Announcing GGGRRR 2012

On June 23rd 2012, at 7am, some friends and I are going to get together at Blanding's Landing in northwest Illinois for the Galena Gravel Grinder Rustic Road Ride (GGGRRR). This is a roughly (no pun intended) 116 mile long ride through the rugged terrain of the Driftless region of Illinois. This route is specifically designed to cash in on the hills in this little corner of the state, with every attempt made to go straight up and straight down as much as possible. The route is certainly "rustic", being roughly 55% gravel, 35% pavement and 10% trail of some kind or another. There are many sections that must be hiked (one in particular in Mississippi Pallisades State Park is MANDITORY since no biking is allowed on the trails there), fences to be hopped, gaping gullies to be traversed.

The route is not easy. However, along with its grueling nature comes a lot of great scenery, regular rest-stop opportunities in the many small towns along the way and, perhaps most importantly, many opportunities to short-cut the route once you realize there is no f!@#$%* way you're going to be able to finish the whole thing.

With all that said, I'd like to invite any adventurous cyclists out there to come join my friends and I. This is not an organized event in any way, just a group ride. You are responsible for yourself and your own safety and navigation, but I'll try to get some maps and/or gpx files for anyone who is interested.

The campground at the landing should provide a good place to stay. For those hoity-toity types that want beds and air conditioning and junk like that, the closest indoor lodging can be found at the Chestnut Mountain Resort, just 4-5 miles up the road from the landing. Just about a mile south of the landing is the Old Blanding Tavern featuring "fire" wood, ice, "famous" hollisburgers, fish, steak, sand, and according to the sign, bath"rooms". Both Galena to the north and Savanna to the south offer full dining, lodging, grocery and gas facilities. Galena is basically the Wisconsin Dells of Illinois, but instead of water parks there are a bunch of old buildings and the corpse of a president.

So, wanna ride with us? Post a comment and I'll try to keep everyone up to speed on any unfolding details.

Down and Out

I'd like to set the stage for the blog for the rest of the year. Not sure how well I'll be able to keep up with this, but I'm still hoping fore some high adventures and therefore the corresponding blog posts.

In early March the weather suddenly turned very warm here in the midwest. Like 80 for a high warm in March. This is completely unprecedented in recorded history, the highs were about 40 degrees above normal, and in this part of the country (unlike the arid southwest) having this sort of vast deviation from normal is completely unheard of.

For most cyclists, this meant an early start to the riding season. For me, it meant work at Good Oak went into overdrive. I worked 90-100+ hours a week every week in March trying to keep up. Not only was spring early, but things moved faster than normal. Burn season was half as long as normal (yet we still managed to get most of our burns in) and the garlic mustard bolted up very fast. It, and most other spring plants, are a full month ahead of their usual schedule.

As you might expect, this leaves absolutely no time for riding. I think I went 3 weeks without throwing my leg over the bike at all. I'm pretty sure the Triple-D accounts for about half of my outdoor riding hours for the year so far (at least I got on the trainer a bit and did a fair amount of running back in January and February). So I'm not sure what this means for my big plans for this racing season. I do know that I am going to have to postpone my marathon attempt for another year. Also, I'm not going to rush into things on the bike and risk injury. My knee may still be a little tender from an impact last fall that took me out, but I'm hopeful that 4 weeks of "rest" was enough to heal it up.

So I guess its time to start getting my base miles in. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to start with that in April... right?

Triple-D 2012: Third Place! Sort of, not really.

I stepped into this year's Triple-D not knowing what I wanted to get out of it.  A good workout for sure, but I didn't know if I had what it took to finish this year, still injured and out of shape as I am.  So I rolled up to the start line behind the brewery with the vague goal of covering some miles with a bunch of other snow bikers.

Once we got racing through, I felt pretty good, and it wasn't long before I decided I was going to try to finish.  We were pushing and clawing our way up the huge climb on snowmobile trails along the “Arterial Highway” out of the Mississippi River Valley.  The racer in me got the best of me and I started pushing it, just a bit, I was no longer out for a Sunday ride.  By the time we got to the top of the climb I counted 13 bikes strung out in front of me (with the leader certainly well out ahead even at this point) leaving me in about 15th place!

