunnen ze hun GPS data en foto’s uploaden en tadaa, alles wordt mooi geplot op een kaart, icoontjes verschijnen op elke locatie waar een foto is getrokken, klikken op die icoontjes toont je de foto in het groot en dies meer. Dit prentje vat een en ander samen:

Wat zijn zoal de belangrijkste features?

• Gebruikers maken ‘trips’ aan; dit kan door GPS files up te loaden in het GPX formaat, een open standaard (een XML formaat) voor GPS data en ondersteund door de meeste fabrikanten van GPS toestellen (voorbeeld: Garmin’s Mapsource software kan bestanden opslaan in gpx). Een GPS bestand is evenwel niet noodzakelijk om een trip aan te maken.


• De website analyseert de GPS data en geneert statistieken en grafiekjes zoals hoogteverloop en toont het afgelegde traject op een kaart (we gebruiken Google Maps). Meerdere tracks in 1 bestand kunnen geidentificeerd worden en je kan voor elke track een trip aanmaken. De gebruiker kan ook een beschrijving van de trip ingeven en de trip ofwel publiek maken ofwel afgeschermd houden. De site kan zo gebruikt worden om trips en GPS bestanden efficient te archiveren en beheren.


• Foto’s kunnen geupload worden, ofwel afzonderlijk ofwel in groep (het laatste in de vorm van een zip-archief) en automatisch wordt een gallerij ‘thumbnails’ gegenereerd. Als de foto’s tijdens de trip genomen werden, wordt hun locatie automatisch op de kaart aangegeven – dit laatste is mogelijk door de tijdsinformatie in de metadata van de foto te vergelijken met de GPS informatie, ofte ‘temporal geotagging’ zoals we dat genoemd hebben.


• Andere gebruikers kunnen je trip en foto’s bekijken en commentaar achterlaten (als je dat wil – je kan deze opties ook uitschakelen).


• We genereren ook een Google Earth file, die naast het traject ook alle foto-locatie’s en thumbnails bevat – wie ermee vertrouwd is weet dat met Google Earth spelen ongelooflijk onderhoudend kan zijn en dit is waarschijnlijk een van onze eigen favoriete features (zie het screenshot hieronder).

Het doel was om dit alles snel, eenvoudig en efficient te maken en we denken dat in vergelijking met wat er al bestaat we daar redelijk in geslaagd zijn – op dit moment draait alles nog niet 100% zoals we het zouden willen maar de meeste dingen werken.
Je zal merken dat er een focus op mountainbiken is momenteel (wat betreft aantal trips) maar het is absoluut zo dat de site even goed kan aangewend worden voor wandelen, lopen, fietsen op de weg enzovoort, hier zijn een aantal voorbeelden: de klim naar Alpe d’Huez, de beklimming van de hoogste berg in de continental USA, een trail run voor het goede doel in Cupertino, mountain biken in Auburn.

Waarom deze site?
Omwille van frustratie met de bestaande mogelijkheden; dit soort data is typisch iets dat je in een open formaat wil bewaren en (eventueel) delen met anderen, om bijvoorbeeld het vervelende uitwisselen van foto’s met vrienden waarmee je een trip hebt gemaakt uit te schakelen – en het is uitermate nuttig dit op het te Web hebben, zodat je dingen kan bekijken en tonen vanop elke computer. Ik gebruik de site nu reeds om al mijn trips te loggen en de foto’s en GPS data te organizeren – de mountain bike coverage op Californication zal vanaf nu dan ook meer en meer via MTBGuru tot u gebracht worden !
Voor de techneuten onder u: de site is ontwikkeld met Ruby on Rails en bevat een hoop Ajaxgoodies; de Ayatola is natuurlijk onze programmeerkingpin en wij beiden zijn al een tijdje fan van de 37 signalen methodologie en stijl. Ik wou het ‘two-dot-ooh’ woord hier vermijden maar u mag het wat ons betreft gerust gebruiken.

Oh ja, en alles is gratis voor de gebruiker. Een gratis account aanmaken vereist enkel het ingeven van een geldig e-mail adres (dat nooit verder zal verspreid worden). Zonder account kan je alles bekijken maar geen trips aanmaken of data uploaden. Alle user data is beschikbaar in een open formaat, er zijn zelfs RSS feeds met de trip beschrijvingen beschikbaar. We hebben een aantal Google Adsense ads geintegreerd, aangezien web hosting geld kost en in het geval ons webverkeer sterk zou stijgen, we moeten gaan uitkijken naar betere en duurdere opties – in dat laatste geval zou een beloning voor de vele uren en nachten coden en prutsen natuurlijk wel meegenomen zijn!

Voor ik vervolgens heel deze post in het Engels vertaal nog even melden dat meer informatie onder andere op onze FAQ kan gevonden worden en we een apart MTBGuru blog hebben opgestart dat vooral voor het leveren van site nieuws, updates en support zal dienen alsook een medium is waarmee gebruikers feedback kunnen leveren.
Als uitsmijter hierbij nog een screenshot:

Tags: Google Earth, GPS, mountain biking, mtbguru, web app