As has become my custom since June, I went on a bike ride this weekend.  I am starting to run out of ideas for where to ride, so I have looked into combining different sections of trails.  Today I rode the Batavia Branch of the Illinois Prairie Path, the Aurora Branch of the Prairie Path, and the Fox River Trail.

My ride began in Batavia at the Fabyan Forest Preserve in the shadow of the windmill.  I rode the east branch of the Fox River Trail to Downtown Batavia.  There was a choice – cross the river on a bridge to reach the west branch of the trail, or go down some stairs to continue on the east branch.  I wanted to get to the Batavia Branch of the Prairie Path, which meets the Fox River Trail on the east side of the river, so that meant taking the stairs.  Kind of odd that you would have to go down stairs.  Why not just make it a downhill paved surface?  Maybe they were worried about people going down the hill too fast and ending up in the river.  Once down the stairs (glad my bike’s frame is aluminum), I was on a sort of boardwalk at the river’s edge passing behind some businesses and going underneath Wilson St.  I continued south on the trail to Glenwood Forest Preserve, where the Batavia Branch of the Prairie Path meets the Fox River Trail.  I made the southeasterly turn onto the Prairie Path.  The crossing beneath IL25 is interesting because of all the grafitti there.  However, the ride between 25 and Hart Rd is one of the most boring sections of trail in the Chicago area.  I’ve walked this half-mile section of trail in the past and didn’t enjoy it.  There’s nothing to look at; a dead industrial park on the north and trees to the south.  On top of the lack of scenery, you are going uphill as you ride east.  The scenery improves as you head east, with backyards and Fermilab to peep into.  The Batavia Branch’s crossing of IL56 is no big deal.  Yes there is traffic, and yes, the cars are going about 50mph.  However, you only have to cross two lanes.  Proceeding southeast, you approach the crossing with Bilter Rd.  There is a gentle descent leading to the crossing, but you have to resist the temptation to speed.  This is a crossing where you definitely need to slow way down or stop to make sure no cars are coming.  Due to the construction of the Eola Rd interchange on I-88, the Prairie Path is closed where the trail bends easterly to parallel the tollroad.  However, the Tollway Authority did construct a detour.  There is plentiful signing and you won’t get lost.  A new crushed stone trail heads northeast to Bilter Rd.  You then cross Bilter Rd and inexplicably go up the curb (asphalt ramp provided) onto a really short path (only 100ft long) before you have to go back down the curb onto Bilter Rd.  One of the westbound lanes of Bilter is closed and blocked off by construction barrels.  The area between these barrels and the north curb serves as the bike trail.  You ride on Bilter’s pavement until about 250ft west of Eola Rd where the trail goes back up the curb onto a path.  You cross Bilter and Eola at the stoplight.  The detour continues on a previously-built bike trail southward on Eola Rd before rejoining the Prairie Path.  The Tollway Authority has a PDF map of the Eola interchange showing the previous, current, and future routing of the Prairie Path through this area.  The terrain along I-88 is gently rolling; you’ll go uphill a little and downhill a little.  There is a railroad crossing to look out for.

At the intersection of the Batavia Branch and Aurora Branch of the Prairie Path, I turned right to head southwest to Aurora.  This began the second leg of the triangle.  I’d say this was the second most enjoyable leg of the triangle (west Fox River Trail being the most enjoyable).  I had only walked short sections of this branch of the Prairie Path while geocaching, whereas I had been on the Batavia Branch many many times.  The trail’s crossing of Diehl Rd was nice, with an island in the middle where you can wait for traffic to pass.  The Aurora Branch passes through a somewhat industrial part of Aurora.  In DuPage County, the road crossings are marked with signs so you know where you are.  I’m big on trail signage, even though I have maps on my GPSr to tell me where I am.  The trail becomes somewhat scenic in the vicinity of Church Rd, where trees form a canopy over the trail.  It probably would have been pretty a few weeks ago, but now the leaves are gone.  The most difficult road crossing of the day was at Indian Trail Rd.  Indian Trail is four lanes wide and can be pretty busy.  Between Indian Trail and Hankes Ave, I really built up a head of steam.  It is a 40ft elevation drop over the course of 0.45mi.  I actually had to shift to the big sprocket up front.  Once I arrived at Hankes Ave, I got confused.  I had lost track of where I was and the trail suddenly ended.  I don’t recall seeing any signage for the trail.  It took me a moment to realize this was where the trail uses the roadway for a block before resuming off-road west of IL25.  Again, since the trail is descending to the river, I got going pretty quickly but had to scrub off speed to make the southward curve in the trail.  I have walked the trail between 25 and Illinois Ave so many times while geocaching.  It used to be pretty crummy.  The park was neglected, with debris and assorted crap in the floodplain.  Now the park has been cleaned up and the trail is newly paved and quite smooth.  However, the park still floods.

At Illinois Ave, I crossed the river and joined the Fox River Trail on the west side of the river.  There are very few road crossings on this trail.  You pass beneath Indian Trail Rd, Sullivan Rd, I-88, and IL56.  There was quite a bit of new asphalt too.  Good for a smooth fast ride.  I rode a pretty constant 12.5mph pace.  Most of the other riders were only going about 8mph, so I had to do some passing.  The other trail users were pretty well behaved.  I should note that I was riding without my earbuds on today.  I remembered that it was illegal for bicyclists to ride with headphones on, though I suspect that law is really meant for road riding and not riding on trails.  Either way, I keep the volume so low that I can hear everything around me.  There was one hefty female jogger who had her music on so loud that I could hear her music as I passed.  I’m sure you all know the adage that if other people can hear your music, you have the volume set too high.  While this part of the Fox River Trail was pleasantly smooth to ride on and I could ride quickly, it did get monotonous at times.  I have found that I like crossing roads and having backyards to look at to break up the ride.  As I said earlier, there were no roads to cross and the houses are set so far from the trail that you can’t see anything.  At the Batavia wastewater treatment plant, the trail utilizes the shoulder of a roadway.  There is a descent that allows you to build up a lot of speed, but it’s not smart to do because there are some curves and you could go into oncoming traffic if you go too fast.  I got a little lost riding into Downtown Batavia.  The trail seemed to go between the rear of some businesses and the river.  It was paved differently from the other sidewalks, so I figured I was on the trail, though I was worried I might have been on a private sidewalk.  I’m pretty sure I was on the trail, but I don’t know if I just missed signage or if there simply wasn’t any signage.  The pavement ended at a narrow staircase beneath Wilson Street.  I carried my bike up the stairs, got back on, and rode around the corner at Wilson and Island Ave.  There was signage showing the trail goes north along Island, then west along Houston St before turning north again.  From here, it was a short ride back up to Fabyan Forest Preserve.  The trail passes under Fabyan Pkwy, so technically, there are no crossings of east-west roads on the Fox River Trail between Aurora and St. Charles.  Since the trail follows the river, the trail is routed underneath the roadways’ bridges over the river.