I have to say I felt a bit proud of myself for just being a better snow biker than a lot of the other guys.  Sounds immodest, I know, but here I was on my proto-fatbike (44 mm rims and 2.5” tires) and I was keeping pace with the guys on the fatbikes that were much better equipped for the loose snow conditions that day.  I was carving corners better, picking better lines, rolling over loose squirrelly sections, taking the short downhills faster, and overall not crashing as much as everyone else.  I was holding my own despite being injured and out of shape and on a lesser bike.  But I thought about it later and realized that my ~20 years of snow biking experience might have something to do with that.  I would be surprised if anyone else out there had been snow biking for as long as I have.

I managed to catch a couple guys over the next few miles of rolling hills.  There was a group of four of us together as we rode through an industrial park, fairgrounds, corn fields and cow pastures.  Somehow on the last climb (effectively, the last climb of the whole race) up to the ridgetop, I managed to drop the other riders and I hit the paved Humke Rd all alone with at least a minute gap on the one guy still behind me.

The pavement is where my bike actually does have an advantage with its faster rolling tires and lighter wheels I made good time while tucking myself into a quasi-areo pose, lowering my head and shoulders and gripping my brake levers instead of my handlebars.  Then came Potter Hill Road, one of Iowa's infamous “B Roads”.  This is the most fun part of the course; a technical, rutted, rocky section of steep downhill double track.  I passed 3 more riders here!  But, to be fair, one was on a fixed-geared bike, and another had dropped some gear out of his bag on this rough section and was walking back to go pick up his stuff.

Doing the math later, it seems I must have broken the top-10 by the time I hit the Heritage Trail... but that was as good as it was going to get for me.  The snow on the trail was very fluffy and loose since it had been cold and the snowmobiles had churned it up.  And it was clear that I had “shot my wad” I was getting sore and tired already.  So it was only a matter of time before the riders on fat bikes began to, one by one, pass me as we rode on towards Dyersville.  It was hard, non-stop pedaling as I rode up the ~1% grade out of the Little Maquoketa River Valley.  My gluts and hamstrings in particular started to really hurt, I had to get off a couple times and walk in order to stretch out the muscles.

I ran out of water right around Farley, but I figured it wouldn't be long before I got to LeRoy's Pizza to refuel.  I was feeling a bit sick from the hard effort of the past 1-2 hours so when things leveled out near Farley, and we had several miles with little snow on the trail, I sat up and soft pedaled, trying to bring my breathing rate and heart rate down so my digestive system could do its thing.  More riders kept passing me here but I had to just keep telling myself that I was in it to finish, not to race.  And if I was going to finish, I needed to pace myself.  It seemed to work, and I wasn't feeling so bad by the time I got to the turn-around point in Dyersville.

I took my time refueling and resting at LeRoy's, I was there almost 40 minutes, while others were getting in and out pretty quickly.  Then back on the bike I started out slow, trying to let myself digest my meal.  This wasn't easy with the 20mph headwind coming at me, I was down to 6mph on hard ground for a time there.  Another 2-3 people passed me.  But eventually I started down into the river valley and the wind was cut by the trees and hills.  It was now pretty warm, above freezing, and the trail was, to my surprise, getting well packed under the treads of the fat bikes, so the rolling was pretty fast.  I was able to move around a little more on the bike so my sore muscles didn't get any worse at least.  I went back and forth with a couple riders on the ride back to Dubuque, but in the end I think I made up one spot.

I took a few seconds to get some photos on the return trip, this is what I came up with:

 Notice the little burned section on the left.  I'd like to think this was a bit of restoration work on the (seemingly) lovely bit of prairie along this old rail line, but it was probably just an accidental burn.

 This was taken while in motion on my bike, must have been a lot of light to freeze the action! (also, the fact that I was only going 6mph might have had something to do with it).

