xendistar.co.uk

My better half decided that I should have a decent Christmas present this year, that not to say the past present have been rubbish but she wanted to push the boat out for me this year. So after much thinking it was decided I would get a GPS, it has the added benefit that she will get use of it as well when were out riding together anyway, so all is good. We spent a while looking around and eventually decided on a new model from Memory Map. These guys have produced mapping software based on OS maps and have just brought out their first GPS. What drew me to this product was the fact that you get their mapping software and the GPS at a very competitive price, unfortunately it is not as good as it should be.

There is one main problem, they don’t supply manuals, not in paper form not even in electronic form. You get two small quick start guides, one for the Memory Map software and one for the GPS and that is it. I have spent several days scratching my head and looking on there support forum looking for help on how to use their software and GPS unit. They actually state on the support forum that the GPS works out of the box, and I would agree with them switch it on and it works, no annoying requests to install anything to get it working it just worked. But if like me this is your first GPS, switching it on is about as far as you are going to go without reverting to some form of manual to tell you how to plan a route and load maps etc. I have since found a Users Guide (a basic 11 page document explaining the basics) for the GPS which has helped. But I can’t see the logic in not even producing a manual for your product.

Went out riding again today, only for a short ride as my son came with me and my legs were still aching from yesterday. So for an easy ride we went out to Hurn forest. My son decided every puddle was an adventure waiting to be explored and no puddle was to deep. From the very first puddle he headed straight through the middle of it as fast as he could peddle. This picture was taken near the end of our ride. Mind you I am many years older than him but puddles still seems to have that magnetic attraction to me as well!

The wife who took both pictures was not impressed as I made her wet as I raced through the puddle, how unthoughtful of her, no consideration for me as to how wet I got for her photo opportunity!! The wife walked today as she did not feel up to riding, hopefully she will be back on the bike next week.

Finally tomorrow night is weigh in night, just hope that I have lost enough weight this past week to get past that mark which has been haunting me for the past few weeks, its to late if I have not so I will just cross my fingers till tomorrow!!

Well it was yesterday afternoon when I came back from riding my bike, I was determined to go out riding to help with the weight loss. I had been out Saturday and that was a bit of a slow ride as the wife was not feeling to great so I felt I needed to go out again. Well Sunday weather was miserable, high winds and plenty of rain. I wanted to try out my new jacket to see how waterproof (or not) it was so now was the ideal time. I dropped the wife and son off for a bit of xmas retail therapy and headed for the local heath. The path across the top of the heath was windy as I had expected with the rain coming in at 45 degrees to my face but once I went down the slope at the other end I was sheltered from the wind but unfortunately not the rain.

It was not long before I started to have some close encounters of the muddy kind, nearly going through a hedge on one short steep decent, then a little further on there was a tree down across the path, in fact it was propped up resting on a shed leaving enough room to ride under it, at least I did on Saturday. Sunday as I ducked under the trunk my handle bar caught a branch sending me lurching into the deep mud, if only I had known this was to be a minor event compared to what was coming.

At the bottom of one slope was what can only be described as a lake, Saturday we both managed to ride through it, but with the over night rain it was now double the size, so I headed into it and then suddenly found myself in the middle of the lake in axle deep water losing momentum due to the clay bottom, I stopped and put my foot down, boy was that water cold.

Having paddled my way out of the lake (managing to keep one foot dry-ish) I set off along the narrow sandy single track, this included riding up what can only be described as a fast flowing stream, swollen by the rain of the past few days. I was just yards from reaching the point where the track widen outs and heads for home when I found myself making a close inspection of the heathland foliage, not sure exactly what happened accept I was on the deck.

I reached the return point and decided to take an alternative route back (it meant not going down a long slope and then having to climb back up an adjacent slope). I was soon riding back across the top of the heath this time with the wind and rain at 45 degrees to my back. All that was left was the muddy area where they had laid a new water main, this meant swapping from one side of the track to the other to keep out of the worst of the mud. The next bit was like slow motion, I found myself on the wrong side of the path and in a deep puddle, suddenly my front wheel disappeared, I am flying off the bike over the handlebars and I land on my side in the middle of the muddy puddle. I was absolutely soaking wet and covered in mud, I put my hand out in front of me and that disappeared into the mud, when I pulled my hand out my glove was covered in yellow clay.

I got up and retrieved my bike, remounted and rode the final half mile back to the car, I was absolutely soaked. When I got back to the car I took my trainer off and poured the water out of it, it is still soaking wet now despite sitting next to a radiator drying out for more than 24hrs.

But best of all I enjoyed every bloody minute of it

The other half has been pestering me about what do I want for xmas and she had even mentioned a GPS and it is not the first time she has mentioned buying one (it is not as though I have a bad sense of direction). A couple of years ago she suggested one for kite flying, while I can see it could be useful when flying at the beach and you can get some good long runs at speed (you use them to record the distance travelled throughout the day, top speed and average speed for the day etc.). But as I don’t fly at the beach very often (2 or 3 times a year) it seemed very pointless when our local field is only half a mile long.

But now we are into mountain bikes I can see A GPS would be very useful additions, at least I think it would? But the more I look into it the more confused I become. Let put it this way I can see three possible usages for using a GPS with mountain biking.