When I got back to Fabyan Forest Preserve, the parking lot was filled with cars.  Lots of vehicles with bike racks and lots of cyclists setting up or putting away their bikes.  Trail traffic had increased as I approached the park, so I was glad to get off the trail.  If I remember, I will buy a bell for my bike this week to make it easier to announce my presence in traffic.

EveryTrail changed their website again and now it sucks.  The graph showing speed and elevation over distance is tiny and you cannot read the scale on the graph.  Also, you cannot mouse over the graph anymore and see where those elevation and speed changes take place on the map.  I’ll post a link to my tracklog there anyway, in case you want to zoom in and see it on the map.  I looked at MapMyRide, but that site is just about making money.  They throw up ads all over and you have to pay (membership starts at $30/yr) to get rid of the ads.  Personally, I don’t see anything worth paying for that you can’t do with other software.  You can use Google Earth to map your trips and a spreadsheet to track your fitness.

I figured out how to do a screenshot of the trip computer screen on my DeLorme PN-30.  Below are the stats from my ride.  I was in motion pretty much the whole ride.  Of the three minutes of stopped time, about a minute was spent trying to photograph some ducks in Aurora.  The rest of the stopped time was due to road crossings.

I set a new personal record for average speed.  The 11.1mph of today beats the 10.2mph I averaged while riding around the far west side of Elgin.  Since June 26, I have gone about 333mi.  I have put about 120mi on my new bike so far.

I overdressed for the weather and wore long sleeves for this ride.  Unfortunately, I now have heat rash on the inside of my arms.  Whenever I wear long sleeves and do strenuous activity like hiking or bicycling and end up sweating, I get this freaking heat rash on the inside of my arms in the elbow and forearm area.  I usually don’t feel it, but sometimes it gets hot and itchy.  The little red bumps and splotches aren’t the most attractive, though they could be worse.  I shouldn’t complain too much.  I have worn the same long-sleeved shirt on other rides, but they were colder rides, so my arms didn’t sweat.  Ugh.  I wish I could get through a winter without getting a stupid heat rash.  I love exercising outdoors in the fall and winter, but long sleeves and sweating are bad for my arms.

After all the heavy rain this week, I didn’t want to ride on a crushed stone trail.  I figured it would be a soupy or muddy mess.  I wanted to ride on asphalt.  It would be a drier ride and I make better speed on hard surfaces.  My plan for this ride started earlier this week.  I knew Schaumburg had many bike paths and many streets have bike lanes.  I took a peek at their bike path map to see what they had to offer.  It turns out this Bicycle Friendly Community has 87 miles of bike routes.  Plenty of options.  I decided to use the park district’s rec center at Bode Rd and Springinsguth Rd as home base for this ride.  Safe public parking, with trails leading to it from three directions.  Below is my tracklog; go to this ride’s trip page on EveryTrail if you want to zoom in on a map.

For this ride, I had my DeLorme PN-30 on the handlebars.  I finished putting together the RAM mount and attaching it to the bike.  I don’t if installing the mount or putting my bike into my car’s trunk the wrong way was the cause, but only a couple of minutes into the ride, my handlebar started wobbling.  I wondered if I put my front tire on wrong.  It was secure, so I checked out the handlebar.  It was moving around too much.  I got out my handy tool pouch (every bicyclist should carry one) and tried to tighten the hex nuts (or bolts or whatever they are).  The GPS mount was in the way.  I was able to make a couple turns with my wrench, which got rid of the play in the handlebars.  I rode another quarter mile and I got that jiggle again.  This time I took the GPS mount off so my wrench could make full revolutions to tighten the handlebars.  Mechanically, my ride was trouble-free after this.  However, this is exactly why I carry a little tool pouch with me when I ride.  Going back to when I rode my old Huffy in high school, I would carry a hex wrench with me just in case something came loose or I had to make an adjustment.  As for this morning’s incident, I wonder if the cold had something to do with the handlebars getting loose.  Maybe the temperature caused the metal to contract.

Anyway, I continued south on Springinsguth to Wise Rd.  The bike route on Springinsguth begins as an asphalt trail before changing to a regular-width sidewalk south of Schaumburg Rd.  Unfortunately, you have to deal with cars parking on the sidewalk in some driveways.  When I lived in Roselle, this was a ticketable offense.  It wouldn’t surprise me if Schaumburg had a similar ordinance.  A look at my tracklog in the vicinity of Revere Cir shows where I had to leave the sidewalk and go into the street to get around a car.  At Weathersfield Way the bike route moves from the east side of Springinsguth to the west side, and the sidewalk widens beginning at a school.

At Wise Rd, I headed east.  The bike route runs along the north side of Wise, and is mostly a double-wide sidewalk.  I think a few stretches were made of asphalt.  I found myself able to make some really good speed thanks to some descents.  The bike route sports some fancy pavement squares at intersections between Roselle Rd and Plum Grove Rd.  I know Wise Rd was really torn up for a long time here, but I didn’t know they did work on the bike path also.  During the final block leading up to Plum Grove Rd I pedaled like a madman because I had built up so much speed and had a nice 500ft stretch to go fast.  The tracklog shows I was only going about 15mph here, but I saw on my GPSr that I was going over 20.

At Plum Grove Rd I turned north.  Schaumburg’s bike path map didn’t show a bike route along Plum Grove north of Merlin Dr, so I was prepared to take some parallel routes through a neighborhood to the west.  However, when I got to that intersection on my bike, I saw signs indicating the route continued north on the sidewalk.  So I stayed on Plum Grove.

At Schaumburg Rd I headed east.  This asphalt trail dived downhill toward a creek and wetland.  I managed to get up to 24.5mph.  That might be a new record top speed for me.  It was almost too fast, as I nearly missed the trail I meant to turn north on.  This trail follows a creek behind some residences between Schaumburg Rd and Thacker St.  Another one of those trails I had walked while geocaching.  There was a lot of cut brush piled along the trail.  It looks like the park distrct was trying to clean out the wooded area.

After staying on Thacker St for all of one block, I turned north on National Pkwy.  In short order, I found myself at the intersection with Higgins Rd/IL72.  I had several busy crossings on my itinerary for today and this was the first.  I had to cross nine lanes of traffic to continue on the bike trail running alongside National Pkwy.  Surprisingly, there are no crosswalks at this intersection, despite both Higgins and National Pkwy having bike trails running alongside them.