 Scenic Iowa farmland as seen in the short open stretch at the "top" of the course.

Most of the Heritage trail travels through a scenic river valley, that looks something like this.

I was in and out of the checkpoint at The Handlebar in Durango (Iowa) pretty quick and back into the dark night down a dark tunnel that is the Herritage Trail.  Coming to the highway there was no route marking at all, I had to guess where to cross to get on the snowmobile trails, and I guessed right.  I was a little annoyed by the lack of route marking, but more pleased with myself for actually finding my way along the route, and through the streets of Davenport without getting lost (a first)!

I finished in 25th place overall in 8 hours 45 minutes.  Technically the race was divided into fat bike and “skinny” bike categories, so technically I may have finished 3rd or 4th in my category... we'll see when the results are up later in the week... No rest for the weary, after a shower and a short massage, I was in the car and on the road for 3 hours to Batavia, so I could be at my wildfire training at the Morton Arboretum this morning.

In retrospect, I would only change 3 things.  #1 Get in shape.  #2 Get a fatbike.  #3 pack an extra bottle of sports drink for the outbound leg of the race so I don't run out of water and fuel.  Other than that, it couldn't have gone much smoother all things considered.

The History of Triple-D from My Perspective

The eve of Triple-D is upon us, and once again I have decided to partake in this madness.  A metric century on snow in January is no easy task, and with 3 previous attempts, I have only completed the race once, indeed until last year, only a handful of people had.  I thought now would be a good time to review my experiences with this race before treading these hazardous waters once again:

2008: In the inaugural year of this race we were faced with over a foot of snow on the ground and a fresh 4 inches just before the race.  There were  bitter cold temperatures the temperature at the start of the race was 2 F, and it only went down from there.  Winds in our face going outbound was 20mph.  Still I managed to overheat and took a bunch of clothes off which allowed my camelbak hose to freeze.  it took over an hour for the hose to defrost once I got it under some clothes again.  Between the dehydration and the cold I and some other riders decided to turn back early where the route when down from the highlands to the Heritage Trail.  I made it a few miles back towards the start/finish as the temperature dropped below -4 and the thermometer on my cyclocomputer stopped working. After stopping at the nice warm bar which was the last check point, I decided to call it a day.  Exhausted, cold, soaked with sweat, the Triple-D had defeated me.  Only 7 of the 30 starters had finished.  Read my full race report if you wish, here.

Tackling the Triple-D course in 2008.

2009: I decided to skip the race in favor of going to the bike swap.  I stand behind this decision.  After a heavy snow fell right before the race, the course became impassable and NO ONE finished the race.

2010: Another bitter cold year. Lance Andre the race director decided to shorten the course, and make it a lot easier in the hopes that some people might finish.  At first things looked very good for me.  The entire race was on the Heritage Trail, which was essentially flat, and the snowmobiles had worked it into a hardpacked surface.  I was cruising along using my bar-ends as aero bars and after a few miles I was in the top 5.  Then a big snow grooming machine came along, and what was a hard, fast surface become a loose fluffy mess.  Immediately, it took all my skill and power just to continue going forward.  I did manage to pass a few guys on 29ers where were just wallowing all over the trail on their "skinny" tires.  I ran out of water and had to go off-course to get some water at a farm house.  I made it to the half way point and turned around, and since the course was nominally downhill in this direction and the snow was 'settling', I felt like I might make it.  Then the grooming machine came by AGAIN loosening up the trail again and ruining all hope.  I managed to make it several more miles but it was getting cold, an hour or two after sundown the temps had dropped to -6 F, and my lips were going numb (I had forgotten to pack a face mask and a balaclava was not cutting it!)  In the little town of Graf called Carol for an evac and she came to rescue me.  8 of the ~35 starters finished that year.  They must have all been on fat bikes, my proto-fatbike wasn't much good, I can't image standard MTB's being ridable at all on that surface.  My finishing distance was good enough for 14th place, I think.

