Feed Zone Cookbook – First Impression

Ordered this book from The Book Depository on December 24th, It finally arrived in my mailbox today…

Skimmed through it, and there seems to be lots of easy, yummy, and moderately fast to make meals confined in this hardcover book.

The pages are crisp, the colors pop, and it even comes with a little pagemarker tassel built-in! Most definitely worth the price!

I’ll be doing a formal review soon, but I thought I would share this info so far…

First Impression?

BUY IT!

 

Second Year of Bike Midwest

I’ve signed on for a second year of contributing to Bike Midwest Magazine.

Their magazine can be subscribed to through their site or Amazon. it’s a fun little magazine, and their point of view is all over the map, so if you’re into racing, commuting, charity rides, product review, or even wondering what is going on in certain circles of the cycling world, you should check it out.

If you want more info about the magazine with a monthly circulation of 25,000, feel free to contact them here, and tell them I sent ‘ya~

Maps – Every Cyclist Needs Them

Ever wanted to have a giant version of Google Maps’s road map that you could print and squiggle all of the rides you have done before? Now you can.

I’ve held onto a piece of software for a couple years now that is capable of downloading Google’s maps in tiles, then stitch them all together into a big image that is printable. Unless you have a large format printer, I’m sure that you could just tape/glue the pieces together.

I really think this program is great for shops, race organizers, or just cycling geeks that like to have a big wall map of where they have been.

I’ve used two pieces of software to grab very large maps of a certain course we have been riding lately.

First, Google Map Buddy:

Click for LARGER image

When I say this map is huge, I really mean it. This ideally would be printed at 42″x60″.

So far I haven’t really found any downsides to Google Map Buddy. If there are any, it is that it is kinda sorta hard to find, and that it is no longer supported by the creator, since google sent them a cease & desist order. Something about downloading google map tiles for non-software supported use, etc etc etc…

If you have been looking for something like this, try it. It is best suited to save about a town or two worth of map space. I have tried to save all of West Virginia at once… Yeah… haven’t lucked out on that one yet, but then again my bandwidth is terrible.

 

There is also gMapMaker, which is also abandonware, but is easier to find. It isn’t supported by the publisher, and the forums have been dead for over six months. The software is capable of utilizing Open Source maps, and some Bing maps, but it is kind of sketchy, as seen here:

Click for LARGER image

As you’ve noticed, there are a few splotchy parts on the map that appear black. That is where a tile is missing from the set of images that the program downloaded, and either lost or discarded when it compiled them all to make the big map. I tried three or four different times to get the software to not do this with no luck in the long run. Sigh…

 

Either way, if you still ever had dreams of printing off enough maps to cover your bathroom walls, or stick behind a piece of plexi, so you can chart your rides… this is the way to do it.

 

If anyone else has some up-to-date, and cheap ways to have large format maps printed, lemme know!

 

New Year Ride!

Everyone in West Virginia has been rejoicing in the wonderful weather this late into the season. Tons of my friends have posted on Facebook photos or Garmin courses of their New Year rides.

I decided to show Jeff the Petit Roubaix course here in Buckhannon. This was a great ride with some interesting discoveries. As I stated last time I talked about the Petit Roubaix, there was a tunnel… maybe 100 feet deep that I did not explore. We finally went through it, on our bikes, and found out that it could be rideable… in certain conditions. Also, with the large rock walls on both sides, we both scaled one of the sides to see where the path went.

This was a random mailbox we saw. First time I’ve ever seen people use a bike in a little mailbox design. Look how the N’s are backwards!

Lastly, a video of our little trek into the tunnel, footage of the other side, and use scaling the rock wall in cleats.

The ride overall was a success, with it being 30 minutes faster than the last time I took it on. The rain held off long enough to get home, and I’m hoping that we can either get a TON of snow, or avoid it all together.

I’m hoping the rides keep getting better this year, and that I get even more miles in!

What are your cycling related New Year Resolutions?

Check Facebook to see what others did during New Year’s Day: http://www.facebook.com/WestVirginiaCycling

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• Happy New Year! Let the riding/writing begin! (chasingthemiles.wordpress.com)

When We’re Not Biking, We’re Hiking

I visited Braxton County for Christmas, and ended up doing more than just riding while down there.

First off, what’s up with the weather? All week, it’s been in the 40′s and 50′s, when last year, we had 18 inches of snow!

December 20th, 2010

December 20th, 2010

Heck, Yukon Charlie can even tell you that I bought a pair of snowshoes this year, thinking that there was going to be a time where it no longer made sense to ride in the snow…

Well, in Braxton, there’s not a speck of snow, unless you count the morning frost on the grass and your car’s windshield. This weather just invites you to go out and do something, anything that makes you appreciate and thankful that it isn’t snowing.

First day, the girlfriend and I went on a dirty-road ride to some general store-esque shop that provides goods for the local residents, since the closest Kroger or something of that sort is 15-20 miles away. If you’ve ever been to Duck, West Virginia (Yes, Duck.)… I’m sure you’re familiar with Nottingham’s store, off of Route 4.

I took a ton of photos of Llamas, self-made town signs, and rope bridges to get to their home. Most of these pictures were taken with a disposable camera that I got from an Amgen Tour advertiser and decided to use it while I could still get it developed.

This footage shows the lovely scenery that exists in WV:

Here’s a few of the pictures I took:

The new bridge in Strange Creek

A rope bridge to cross to someone's house. This was behind the Strange Creek Baptist Church

The next day, we took the dogs out to the meeting point of the Elk River and Birch River, hiking around on the girlfriends cattle trails and tractor paths. Her dog was very excited, ran around in one of the really shallow areas, and we climbed a small waterfall and decided to take some pictures.

Waterfall!

She was ready to roam the whole farm!

I wanted to take some *film* photographs from the ledge!

While hiking isn’t my forte, and I don’t think I could do it on a day-to-day basis… It was fun romping around and exploring land that I’ve never ventured on before.

The refreshing part of this non-cycling excursion was just enjoying this weather!