From National Pkwy, I turned west onto American Ln.  At this point, I was amidst the many office buildings clustered around Woodfield Mall.  One of the credit reporting bureaus has an office on this road, and it was there that I kept left to follow a trail that meandered between some low-rise offices.  It was quite windy.  I think the buildings channeled the wind between them.  For whatever reason, this trail did not connect directly with Plum Grove Rd.  I had to follow the trail south a few hundred feet to a street then make a quick switchback onto the bike route alongside Plum Grove.

I rode along Plum Grove north to Golf Rd/IL58, passing a huge selection of new Ford Transit Connect minivans at the Ford dealer.  This was the crossing that had me most concerned while planning my ride, due to the crossing’s sheer width.  Again, it was a crossing of nine lanes.  Again, the crossing proved to be no big deal.  Granted, it was around 10:30AM, so traffic was lighter than it probably would have been later in the day.  Continuing north along Plum Grove, I saw a Honda pull into the Honda dealership dragging some lower bodywork under the engine.  That dude must have run over something.

After turning east on Remington Rd, I passed several auto body repair shops, including one that repaired my car after driving it into a gate at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

At Meacham Rd I turned south and rode the bike route to Golf Rd.  I think the route officially ended there, but I turned the corner to ride a sidewalk east along Golf Rd in front of the Woodfield Green shopping center.  At Roosevelt Blvd I turned north and picked up a bike route that paralleled McConnor Pkwy.  This was another area where I was able to build up some speed, cruising past the Hyatt Hotel.  McConnor Pkwy is a loop, curving around to head northwest past IKEA and Roosevelt University.  As I rounded that curve, I realized I was in for a long ride back to the car.  I was faced with a very stiff headwind.  With all the northbound and eastbound riding I had been doing to this point, I hadn’t noticed the wind.  The wind was westerly, with perhaps a bit of a southerly component to it.  I later found out this wind was gusting to 30mph.  I hate riding into a headwind.  I find it so much harder than riding up a hill because when you go up a hill, you eventually reach the top.  With the wind, it never abates unless you totally change direction.  Anyway, I saw something interesting as I rode past IKEA.  I saw an SUV towing a U-Haul trailer that turned into the store’s parking lot.  That is a pretty good idea for hauling back a bunch of home furnishings.

The trail brought me back to Meacham Rd, where I followed another trail south back to Remington Rd.  I retraced my track along Remington until I turned north at State Pkwy.  This turn was the only time I had to consult my cheatsheet.  This trip had so many turns that last night I actually wrote up a list of instructions for where to turn and which trails to take.  Schaumburg has so many trails and bike lanes that one can go all over the place on a bike, but you could also lose track of where to turn.  At least I could lose track, as I am used to riding rails-to-trails and trails through forest preserves with limited opportunities to make a wrong turn.  I stayed alongside State Pkwy until I turned north at a pond to follow what looked like a more scenic path between all the commercial and industrial buildings.

The trail skirting a pond between State Pkwy and Penny Ln was just OK in terms of scenery, but it wasn’t maintained well.  Some grass is trying to grow up through the asphalt, resulting in a lumpy bumpy surface.  Where the trail joins Penny Ln is a sculpture in front of the American Foundry Society.

From Penny Ln I rode north on Plum Grove Rd again, passing some tall pine trees, or whatever they were.  They were in neat rows and seemed out of place, with this being a business park.  Turning left (west) at Commerce Dr, I was again faced with that stupid headwind.  Ugh.  At Basswood Dr I turned south.  There are a few benches along this stretch of trail, including a little overlook facing the wetland.

Just north of State Pkwy, I turned west to ride another trail meandering between buildings in the business park.  Actually, the north side of the trail is pretty natural.  Here is a spot where I passed through some trees.

Eventually I reached Roselle Rd, where I turned south.  The ascent to Golf Rd made me work hard.  I didn’t have a headwind, but that west-southwesterly wind certainly didn’t help.  Uphill in the wind, no thanks.  In fact, things actually got worse later in the ride.  Riding along Roselle Rd isn’t very pleasant.  You have some busy crossings at Higgins Rd and Golf Rd again.  For me, the wait through the signal cycles was more bothersome than the traffic.  What bothered me about this leg of my ride was the constant traffic noise.  Approaching Schaumburg Rd there was another hill.  Not difficult at all, but that wind just messed me up.

Now for the part of the ride that sucked for me.  I turned west from Roselle Rd onto Weathersfield Way.  I was about to embark on my first prolonged ride on a bike lane.  As I said earlier, I stick with trails in parks or trails paralleling but separated from roads.  I have very rarely ridden on roads since taking up bicycling this summer.  Weathersfield Way rises 40ft over a 0.6mi stretch.  Doesn’t sound like much, but this time I was riding directly into the 30mph wind.  And this was the 20th mile of my ride, so I was getting tired.  Another cyclist was in the bike lane and he was going slower than I wanted, so I passed him.  Foolish thing to do, passing someone in a bike lane while cars are going by.  I was so worn down from riding uphill against the wind that at 0.5mi of the ascent I had to pull off the bike lane onto the sidewalk to stop for a breather.  I also wanted to let that other cyclist pass me as I saw he was gaining on me as I ran out of gas on the ascent.  I feel kind of embarrassed that I had to stop.  I just have a really hard time dealing with the wind.  I remember the wind giving me similar trouble as I rode the (flat as a pancake) Geneva Spur at DuPage Airport.  Just as I have improved my stamina to the point of being able to ride 20+ miles pretty easily, maybe I will become strong enough to better fight the wind.

I was quite happy to reach Braintree Dr, where I was able to turn north and get out of that freaking headwind.  What a difference.  There was some uphill terrain on Braintree, but it didn’t bother me because I wasn’t having to pedal against that wind.  At Bode Rd I made my final turn to head west back to the car.  I had to ride through that awful wind again, but I knew I only had a short distance to go.

Once at the car, it felt really cold.  The wind chill felt worse than it did at any point of my ride.  I hustled to put my bike in the car and pack up.  Below is a picture of the trip computer screen on the PN-30 for this particular ride.  I think there is a way to get a screenshot of that screen from the GPSr via a key combination.  I’ll look into that.

I have a feeling I am closing in on the end of my riding season.  I won’t ride if it’s below 40 degrees outside.  I wore my gloves for the entire ride today, and of course I had my long sleeves on.  I discovered my helmet actually does a good job of keeping my head warm.