2011: I had managed to get some decent miles in on the snow bike last year, and was DETERMINED to finish.  It wasn't so cold (highs in the low-20's I think), so that wasn't an issue, the snow conditions were pretty good too.  Lance decided to run us on the full, difficult course.  I got ahead of most riders in the initial stretch of trail, a lot of people were inexperienced on snow and wallowed around.  Then on the first big climb my glasses fogged up completely, not sure I made time there or lost time.  Got a little lost on the outskirts of Debuque, but eventually found my way onto the course and down to the Heritage Trail.  I ate a few pieces of pizza at the turn-around point and headed back in, kind of got into a mindless zone.  I was tired and sore, but I kept pushing, and managed a 5th place finish in 7 hours and 14 minutes!

This year... really, I have no business doing this race.  My fitness was mediocre last year, this year its abysmal.  Since I'm still recovering from my the knee injury I am putting very few miles on the bike, and a snow bike race means constant, hard pedaling, and some hiking through snow for 8+ hours.  Honestly, I signed up because we didn't have any snow, and I thought I could do a nice fun event. On my monstercross bike on frozen (or even muddy) ground, 62 miles wouldn't be so hard at all. Then we got a nice snowstorm, 7 inches of very soft, cold powder in Debuque. Still, I feel I can use this as a gauge as to just how out of shape I am, see how far I get compared to years past.  New frame bag is made, saddle position is switched, food assmelbled, rusted chain removed and replaced... I'm as ready as I'm going to be.  Bring it.

Home Turf

When I was 13 my father married my step-mother and we all moved to a new town, Batavia.  Seeing as it was the beginning of summer and I didn't have any friends in town yet, I was on my own for passing the time that summer.  With the Fox River just a few miles away I hoped on my bicycle and rode down the Prairie Path (Batavia spur) to the river to fish.
There were a lot of great paved bike paths along the river, and it wasn't long before I started riding just for the sake of riding.  It became a means of escape for me, an opportunity for adventure, and my bicycle gave me the freedom to go where I wanted to go, and do what I wanted to do long before I had a car.  I got hooked on biking in high school, and despite the fact that I lived in suburban sprawl, the heart of the car culture, I didn't get a car of my own until my second semester in college.
I'm back in Batavia this weekend visiting for the Thanksgiving holiday.  It amazes me now just how small everything around here seems, how short the distances see now, that once seemed like epic journeys.  Yesterday I dragged Carol out on the Fox River Trail on a ride all the way to its terminus in Oswego.  I had never ridden the trail past Aurora side the more southern extension is fairly new and because getting through Aurora on a bike is a nightmare.  On the way, I couldn't believe how quickly we clipped past local landmarks.  It seemed like it was just a few blocks to Island Park in Batavia.
Today I rode in the rain, back to my friend Heather's house on the west side of North Aurora where I had left my coat last night.  Just looking at it on paper, I figured it had to be a 40 minute ride.  I tried to put this in perspective with my "record" ride time to Red Oak Nature Center when I worked there, 10 minutes flat.  Red Oak was about half way there... had I forgotten how long it really took me to "race" to my high school job? Sure enough, I rolled past Red Oak after about 12 minutes of riding and I was at Heather's place in just over 20 minutes after casually meandering through the back-streets of North Aurora.
Even the hills around here seem smaller than they used to.  The hill up Viking Drive just down the block from my parents house just doesn't seem to have as steep of a slope as it used to.  Something that used to be a challenge first thing in the morning now seems like a pretty easy warm-up climb.  And then there is the hill on Raddant Road from the new Middle School up towards our place.  There is a ~2 block stretch there that I used to half-jokingly call "The Wall" because it was so long and steep... not it just seems like a complete joke, a big-ring climb really.
What is it that makes this area seem so "small" now?  Have the years of touring and taking long day-rides put things into perspective for me?  Am I used to longer commutes to get where I need to go around Madison and other places I lived?
What seem sad about all this is despite the fact that even with massive urban sprawl on the fringes of the Fox Valley communities, this area is pretty compact, and really you could get to any store, restaurant or other location you would need to use on a daily, weekly or monthly basis in an easy 2-4, or on the outside, 5 mile bike ride.  But no one does.  There are few places on the planet more car-centric than the west suburbs of Chicago.  None of the streets in the sprawlly subdivisions go straight anywhere, and the main thoroughfares around here are no place to be on a bicycle.  And though there is an extensive network of bike paths, most of them are designed around recreation only, and few take you where you really need to go.
I'm honestly at a lost as to what to say beyond that.  Such a great opportunity lost here in these cute old river towns.  In the rush to grow bigger and bigger, there wasn't much thought about what makes  community better.  Even the river itself seems like a forgotten treasure, an amazing resource that to most people probably just seems like a barrier to travel rather then the beautiful lively natural place it could be.  So part of me still has a warm spot in my heart for the Fox Valley, but a big part of me is quite happy that we now live in a place that's a lot more forward thinking.