• a) For planning a route before leaving home and using it for directions while out riding
• b) for recording a route when you are out riding
• c) to aid redirection if you change your route while out riding

So lets start with a) this is all well and good until you find out that with some GPS units you can’t use the maps from the GPS on your PC to plan the route, you have to invest in third party software at more cost.

Then there is b) now this is fairly simple for most GPS units or so I have been told, this is useful if you find a new paths and want to record it, you just cycle down the path and the GPS will record the route for you (assuming you told it to record the route you take).

Finally c) so you have gone out for the day and you end up injuring yourself, nothing serious but it is enough to stop you from completing the ride and you need to get back to your starting point or the point where you were going to be picked up by the quickest route. So you want to be able to say, I’m at A and I want to get to B, it can do that but not in the same way as it would do it with a Sat Nav from a car. It will point you in the right direction but it won’t tell you there a large lake to go round or a cliff to get down.

Then there are the maps that the GPS units use (most come with a basic map but you need to purchase more detailed maps), various different scales, various areas of the UK and all with a nice price tag on them. Now obviously the cheaper the model GPS the less features, the bigger clearer screen the more ££££’s will be leaving your pocket. All in all it is not a cheap option.

Now before anybody says buy an OS map, I have, 3 to be exact, but they are not the easiest thing to use when out riding (also means I have to carry my reading glasses with me to be able to read the map).

I had hoped to get out riding today but the winds were just to strong, gust up to 65mph locally with the wind eventually dropping off around 5:00pm tonight. Add that to the near horizontal rain, it was not an ideal recipe for riding. Which was just as well. I had some new handlebar grips to put on my bike and when I went out in the shed to fit them I found I had a flat tyre. The culprit was a 3/4″ thorn stuck in the front tyre, not sure where it came from as the last ride was a mid week blast on the road around the block.

It is just over 7 months since I started this blog (on blogspot.com) and I am getting lonely. In all that time nobody has left a comment, not even a nastie one (thats not an invite by the way). I am beginning to wonder if anybody reads this blog although I will be the first to admit I am no writer. So if there is anybody out there, please leave a comment to let me know I am not alone?

To those of you that don’t leave a comment I have one thing to say to you:

to you too!!

As is customary of late we were out cycling this morning, we went out early as A) we were expecting rain this afternoon (started raining about 6:00pm) and B) had to go shopping this after. Todays ride was a first, in fact two firsts, it was the first time we have ridden from home and the first time we had ridden on Canford Heath. The heath is only a mile and a half from our house so we rode over to the heath. The first half of the ride was very much a wide gravel type path, then it turned into narrow tracks. We even had to negotiate getting past 4 Shetland long horn cow type animals. They had very large horns and were stood on the track blocking our way. So we decided the best thing would be to get off the bikes and walk past them which meant walking through the prickly gorse. It was an interesting ride and one we will be doing again.

The afternoon was set aside for shopping, we went into one of my least favourite shops Primark, Chav central and boy what a messy disorganised shop that is. There were item of clothing and shoes all over the floor every where on all 3 floor, kids were running riot. Having said that the wife did pick up a pair of lycra jogging bottoms for cycling for a £5 which should prove useful.

While we were in the shopping centre we were accosted by a couple of Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and a few other characters from Star Wars, not sure why they were there, they just were.

Just seen a post on Facebook, why are people fascinated by watching reality TV garbage?? I can’t see the interest in X Factor, Britain got Talent, Strictly Come Dancing etc. etc. am I the only one who does not get it? The only ones that win is the production company, they have duped the whole country (if not the world) to pay for and support their auditions for a new (so called) star. Then once we have chosen their new star for them they charge us to listen or watch them, it is a win win situation for them. No wonder Simon Cowell is worth millions.

It is the same when some nobody who thinks they are a celebrity or a so called sports star makes the news headlines for doing what, being drunk at 3:00am in the morning and falling over in the street, come on people get over it, nobody is interested, the same as nobody is interested in the several thousand members of the public who do exactly the same in the wee hours of the morning so why should we be interested in hearing about this nobody?

I think I’m getting old

Been working my way through 3 month worth of photographs that I need to process, put some from July up in the gallery today more to follow in the coming week. Still need to get one of me on my bike, have a few but lets just say they are less than flattering (ok I am no model but there are limits). Would like to take my camera out when riding but concerned that I might fall off and damage the camera.

After the rain cleared up this afternoon took the bike out again for a ride, wife did not want to ride so she walked with our son who took his bmx. I done the same route as we did yesterday except this time there was quite a lot of water around some parts of it. Managed to get through the muddy areas without falling of. Met up with the wife and son at a section called the big dip, only to find son enjoying himself by riding through the puddles and mud. Surprisingly he was not to dirty or wet by the time we got back to the car (unlike his dad who was covered in mud).

Just hope that all the cycling I have done this week has helped with the weight loss, tomorrow night is weigh in night. I had a good weight loss last week and am hoping for the same tomorrow. I am trying to get the weight loss rolling before xmas arrives and this year I am not going to try and control the food intake over xmas not only from weight point of view but simply from a cost\food point of view. We always seem to either throwing the food away or eating it for the sake of eating it so it does not get thrown away. I know it is a major celebration time in the year and its time to let your hair down but I think it is time to control these things a little (er…………yes I am getting old!!)