I should note that I recorded my ride with two GPSrs again.  The eXplorist 210 was in my CamelBak and did an surprisingly good job recording my track.  It actually looked just as accurate as tracklogs recorded when I had it on the handlebar mount.  The eXplorist doesn’t seem to care where it is put.  The DeLorme recorded a more accurate tracklog today riding on the handlebars.  However, the DeLorme’s accuracy is more adversely affected by riding in the CamelBak than the eXplorist is.

Google Maps Nav Will Not Kill Standalone GPS

I agree with this article wholeheartedly.  I am someone who buys and uses the best tool for the job.  I have a desktop with 17″ monitor for regular computing.  I have a 10″ netbook for mobile computing.  I have a Garmin nuvi for automotive turn-by-turn navigation.  I have handheld GPS receivers for bicycling and geocaching.  For serious photography I use a superzoom point and shoot.  For around-the-town snapshots, I carry a little pocket camera.  When at home and in the car, I use an iPod Touch for music.  When on my bike, I use an old SanDisk with a malfunctioning volume control.

The best products for the task at hand.  Yes, it results in me owning more than one of several devices, but it also means that I always have the right tool for the job.

A cell phone is a phone.  Not a navigation device.  Phones are for making calls, not GPS navigation.  The GPS receivers in phones have inferior performance compared with those in dedicated GPS devices.  We have the battery issue.  My nuvi can get take me on a five-hour trip on one charge.  A cell phone would likely deplete its battery during the trip.

Then there’s the data connectivity issue.  My nuvi has the US and Canada loaded in its memory.  A cell phone would need a data plan and signal in the field.  I wish techies would quit assuming everybody has a smartphone and thinks nothing of spending $70/mo on just one phone for voice and data.  A lot of people still use basic cell phones and don’t want the cost and complexity of a smartphone and the cost of the data plan.

For a smartphone to be a good navigator, it will need a large touchscreen.  There are durability issues here.  People carry their phones everywhere and some people are hard on them.  The fragile touchscreen cell phones aren’t tough enough for some people.  Unless I had a hard case, I would destroy a touchscreen phone.  Then there is the usability issue.  You can use a phone with physical buttons “blind.”  With a touchscreen, you have to be looking at the device to see where you are tapping.  Some people want buttons for ease of use.

Techies think everybody else has the same devices as them, and use them the same way.  That is their problem.  Any company that lets techies dictate product features and design will go under quickly because techies are a minority and atypical users.  Techies don’t mind updating firmware and working with kludges.  Regular people don’t want quirks and just want stuff to work.  Tech circles think the Google navigation app is revolutionary and renders standalone automotive GPS receivers useless.  They completely and utterly fail to understand that not everyone wants or can have a smartphone, not everyone can afford a data plan, and that dedicated devices are always better at a job than a multi-function device.

OK, I admit to owning a multi-function device – the iPod Touch.  However, it is one of the few devices in my opinion that actually does a decent job at everything it does.  Good music player, good gaming device, and good social networking/web browsing device.  On the other hand, I have a work-issued BlackBerry Curve 8330.  I find it easier to type on than the Touch, but its web browser is a lot clunkier.  The BlackBerry is more of a messaging device than a phone to me.  I find it awkward to hold and use as a phone, but it is great for e-mail and text messaging.  My personal cell phone is a five-year-old Kyocera SoHo KX1.  It’s just a phone, and it is a darned good phone.  That’s why I still use it.  I don’t like making calls with the BlackBerry, but I am fine with calling on the Kyocera.  I don’t text, so I don’t miss the keyboard of the BlackBerry.  I want my phone to be a phone.  Not a computer, not a GPS navigator, not a messager (neither text nor e-mail).  If my Kyocera ever craps out, my next phone will be a phone.  I might even replace it with another Kyocera KX1 from eBay.  Yes, it can be nice to be able to do more than one thing with a device.  But my preference is for one device that does something really well than for a device that does many things in a mediocre way.

Disclaimer: Writer owns stock in Garmin.

Last night I explained how the new McKenna-Murphy gubernatorial campaign ad is bad.  There are a couple of other bad TV ads out there right now.

A Toyota Camry ad has been rubbing me the wrong way for weeks.  Unfortunately, I cannot find it on YouTube or Toyota’s website to share with you.  The commercial is about a couple in a long-distance relationship.  The girlfriend says her boyfriend drives 400 miles to see her on the weekend, and he put 200,000 miles on his old Camry.  It looks like he has a new Camry in the commercial.

When I first heard those numbers, my brain went to work immediately.  I’m analytical like that.  So let’s go over the implausibility of the situation in this ad, step by step.  First, the guy is driving 400 miles to see a girl.  Must be one hell of a girl.  Second, the guy is driving 400 miles to see a girl.  Let’s do the math.  Accounting for surface streets and highway travel, his average speed might be 50mph.  That is an eight hour trip.  Even if his average speed is 60mph, we are still talking nearly seven hours in the car.  I drive five hours each way to Iowa Speedway for the IndyCar race, but that’s only once a year.  Let’s go back to that 7- to 8-hour trip this guy is making.  From what the girlfriend says, it sounds like the guy makes this to visit her for the weekend.  So let’s say the guy wants to spend as much time with her as possible.  He would leave his job around 5 or 6PM Friday.  He will be in the car for 7-8 hours.  That means an arrival time at the girlfriend’s of around midnight to 1AM.  I don’t know about the rest of you, but I would be pretty darned tired after working an eight hour day (I’m assuming the guy is not a slacker) and then driving eight hours to arrive at a place after midnight.  No matter how short of a trip I am making, I am always tired if I get somewhere after midnight.  I will assume the guy goes straight to bed once at the girlfriend’s place.  No time for a meal, no time for chatting, and certainly no time or energy for nookie.

There’s one more number to deal with.  The guy put 200,000 miles on his car.  I think the girlfriend said he put that mileage on just visiting her, but I’m not sure.  I wish the commercial was online so I could review the exact circumstances of the numbers.  It is a 400 mile drive to the girlfriend.  He has to go back home.  So that is an 800 mile trip.  Dividing 200,000 miles by 800 miles, that would be 250 trips.  This is supposedly a weekly trip, so that would be nearly five years of trips.  There is something wrong with this relationship.  If a guy is willing to travel 400 miles to visit a girl, it must be a serious relationship.  They both must really want to be with each other.  One would think that after a couple of years, let alone five, they would move closer to each other, shack up, or (gasp!) get married.

I don’t know if this commercial is rooted in reality or if it’s a script written up by an ad agency.  If it’s based on reality, there is something weird about this couple.  If it’s fictional, the numbers just don’t work and render this story implausible.

Now for Victim #2.  I have only seen this commercial twice and cannot find it online.  I am talking about a recent Bank of America commercial promoting their online banking services.  A woman is shown using her laptop in some sort of lobby or vestibule to access her Bank of America account online.  There are people walking around in the background, so it is obviously a common area of the building.