Fine-Tuning the Trans-WI Route

Note: JMeiser, who I'm pretty sure is the original developer of the Trans-WI route and race organizer for that event contacted me via the bikepacking.net forums, asking me for some comments on the route.  I thought my notes could be useful for other folks who might try to ride this route, so I have copied them them below for people to search out.  You can follow along and see the route by folllowing this link.  Here is what I had to say:

I appreciate the opportunity to comment.  I think the route has a lot of potential, it was a great trip and I got to see a lot of different parts of WI.  In fact, you should consider contacting Adventure Cycling or WORBA about making this an "official" bike route across the state.

Overall I think there may be a difference between what a tourist wants out of a route and what makes a good race route.  For example, a tourist is going to want to go through or near a town or park at regular intervals so they can resupply or stay for the night.  And while with a race course you may want to make a route as challenging as possible, for touring something scenic and interesting is preferred, often following the shortest line of least resistance between points (points being good sections of trail/road or scenic wild areas or towns in this case). 

For example, the section of the route between the WI River and Viroqua seems to zig-zag around and go up and down from valley to ridge and back again to an excessive degree.  Is there a reason the route goes almost all the way back to the Miss. River?  Is that trail in Slide Hollow park worth going over that way?  I actually developed a "Kickapoo Valley Cut-Off" to shorten this section of the route and give me an opportunity to see the Kickapoo Valley region.  In the end we decided we needed to stay indoors that night, so we didn't use the route since the nearest town that had a hotel was Viraqua.  But after about 3 hours of only getting 30ish miles (on pavement!) going up and down those hills, we bailed off of the route south of Mt. Sterling and took Hwy 27 along the ridge top into Viraqua and made much better time doing it.  Not as scenic, but traffic wasn't bad at all.

The first "trail" I hit on the route was west of Ft. McCoy, between Camp Ave and Anchor Ave.  The gate there at Camp Ave is a little intimidating as there is no indication its public land.  The first part of this bit of trail is overgrown, but passable.  However, there is a point where the route splits off to the right, and heads onto an abandoned trail that was completely overgrown.  I kept going on the same trail which angled off NW and dumped me out on Birch Rd, an old 2-track lane.  I think this is a more reasonable route up to Anchor Avenue.

Immediately north of I-94, the sand road are ridiculously difficult and the deer flies are maddening.  I appreciate having some challenge like this in the route, but at some point enough is enough.  I bailed out and took Brockway Rd north, and I think this is really the only reasonable option, because these pure sand roads aren't going to be rideable really for anyone save perhaps a rider on a Pugsley, and they wander around for miles.  I took Brockway to Hwy 54 and that back to the route.

The route goes RIGHT PAST Levis Trow,  but not on the trails THROUGH it!  Maybe you were trying to avoid people having to pay a trail pass fee, but this seems like a huge missed opportunity.  It looks like you can pick up a trail right from the north end of Bachelor's Ave @ Hwy 95, and ride mostly singletrack around the south and east side of the mounds and across Goreman Ave to meet with the Trans-WI route again.  Unfortunately the trails/roads were saturated to flooded as I went through here and I wasn't able to do this.

