Water supply solution for Streetmachine GTe

Years ago I traveled to Baja Mexico with Greet Tortoise bus. While we stopped at Cataviña to see the cave paintings, I chatted with a lonely bicycle tourist. I remember asking him what was the most difficult part of his trip. He thought for a second, then said - water. In Baja it was difficult to find drinking water.

Now I have been planning a trip through baja of my own. I have read Graham Mackintosh'es first book - Into a Desert Place: A 3000 Mile Walk around the Coast of Baja California. His trip takes him to the extreme - he goes way of the beaten path. Graham distills fresh water from the sea at a times, he is so hard core.

My plan is to stay on the paved road, Highway 1 most of the time. Riding in the morning and resting in the afternoons. My goal is 30-50 miles per day. I will camp. I will carry a emergency dry food rations, and about 6L of water.

Now about the water - instead of giant plastic jug I have been having nightmares about I have invested into two 3L Nalgene CXC bladders, and Terracycle FastBack Double Century hydration pack. According to Bicycle Touring 101 website there are truck stops/shacks every 50KM or so, so there are places to get food and water.

Blogging with a Kindle

With my SanFran to Santa Monica trip approaching I have been trying to figure out a solution for my blog. I tried my iPhone 3gs. It works but I would need data plan and a charging solution - after an ehaustive search I thought I had it all figured out.

Then I came across Kindle 3g.

Battery life - at least couple weeks with 3g, and no data plan required. I picked up a refurbished unit for $159 from amazon warehouse deals. So far I could not be happier - I am blogging over wifi right now. 

Tracking my rides with an iPhone

 I have been working out how to keep track of my riding using iPhone 3gs.

My favorite programs so far are Cyctastic and MotionX.

Cyctastic wants you to register for any kind of data sharing, but I am not keen about that. In standalone mode it gives you audible cues - I have it set up to tell me when I have ridden a mile and the speed I am going at. If I have the phone in my front pocket with speaker facing up, I can hear it pretty well.

MotionX is my new favorite. It has audible cues, and supports downloadable maps too. So if I am planning a trip, I can select maps for it and just go. It does not do turn by turn routing however. You need their "drive" version, which I have not evaluated yet.

For turn by turn I could use TomTom which has bicycle mode as a part of routing. However, that is good only for a quick trips - the drain on batteries is pretty high when using GPS. I can get about 3 hours of use in GPS mode, then the phone is useless.

Right now I am investigating external power packs and solar charging to make iPhone a viable tool for long distance navigation.

There is an example of MotionX generated report.

Jul 10, 2011 11:48 am

Name:		Track 004
Date:		Jul 10, 2011 11:48 am
Map: (valid until Jan 6, 2012)		View on Map
Distance:		16.2 miles
Elapsed Time:		1:23:00
Avg Speed:		11.7 mph
Max Speed:		27.2 mph
Avg Pace:		05' 07" per mile
Min Altitude:		112 ft
Max Altitude:		220 ft
Start Time:		2011-07-10T18:48:26Z
Start Location:
	Latitude:	34.005264º N
	Longitude:	118.489827º W
End Location:
	Latitude:	34.004753º N
	Longitude:	118.488990º W