So what’s the problem?  I think she is using a public or open WiFi access point!  As I said earlier, I think she is in some sort of common area.  I don’t recall seeing any wires coming out of the laptop.  Therefore she is using WiFi, and being a common area, the access point would likely be unsecured.

It is an unsafe practice to do any kind of financial transaction over an open access point.  You are exposing yourself to identity theft and compromising the security of your bank account.  What is being shown in this commercial, a woman using a laptop to access her bank account on what is likely an open AP, is a very unsafe practice.  I am surprised a bank would show someone in a commercial engaging in such risky behavior.  I know they are trying to show how easy and convenient it is to access your account online, but maybe they could have shown someone on their sofa or at a desk at home using the website.  They’d be more likely to have a secure connection at home.  Showing a banking customer at home is less alluring than showing someone banking anytime anywhere, but at least they wouldn’t be showing someone engaging in dangerous computing practices.  I’d love to see this commercial again to verify if they actually were foolish enough to show someone using bad practices.

Disclosure

I have been meaning to write about the new blogger disclosure rule that was news a few weeks ago.  Since I occasionally review products here, I thought I should address the disclosure issue.  This is a very low-profile blog that typically gets around 20 hits a day.  However, my most frequently-read posts are my reviews.  As you can see, I have no advertising here.  I do not get paid in any way to write this blog.  I also do not get any free products to review.  Every product that I have discussed has been paid for with my own money, purchased through normal retail channels.  In the extremely unlikely event that I am provided a product or service for free, it will be clearly stated in the blog entry.  Since I regularly discuss mapping, GIS, GPS, and geocaching, I will disclose that I am a shareholder in Garmin.  I have other investments, and should I ever discuss products made by those companies, I will make note of my investor status.

Search Trends for My Blog

I had to laugh at this.  Somebody got here yesterday by searching for “delorean pn40.”  They managed to blend the name of a defunct car manufacturer with a model of GPS receiver.  I don’t know how they even got here because a Google search for delorean pn40 doesn’t pull up this site.  By the way, the person was likely looking for a DeLorme PN-40.  Somebody who looks for a “delorean pn40″ needs a lot of GPS purchasing help.

Lately my construction rants have been getting regular hits.  I think more people are getting fed up with the construction on US Route 20 and IL Route 25.  Apparently the construction on US20 is bad enough that people are using IL19 as an alternative, which is screwing up traffic at the intersection of IL19 and Shales Parkway.

Another post that gets regular hits is my comparison of sub sandwiches.  Some weirdo searched for “description of biting into an italian sandwich”  Um, it’s like biting into any other sandwich that has meat and veggies between two pieces of bread.

McKenna Commercial

I noticed Andy McKenna, GOP gubernatorial candidate, has started airing TV ads.

Who does he think he is kidding?  An outsider?  Not part of Springfield?  He is the former chairman of the Illinois Republican Party.  How can someone be a political outsider and not part of state government when they were the state chairman of their party?

As if that alone wasn’t reason enough to peg this as a bad commercial, we have the final scene with McKenna and Matt Murphy (presumed running mate) standing side-by-side with the words McKenna & Murphy on the screen.  This part of the ad looks more like a law firm ad than a political ad.

I am leaning toward Dan Hynes for governor at the moment, but that could change on a whim.  I’m sure as hell not voting for Quinn though.  Hope it’s not just those two on the Democratic ballot in the primary.

Overhyping Google’s Free SatNav App

News came out today that Google will offer a free GPS navigation app for phones running their Android 2 operating system.  This announcement resulted in shares of Garmin and TomTom dropping.  Garmin stock closed down about 16% today.  (Remember, I own shares of Garmin.)

The response on tech news sites and forums was ridiculously enthusiastic and irrational, writing off traditional navigation hardware.  I bought Garmin at a low price, so despite the 16% drop, my shares are still worth more than I paid.  In fact, Garmin’s share price is simply back to where it was 2 months ago and double what it was in February.  People were acting as if the death knell for Garmin had sounded and they were about to go out of business.  Preposterous.  Garmin investors are doing just fine.  And it is likely the company will do fine for the forseeable future.

A writer at Computerworld has his opinions on why Google’s app isn’t the greatest thing since sliced bread.  I will give my opinions below.

First, it is for Android, specifically Android 2 (not out yet).  Americans haven’t embraced Android.  I see far more BlackBerries, iPhones, and “dumbphones” than I see Android-powered phones.  Unless Google ports this app to iPhone OS, there will be very few users.  Second, you have to have a smartphone.  Smartphones are proliferating, but there are also a lot of people who pay $70/mo for their multi-line family plan who won’t stomach paying $70/mo just for one smartphone and its data plan.  I’m one of those people.  So the requisite Android phone and data plan preclude a large part of the cell phone user base.  Traditionally, cell phone navigation has been hampered by screen size and battery life.  Google’s cradle triggering an automotive mode for the phone is a nice touch.  That may actually make their app usable while driving.  It may help overcome the stigma that cell phone navigation stinks.

Google has done a nice job leveraging all of their technologies (crowdsourced traffic, StreetView, voice recognition) and data sets.  I’ll give them that.  But all the forum commenters, bloggers, and tech geeks are wrong about Google pwning Garmin and TomTom.  Yes, it is a nice app.  Yes, it will force competitors to innovate and compete.  But for the reasons I touched on, I don’t see mass adoption of Google’s navigation app and the wholesale ditching of standalone GPS devices.

I decided to ride the Virgil Gilman Trail today.  It runs from Waubonsee Community College in Sugar Grove to Hill Ave on Aurora’s east side.  I had already walked the majority of the Gilman Trail in the course of geocaching over the years.  When I took up bicycling in June, the Gilman Trail was one of my priorities to ride because it is such a nice trail.  However, the trail’s length was a little much for me to handle until now.  After completing many 20+ mile bike rides and having a better bike, I felt like I was now able to ride the full length of the Gilman Trail.  Below is my tracklog for today.

The day got off to a rough start.  I tried to attach the RAM bike mount I bought yesterday for my DeLorme PN-30 GPSr but had to give up.  The box had no instructions about how to put the mount together.  Yes, there are only three pieces and four nuts and bolts, but there was this one hole in the mount that I had no idea I needed to put one of the bolts through.  After getting home, I found instructions thanks to a post I found in DeLorme’s GPSr forum, but those instructions were incomplete and said to use the wrong bolt in one step.  So I didn’t get to put the DeLorme on my handlebars.  I had the eXplorist 210 on the handlebars and I changed how I packed my CamelBak Rogue, putting the DeLorme in the top pouch instead of my tool kit.  My hope was that the DeLorme would get better reception there than it would in my fanny pack.  It did get better reception, but there were a few places where its tracklog deviated noticeably from the trail.  I was not able to deem either GPS receiver a winner.  In some places, the DeLorme recorded a better tracklog, while the eXplorist did better in other places.