Near the north end of Bald Peak Ave where it meets Co Hwy I (near "Tioga" about 20 miles south of Thorp), the route cuts off of Balk Peak Ave westward on some ATV trails.  Though the ~1 mile long stretch that goes SW is open, the section you turn right on there to head NW is no longer an open trail.  It would be best to run the route up to Co Hwy I and then west back over to those ATV trails.  However I can't speak to the condition of those trails over there since I was feeling sick that day and just took Co Hwy M straight north into Thorp.

NW of Thorp, at "Maplehurst",  the intersection of CoHwy A and CoHwy T, the route sends us off onto Wildlife Road, then north on a small track up to Burma Dr.  I read some trip reports from the 2010 race stating that this was private land and you had to ask permission to ride it, so I just took CoHwy T up to Burma Dr.  When on Burma Dr. I tried to see where this track met the road and saw no road or trail of any kind.  So I suggest just skipping this section of "trail".

North of Perkinstown the route needs a little work.  It sends you west on CoHwy M on what seems to me to be a pointless (though scenic) loop on Forest Roads 574 and 572.  Probably better to just take CoHwy M north to Forest Road 112.  Then there is the whole bit where there is no bridge over the Yellow River on the route.  I took FR112 north, then east on Homstead Rd, then north on Yellow River Road to go around this.

Then there is the stretch of "trail' or "road" north of CoHwy D (aka North St on google maps) that is COMPLETELY IMPASSABLE.  It is completely overgrown (in areas bushwhacking through the woods was significantly easier then trying to follow the trail itself), then dumps down into a wetland, which is where I stopped, and then god only knows how wide that creek is.  It was flooded even 50 yards away from the creek so there was no way I was going to go further.  It would be better to just take Hwy D east to Hwy N, then take that north back to where it meets your route.  This to me was the single biggest problem with the route.

North of Hayward I wondered if it was necessary for the route to sweep so far east to the west side of Lake Namekagon.   I was feeling pretty sick that day and had some equipment issues as well, so I bailed out to US63 north of Seeley and took that north to Drummond.  So I missed the whole stretch.  Maybe you've got some good trail in there, but it seems like there are dirt roads that run just west of Cable that could be used instead that would run you closer to town for resupplying, also avoiding the temptation to short-cut the route.

The last 60ish miles of the route I thought were superb.  But people should we be warned that there are no services at all.  However, there is a bit there between Star Route Rd and Hwy13 where I suspect if the roads were wet it would be impassible.  It was pretty dense clay, when I went through there were deep petrified truck tracks.  Seems like the kind of soil that would have you dragging a bike if it were wet.  Just something to note.

I hope you can tweak the route and get it some more attention.  it was a great ride!

Gear Review: The Electronics

I will be the first to admit that I brought way too many electronics on this trip.  You can see in this photo the Garmin Oregon 450 GPS unit, my iPhone 3GS, my Planet Bike Protoge 9.0 cyclocomputer, and in the bar-mounted bag on the right was my new Panasonic Lumix TS3 waterproof camera.  Makes for a bit of bar clutter.  In addition to this mess, I also carried around an Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, a Princeton Tec EOS headlamp, a New Trent external battery pack for the iPhone, back-up batteries for the camera, 6 rechargeable AA's for the GPS unit, a battery charger for the AA batteries, and 3 AAA Lithium-Ion back up batteries for the headlamp.

In theory the iPhone should be able to replace both the camera and the GPS unit, and meanwhile redue a lot of the spare battery clutter to boot.  But as it turns out the iPhone is good at a lot of things, but not good enough at anything to be the sole unit I would rely upon.  The camera quality on the 3GS sucks, and I'm not too optimistic that the iPhone 5 will be much better in this department unless they replace the epoxy bubble they use for a lens now with some optical quality glass.  Also, there's not much controling the image you're getting out of the iPhone, I'd like to be able to control the shutter speed, ISO, manual focus (for macro shots) and most critically have an adjustable exposure compensation.

