Half the fun is not knowing where you are but finding things you didn’t expect
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- January
- 27
I always thought half the fun was getting lost and finding the unexpected. David, I read with interest your post below about the Garmin Edge. I used a Garmin GPS about ten years ago when I owned a small sailboat. It was the navigator I needed to relocate the 28 foot Cape Dory from Barnegat Bay to the Chesapeake. I would have been very hesitant to make that trip without the security of that GPS.
But for bike rides I’m happy with a queue sheet or nothing. Part of the attraction of cycling in my mid-teens, (and now) was the discovery of new places. Riding further from home on nearly every weekend. Finding unpaved roads and towns I’ve never heard of and following our noses home. Sometimes we’d be lost having ridden 30 or 40 miles from home and just head towards the sun until we found a road or route number we knew. Days we thought would be 40-mile loops turned into 60 or more. Five high school friends and I used AAA folding maps to make our way from suburban Philadelphia to Portland Maine to take the ferry to Nova Scotia and back a different route. We got lost a few times and turned 100-mile days into 115 but it was all-good. It forced us to talk to people and share our story. I’d be afraid that with a GPS in hand we’d have planned the trip in detail and followed the route blindly. Missing out on side roads suggested by locals we met along the way.
Of course, the GPS might have helped me find one of the few bridges into Montreal that allowed bikes when I rode there solo in 1983. Once in Montreal I was looking for the YMCA for my first night stay, but couldn’t find it. It had rained most of the day and I was covered in heavy road grime. Dark was settling in and I decided the next hotel I saw I was going in. The hotel I found was the Mount Royal Sheraton. I locked my bike to a sign out front. Clip-clopped my way up the white marble stairs and under the crystal chandelier. I was a mess and the desk clerk was super nice. I asked for an out of the way room that I could take my bike. The best part was the bellman who tried to place my Peugeot onto a luggage cart to wheel it to the room. I grabbed it and put it on my shoulder panniers and all and we headed to the back freight elevator. The next day I bought a newspaper to cover the floor and proceeded to regrease the bottom bracket and hubs for the 1,100 miles home.
Next, on that trip was a short but exhilarating seven miles or so on Route 80 near the Delaware Water Gap. But that’s a fun story now—blasting down the shoulder of Rt 80 doing a time trial as hard as I could with trucks passing me at 70 mph a foot or so away while I rehearsed saying “ Officer I’m sorry, I was coming down 209 and didn’t know it joined Rt 80 for this section. I started in Monticello, NY this morning and still have 70 miles to get home. I promise to get off at the next exit.”
I now live on a road I stumbled on when I first moved here on a bike ride. From the river I rode up Snake Hill, a road that earns its name. It ends at Old Albany Post Road, which was hard packed at the intersection. I hung a right and started to descend a nasty, rutted dirt road at speeds that flat out scared me on a road bike. But while I was white knocked I was thinking, “what a great road, I want to live here some day.” If the GPS told me the road was dirt or the climb on Snake Hill was as steep I would have found another way and missed out.
It’s that unknown I love while riding. It’s pushing myself farther then planned to get home. It’s time trialing as hard as you can to be home before dark. The training aspects do sound nice.
But for $600 I’d rather invest in a much better set of wheels or travel to a place I’ve never been on a bike. Hope I’m lucky enough to get lost and meet some nice locals to get me back to the hotel with another story to share on the next club ride.
But David, if we’re lost together and looking for a fast why home I’ll be glad to follow your wheel.
This entry was posted
on Tuesday, January 27th, 2009 at 8:25 AM by Randall Wolf. 
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Funny, the Garmin has helped me find more roads than ever. I used it in Portland recently to explore a bike trail I didn’t know existed, because I knew I could navigate back home. In Rockland I’ve found dozens of new routes, small and beautiful streets I didn’t know were there, because they’re hidden and out of the way.
In Amsterdam and Brugges my wife and I used the Garmin to head out on completely unmapped routes and come back directly to our hotel, which allowed us to stay out longer and ride more (if I had to retrace my route or experiment to get home, I’d have turned around much earlier for fear of being stuck past dark.) We simply couldn’t have packed turn sheets and instead would have to have stuck to main roads and obvious routes. Instead we got to see small streets, homes, dykes, windmills, shipping lanes and more.
In China I rode during the Olympics, finding my way back from Hutongs (small clusters of single-room dwellings) that most people never go to. Sure I’d have experimented with the routes, but I wouldn’t have gone as far or as long because there was limited sun and the great risk of getting lost somewhere I don’t speak or read the language.
I think you’re missing the helps-you-get-lost aspect of the navigation device. It’s not necessary to rely on it, or even use the mapping features. But think of all the extra roads you could have gone on.
Don’t forget, AAA maps aren’t any less of a navigation aid than a GPS, they’re only more prone to error. Instead of carrying a series of small folding squares (and stopping often to check them) I’ve got the whole country in a small electronic package that also tells me how fast and how far I’ve gone.
When I’m done I can upload the routes to my computer, which means that I can ride them again, and better, I can share them with people.
Case in point— here’s the map of my ride in Bruges. We hit massive headwinds and frigid temperatures on one day and were thinking of turning back at a major intersection simply to keep from dying of hypothermia. But since we had the GPS, we went another few miles and then routed ourselves back on a completely new and scenic route. If it hadn’t been for the GPS, our day would have ended up with less riding.
And finally, the GPS adds a measure of safety on those rides where I get myself lost. If everything else fails, I can tell the rescue crews where to find my body.
Sorry, the GPS map didn’t post there. Here’s the link.
“http://cycling.lohudblogs.com/files/2009/01/picture-6.png
I’m not sure about riding with the both of you (Randolph and David)at the same time. The last time I rode with the two of you, we got caught in the biggest lightning storm i’ve every experienced in my life. A GPS or paper map didn’t help us while we were shivering under a bridge hoping we didn’t get struck by a million volts of electrical energy.
Personally though, I love my Garmin 705 for it mapping capability and as a great cycling computer that can show cadence, HR, elevation, speed, distance and a host of other things. This is real-time information that I definitely use while riding, and, being the “lazy” person that I am, it helps me keep an accurate log of my entire season.
I’d love to start using it as a training aid for my first triathlon event this 2009 season. I need to explore the many training tools that it offers and that I don’t even come close to understanding.
This is a very good blog for us blog addicts, thanks for your blog.