As for my bike ride, I started at the parking lot near the Gilman Trail’s intersection with Orchard Road.  I contemplated parking at Waubonsee or the lot on Hill Ave.  After the debacle with my old bike breaking 9mi away from the car, I think it is wise to try to put my car right in the middle of my bike ride.  So on this ride, I would be no more than about 6mi from my car if something went wrong.  If I left my car at Hill Ave and my bike broke at Waubonsee, I would have had to walk 11-12mi back to the car.  Also, I never cared for the lot on Hill Ave.  I’ve seen shady people there and it’s kind of isolated.

I chose to head southeast first on the trail.  Right away, I found a potential hazard I hadn’t thought about.  Wet fallen leaves.  They turned out not to be slippery.  I still exercised care around curves anyway.  Why risk falling?

I really like the Gilman Trail, but there’s one part of it that just plain stinks.  The trail is routed along Terry Ave and Rathbone Ave in an industrial area on Aurora’s west side.  Signs warn of Rathbone being a rough road, and that is one rough road.  I’d say it might be even rougher than Willard St in Elgin.  There are deep potholes and the road is just plain bumpy and lumpy.  The holes and bumps are so numerous that they are hard to ride around.  I don’t expect Aurora to ever fix this street because trucks use it and would just ruin a repaved road.

There were a couple of good smells between Routes 31 and 25.  I could smell the pile of wood chips between the railroad tracks the trail passes under, and there were some Mexican food smells near a restaurant on Route 25.  The ride to the trail’s terminus at Hill Ave was uneventful.  The only things I’ll mention are the busy road crossing at Montgomery Rd, and the difficulty of riding through the wind that blows across the wetland that is south of trail in this area.  No trees = no windbreak.

There isn’t much terrain change on the eastern part of the Gilman Trail.  There are some gentle slopes.  I rode west, passed my car, and took on the western part of the trail.  The crossing at Galena Blvd is busy, so caution is needed there.  The rise up to the bridge over IL Route 56 is a bit of a challenge.  It won’t kick your butt, but it will make you work.  Just don’t go too fast down the west side.  Super easy to build up speed, and super easy to run off the trail after crossing the bridge over Blackberry Creek.  Let’s just say I used every inch of the trail going around that curve.  Continuing northwest, you eventually pass through Prestbury.

Then there’s Bliss Rd.  Quite a busy road, and for me, the most difficult to cross on the Gilman Trail.  By difficult, I mean having to wait a while for traffic to clear.  The trail northwest of there was just blanketed with leaves.  Maybe 2-3″ of leaves.  It was a little like riding through snow, in terms of the crunching and resistance.  There were a few places where I wasn’t totally sure where the trail was because the leaves had so completely covered the trail.  The worst part of it was not being able to see bumps in the pavement and not knowing exactly where the pavement dropped off on the side of the trail.  Below are some pics of the trail where it passes through Bliss Woods.

Eventually I arrived at Waubonsee Community College.  I wish there were some benches at the end of the trail there.  There is a nice wooded area where they could put some picnic tables.  The students and staff could use them for lunch, and trail users could use them for breaks or stretching.  I ended up sitting on a wooden guard rail fence thing.

After a three minute break (for some stupid reason I take really short breaks), I got back on the trail.  I checked out the water table gauge WCC has on the trail.  Every time I go by this spot, I take a measurement and record it in the notebook left at the site.  Unfortunately, the notebook was gone.  There were some spurs off the Gilman Trail that I saw and wanted to explore.  First was the trail into Hannaford Woods.  I’ve walked that crushed stone trail while geocaching.  Hannaford is one of my favorite forest preserves.  I had a great time crunching through the leaves while searching for some geocaches there a few years ago.  I wanted to see the preserve again, so I took a slow ride through.  At one point, a jogger asked me how the trail was – if it was muddy.  I told her it was fine.  There have been times when I wondered if I should warn oncoming trail users about pedestrians or a trail problem I just passed.  It seems like a considerate thing to do, but maybe no one cares.  I guess I’ll stay quiet unless someone asks me about conditions.

The longest diversion I took was on a trail connecting the Gilman Trail to the Aurora West Forest Preserve just east of IL Route 56.  This was a windy ride.  The trail is newer, constructed of crushed stone sometime in the past two years.  It ends at an incomplete subdivision just off of Deerpath Rd.  An asphalt trail circles through the neighborhood and connects to Aurora West FP.  Something needs to be done about all these neighborhoods that are only partially built out.  They border on being blighted in my opinion.

Back on the Gilman Trail heading southeast…there is a plaque just off the trail near Barnes Rd.  It honors a fellow who started riding his bike on the trail when he was 74 years old and kept riding the trail until his death at the age of 84.  I believe he was known as “the old man on the bike” and the plaque said he road upwards of 100mi a week.  Amazing.

The next diversion I took was through the Barnes Forest Preserve between the Gilman Trail and Prairie St.  The crushed stone path just makes a loop through a prairie.  I rejoined the Gilman Trail and followed short spur that went north into a subdivision.

After turning around and rejoining the Gilman Trail, I passed a pair of hikers for the third time during the southeasterly trip back to my car.  I hope I didn’t piss them off.  I passed them once on the Gilman, then went on that loop through the prairie, passed them again, then went into that subdivision, then had to pass the hikers a third time.

Speaking of hikers, I encountered some hikers wearing monsterous backpacks for the second week in a row.  What are they carrying?  Water?  It’s an asphalt trail through suburbia, so they don’t need to bring any gear.  And you only need 1L of water per hour of exercise; they could carry at least 16L of water in those packs.  I’m guessing they are either carrying water and unnecessary junk, or carrying full gear in an attempt to practice for hiking in the wilderness.  Anyway, I encountered two pairs of hikers in these groups who were so engrossed in conversation that they didn’t hear me announce my intent to pass.  One pair was so deep in conversation and oblivious to the world that you’d swear they were the two Northwest pilots who flew past Minneapolis.  I announced my intent to pass twice and was ignored.  Finally I had to slow to a near stop behind them and butt into their conversation, asking if I could pass.  Wow.  These Appalachian Trail through-hiker wannabes are proving to be more troublesome than the jogging yentas.  I call them wannabes because one of the hikers I passed three times looked like a serious hiker and he only had a normal-sized backpack on.  Also, a serious hiker would be paying attention to the sights and sounds and not hike down the middle of the trail.  I really do need to buy a bell for my bike.  There were a couple of hikers who moved over as soon as I called out my pass, but they really perked up when they heard the bell of a cyclist behind me.