On the other hand, the Panasonic Lumix TS3 was an excellent little camera, a huge improvement over our old P&S camera.  The controls are all easy to get to and adjust (not hard to access, stupid modes for fireworks, and candlelight, and firelight and starlight) its GPS enabled for geo-tagging my photos (important when photographing rare plants), waterproof and "shockproof".  In fact, I dropped it onto asphalt while rolling along at 15mph, and after re-seating the SD card it works just fine.  My only complaint is that its way to easy to get a finger, and thus a fingerprint on the lens and that its pretty expensive at over $300.

One more camera related review: the Eye-Fi Moble X2 SD card I used took a lot of work to set up properly, but once it was set up, I could wirelessly send photos from the camera to the iPhone ANYWHERE, no Wi-Fi network required.  This along with the wireless keyboard meant that I could upload photos, type up, and post to my blog as long as I had the faintest cellular signal... or i could just compose the whole thing and post it once I rolled into a town where I got a phone signal.  Brilliant.

As for that Apple Bluetooth Keyboard, it worked well and was relatively compact, and was waterproof as long as I kept it in a large zip-lock bag.  However its pretty heavy being made out of a big hunk of aluminum.  I was hoping to have the Jorno folding keyboard for this trip... to bad they're running a full year behind when they said they were going to release it... I preordered mine back last December and won't see it until next spring!

But the really crippling aspect of the iPhone that makes it useless for navigating and general use is the pathetic, abysmal, embarrassing battery life.  I have to turn on every battery saving setting I can find, and then keep it in Airplane Mode most of the time, and it still runs out of batteries about 2/3rds of the way through each day while on tour.  Then there is the hassle of turning Airplane Mode off, the switching to the app you want to use, waiting for the GPS to connect, figure out where you are and where you are going, then quit the app, so you can go back to setting and put it back in Airplane Mode before shutting it off.

This made the New Trent IMP880 8900mAh External Battery Pack, a necessary and trip-saving accessory.  It charges from the wall, holds about 5 iPhone charges worth of battery power that you can dish out whenever you need it.  There are other models and brands with different battery capacities for different folks, but this one I think is well suited to my needs.  It worked flawlessly, really an accessory that every iPhone owner needs (at least until Apple gets their act together).

Apple needs to triple or quadruple the battery life on these phones.  The battery inside the iPhone has less juice than a single AAA battery!  I think they could increase the battery power this much by making it about 1/8th" thicker.  I don't know why Steve Jobs is so obsessed with making the iPhone thinner, I have never heard anyone complain about their phone being too thick.  Meanwhile, I have problems with the battery running down in daily use, not just on tour, and that's just pathetic. Apple also needs to develop a setting/mode to allow us to turn off all-cellular transmission/reception while leaving the GPS function on.  Kind of like Airplane Mode + GPS.  This, I would imagine would be easy to do, and it would save people like myself who both work and play out of the cell network a lot of battery power, since when the phone is "searching..." it takes a lot of extra juice.

All of this is a shame because the GPS software for the iPhone is pretty good (or at least maturing into something pretty good) and the GPS chip itself is about as accurate as any consumer-grade GPS device.  I tested out both Motion-X GPS and Gaia GPS on this trip.  Both apps allow you to download maps ahead of time so you don't have to rely on cellular coverage to see where you are going.  In both you can upload GPS waypoints and tracks, so you can see your route.  Motion-X is a bit more advanced in this department as you can manage these files through iTunes, but with Gaia, you have to email a GPX file to a special email address as an attachment, which works, but is clunky.  Both apps have problems with tracks disappearing so you have to re-load them, but Gaia seems worse for this.  Of course, the best solution for this would be if either app developed a desktop companion for their software to allow you to manage layers, maps, waypoints and tracks, but I'm not going to hold my breath for this.

Gaia has the huge advantage of being able to download actual USGS Topo maps.  I found that these coupled with OpenStreet Maps was all I needed for navigation.  However, the topo maps were hard to read with my iPhone 3GS, I'm hoping they work better with the RetinaDisplay on the iPhone 4.  Gaia also has a lot of clutter on their maps screen, and while you can minimize it to some degree, I don't see why I need even a little tab to see the exact longitude and latitude coordinates of my location.  I can't imagine this information ever having any practical use.  It'd be nice to have the option to eliminate these entirely from the screen.

I have been using Motion-X GPS for a while, and it works OK, but its interface is too complicated and cluttered, its a bit buggy still.  Also, though I spent HOURS downloading maps to this app before I left on my trip, some of them mysteriously disappeared, so I couldn't rely on Motion-X GPS to help me with navigation when I was out on the trail.  Very frustrating.  Overall, I Think if they could work out some bugs, streamline and simplify a bit and get the topo maps on there, this would be a solid App.  But for now at least, despite its faults Gaia GPS is my choice for iPhone-based navigation.

Both of these apps have a lot of potential, but are unfortunately held back by the iPhone hardware.  I think the outdoor enthusiasts best hope is if a case manufacture would come forward with a case that was not only a shock/water resistant case, but also had an extra battery pack built in.  Right now you can buy one or the other, not both.  Also, it would be good if someone came up with a decent handlebar mount for the iPhone, the Topeak iPhone Drybag I used worked, but you have to take it out of the bag to get a decent photo, and there's really no shock protection if you drop it.  But their clip system worked great, and its the way I will be carrying around my iPhone on my bike for commuting and recreational rides back home.

The Garmin Oregon 450 is a decent GPS unit, and since this the first time I have used a GPS for navigation (I've used Trimble units for data gathering for scientific field work) I don't have a lot to compare it to.  It works great when you're on the bike and need to know where to turn next.  And it runs for a full day, and then some using NiMH rechargeable batteries.  This made it my go-to navigation device.  However, it has several faults.  The user interface was clunky.  And what really drove me crazy was that the topographic lines were in dark brown while the roads were in light grey, so it made it really hard to see where the roads were going in any area with rolling hills!  I had to turn the topographic map off in the end and rely on a regular street map, which is not optimal. I should be able to adjust the apperance of the topo lines and the roads to meet my needs.  Also, to switch between the "direction of travel is up" mode when navigating to the "north is up" mode when I just want to look at the route overall, you had to exit the map, open up the settings, etc.  This took 8 taps of my finger to get there, really this should be something you should be able to do by one click to the compass in the upper left hand corner.

The small, low-resolution screen makes it very difficult to use if you are trying to look at the "map" and decide on a new route.  The iPhone apps did this job a lot better, since you could easily zoom in and out and see a clear map of your surroundings.  Or you could try a good, old-fashioned paper map.  But either way, I would never take this GPS unit into the wild alone as my only navigation device.  In this day and age with smart phone and other devices so prevalent, I think we expect more out of our hand-held devices.  I think Garmin is in big trouble with their stand-along units.  They are going to need to improve their screen quality, improve the quality of maps that they offer and provide a better user experience or they are going to be left in the dust by the GPS apps on smartphones.  It is nice that Garmin provides a desktop companion for their units, called Garmin Basecamp, but it is really clunky software with 5 actual applications you have to download.  Basically it works, but the user interface is crap and its buggy.

All I have to say about the Planet Bike Protoge 9.0 is that it works well, and that it displays the temperature as well as all of the standard bike computer info.  Like a bank clock, it estimates a bit high in full sunlight, but seems pretty accurate in the shade, or when shaded by the shadow of my body.  Also, somehow if you put your iPhone right next to it and start playing MP3's it will reset the Protoge... that's some serious electromagnetic interference, so beware of that.

All in all, if the iPhone could do what its supposed to do, I could have cut probably 2 pounds of electronic gear from my kit.  Another solution I am considering is a generator hub hooked up to charge the iPhone while I ride.  It would add a little bit of rolling resistance, but in return I would have all of the utility I need and a lot less electronic clutter!