Now for the stats.  As I said earlier, I carried two GPSrs with me.  The eXplorist 210 reported the following: 9.2mph avg speed, 22.8mph max speed, 28.35mi on the odometer.  The PN-30 reported: 9.3mph avg speed, 20.3mph max speed, 29.12mi on the odometer, total trip time of 3h 07m 25s, moving time of 2h 48m 37s, and stopped time of 18m 48s.  I am inclined to believe the DeLorme’s odometer reading.  The jagged curves of the eXplorist tracklog don’t represent the full distance I rode around a curve.  The more-detailed DeLorme tracklog probably represents the distance I traveled better.  Here is a link to the DeLorme’s tracklog uploaded to Everytrail.

Forgive any typos.  I posted this after midnight.

I have long had a problem with how history is taught in school.  I have learned about Christopher Columbus a dozen times, but I have never learned about World War II, the Korean War, or the Vietnam Conflict.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I went to good suburban schools and I graduated from college with a master’s degree.  So why am I so dumb?

See, history was always taught from the beginning at my schools.  They start with that land bridge connecting North America and Asia, then talk about Christopher Columbus, Ponce De Leon, and the American Revolution for months.  Next thing you know, it’s the end of the school year and we just barely got to World War I.

I think history should be taught backward at some point.  I mean, by the time you reach high school, you’ve heard the same damned story about Christopher Columbus eight times.  By teaching history backward at a certain grade level, starting at the present and going back, students will learn more about stuff that happened just before they were born.  They will learn about things that happened during their parents’ lives and their grandparents’ lives.  They will see that history is real and relevant, because there is living history all around them.  By teaching history backward, schools would ensure that students at some point in their education will learn “modern” history – events that happened in the 20th century.

I have had this belief ever since I was in high school and learning about Christopher Columbus for the 10th time.  I finally got around to writing about this today because I made an interesting discovery.  I was looking up information about a bus crash that happened in 1976.  I have a morbid interest in transportation disasters.  Anyway, I was shocked to see that Google had a scanned newspaper from 1976.  I had no idea they offered this kind of stuff.  I could flip through the pages and read the articles just like the paper was in my own hands.  All the photos and ads were intact.  It was like taking a trip back in time.  I then looked up various topics from the 1980s and somehow ended up looking at the Milwaukee Journal from August 23, 1940.  The headline of that day – Roosevelt Calls for Draft Action Now.

On seeing the war-related articles and the department store ads, I realized these old newspapers would be far more interesting and more effective for teaching history than those sanitized textbooks with 20/20 hindsight.  I sat at my computer for nearly two hours tonight going through old newspapers in the Google News Archive.  It offered a glimpse into what was affecting people’s daily lives.  I got to see how cars, appliances, and clothing (and their costs) have changed over time.  This is way better than a history book.  If I were a teacher, I would pull up these old newspapers and have discussions in class.  The students would see the events of the day as reported that day, not filtered by a bunch of historians and textbook editors decades later.  I think students would enjoy these newspapers.  They are a welcome change from a staid textbook.

So I finally pontificated about education.  Over the years I have read articles and watched television programs to try to learn a little more about the stuff I wasn’t taught in school.  It just seems silly to me that we keep teaching history and social studies the same way year after year throughout a child’s education.

It’s a well-known fact among my friends that I am thrifty.  I try to get the most for my money.  One of my tactics in online shopping is to always take the free or low-cost shipping option.  I’m willing to wait an extra 4-5 days for an item if it saves me $10.  Those days are done.

My mom bought some stuff from a friend who shipped said stuff with insurance via the Postal Service.  She never got her package.  A claim was made on the shipping insurance, but it was rejected, saying the package was delivered.  That is complete hogwash.  Nobody delivered a package.  Nobody rang the doorbell.  Nobody made sure the package was delivered to the right person.

I’ve never had a problem with shipments I have received from the Postal Service.  However, this incident has pissed me off.  What good is the insurance if it won’t pay for the loss of a package?

I told my parents not to use USPS for shipping anymore.  This is the second problem they’ve had with the Postal Service in the last 6 months.  In the other incident, my parents paid for expedited shipping on a package, something like 2-day service.  After four days, the recipient still hadn’t received the package.  My parents asked the post office what happened, and they said they tried to deliver the package several times but nobody was home.  Hogwash.  The recipient was home during the supposed delivery attempts.  I don’t remember if that package was ever delivered.  My dad said they should have used FedEx or UPS because they have better tracking and delivery confirmation.  I think UPS and FedEx also do a better job at making repeat delivery attempts and letting a recipient know they are trying to deliver a package.

If I am shipping a package to someone, I will use UPS or FedEx from now on.  When I buy something online, no more free or discounted shipping.  I will pay for standard shipping to get UPS or FedEx.  I’m taking my business elsewhere.  The free and discounted shipping used by web retailers is often USPS, or DHL Global Mail or FedEx Smart Post, which use USPS for final delivery.  No more USPS for me.

A couple of months ago I wrote about a Cabela’s gift card I had.  I’m not really a Cabela’s shopper, so I was struggling with what to buy with the card.  I finally used the gift card today to buy a bike mount for my DeLorme PN-30.

Earlier this week I searched for a bike mount for the PN-30.  The only mounts I found for the PN-series were by RAM.  There was this mount for $16.88 at a place called MountGuys.  Other places had either a similar or identical mount for about $30.  I always look for the best price and was ready to buy from MountGuys for a total of $21 when I remembered the $50 Cabela’s gift card.  Cabela’s had the mount for $30.  What to do?  Cabela’s charges nearly 50% more, but the mount would technically be free to me since I got the gift card for free.  I decided to buy the mount at Cabela’s even though they weren’t the best value.  I’d be able to get the mount right away, and I’d be able to burn off part of the value of the gift card.

Cabela’s is an interesting place.  Its exterior is reminiscent of a lodge, but with a huge parking lot.  Inside is a two-story store with an outdoors-themed diorama and aquarium in the middle.  I took some pics when I went there last year.

Big store, with all kinds of interesting stuff for camping, hunting, fishing, and general outdoor activity.  I went to the GPS section and found the mount quickly.  I had called yesterday to make sure it was in stock.  The package was quite dusty.  They must not sell many.

I decided to stop in their Bargain Cave to see if any deals were to be had.  While browsing, an odd employee out of the blue asked one guy if he was interested in a Cabela’s credit card.  Wow, what a way to greet a customer.  I didn’t see anything I wanted, so I went to the checkout.  I was asked for my phone number (I hate when stores do that; I should’ve given a BS phone number), was  asked if I wanted a warranty for the mount, then was asked if I wanted to get a Cabela’s credit card to save something like $15 instantly.  No to the credit card since I don’t shop there, and no to the warranty.  Why would I buy a warranty when RAM mounts already have a lifetime warranty?

As I walked back to my car, I figured out part of the reason why I am not a big fan of Cabela’s.  The main reason I don’t shop there is their prices are high.  But here’s what I figured out today – it’s a Republican kind of store.  There were plenty of trucks and SUVs.  My Prius stuck out like a sore thumb.  Then on the inside of the store, there is taxidermy, a section for ammunition, and a sign about guns having to be checked at the service desk.  This weekend they have a firearm care class, so folks must bring their guns in.  By the way, I am pro-gun (I think we still have have a couple in the house) and would like to hunt someday, but I’m just saying that a Democrat type of store wouldn’t have stuffed deer and firearms.

Anyway, I then wondered if there was a Democrat outdoors store.  It hit me – REI.  They’re from the Pacific Northwest, a bastian of liberalism.  Cabela’s is from the conservative Midwest.  REI is a cooperative run by a member-elected board of directors, which seems like more of a liberal concept.  While REI doesn’t normally have the rock-bottom prices I look for, they do have some good sales occasionally, offer members a yearly dividend, and have a good merchandise return policy.  Even though REI seems more appealing to the liberal mindset, I still hit up Amazon or Wal-Mart first when I am shopping.

Oh, and I should note that I am not talking about the companies’ politics.  I am referring to the politics of who may shop at the stores and the things about the stores that may appeal to the particular type of shopper.

As it turns out, I am not the only person who has made this Cabela’s-conservative/REI-liberal comparison.  I found this comment on the Democratic Underground forum:

“As a general rule – shoppers at REI are Democrats, shoppers at Cabella [sic] are Bushies.”

Then there’s this Slate article that included the following:

“…Cabela’s is to the rural well-off what REI is to blue-staters…”

So I still have about $17 left on my Cabela’s gift card.  Coincidentally, that’s about the same amount I have left on a TigerDirect gift card.  I’ll probably use up the rest of that gift card in February, but who knows when I will use up the rest of the Cabela’s gift card.

I should mention that as I pulled out of the Cabela’s lot, a Ford Ranger pickup covered in camo tape was pulling in.  I don’t think you’d see a truck like that parked outside of REI.

I touched on a comparison of tracklogs during my last bike ride blog post.  It wasn’t a fair comparison because my Magellan eXplorist 210 was on my handlebars while the DeLorme PN-30 was in my fanny pack.  The units didn’t have the same exposure to the GPS signal, so you couldn’t fairly compare their track logs.

I decided to record my track log a couple of days ago during my drive home from work.  This wasn’t intended to be a scientific comparison.  I just wanted to see how the units compared side-by-side.

I turned on the units simultaneously and put them both on the passenger seat of my car.  Neither unit had an almanac advantage since they were both last used at the same time and should therefore be expecting to see the same satellites.  I will note that the PN-30 was using its predictive ephemeris function for several satellites.  To my surprise both units achieved a position fix at the same time.  However, the PN-30 reported an EPE of 30ft while the eXplorist reported an error of over 200ft.  Comparison of EPE between two different units can be likened to comparing apples with oranges, but when there is this much difference, it cannot be ignored.

I should also report that I was using firmware v2.6 on the DeLorme and v2.53 on the eXplorist.  That eXplorist firmware is a European version, but I was successful installing it on my North American eX210.  I wanted the trip computer screen this version added, and Magellan did not have a North American version of that firmware.

One last note – these two receivers are from two different generations.  I think I got the eX210 in 2006.  The PN-30 just came out this summer.

After driving six blocks, the PN-30 reported an EPE of 10ft and the eXplorist reported 30ft.  This is pretty much where the EPE values settled for the duration of the drive home.

As for reception, both units usually reported reception of the same number of satellites.  However, the eXplorist had superior performance with respect to WAAS reception.  The eX210 frequently reported reception of WAAS signals from two satellites, and for most of the ride home was using WAAS corrections in its position calculation.  On the other hand, I only saw two instances of the PN-30 receiving a signal from a WAAS satellite.  Only once did I see the WAAS corrections being applied to one satellite (blue bar on satellite page).  The v2.6 firmware update on the PN-30 was supposed to improve WAAS reception at lower signal strengths.  WAAS reception on the PN-series is better now than it was last year when I was borrowing a PN-40.  However, my experiences thus far with the PN-30 show that it has a harder time using WAAS corrections than my old eXplorists.  WAAS reception has been a gripe of PN-series owners.  There was one occasion where most of the PN’s signal bars were blue (WAAS correction), but I only have seen that happen once since I got the unit last month.

Now for some tracklog comparisons.  I was using the default tracklog settings.  On the eXplorist 210, this was AutoDetail.  The unit would record fewer points when there was little direction change and automagically record more when the track became curvy.  The PN-30 recorded track points every 10ft.  However, I should mention this analysis of how the PN-series records tracks.  Yes, my PN was set to record my track every 10ft, but my average speed driving home was about 30mph.  That converts to a speed of about 44ft per second.  That is much more than 10ft.  When distance traveled per second exceeds the set recording rate on the PN, it will just record one track point every second.  In my case, if I was going 30mph, the PN would only drop a point every 44ft or so.  I measured the distance between my PN-30 track points in Google Earth, and where I was traveling about 30mph, the tracklog points were about 44ft apart.  The eXplorist has an option for setting the tracklog interval, but the smallest interval is 0.01mi (52.8ft).

The PN-30’s tracklog appeared to be much more detailed than the eXplorist’s.  The eXplorist tracklogs I have recorded have always seemed crude to me.  They have always seemed angular and never fit roads and trails very well.  Below is an example of how the two GPS receivers recorded my track through a series of turns.  DeLorme PN-30 in red, Magellan eXplorist 210 in blue.  My speed in this area never went above 30mph and the GPS receivers had been on for 25-30mins by this point and had a solid position fix.

It is pretty obvious which receiver recorded the better track.  The PN-30 (red) shows the arc of each turn I made.  The eX210 (blue) laid only three track points for this set of maneuvers.  Not a very accurate depiction of my path down these roads.

Remember how the eX210 was set for AutoDetail tracking?  We can see the effect of this in the map below.

The speed limit on this stretch of road is 45mph.  The moderate speed and the gentleness of the curves would seem like the kind of situation where the eXplorist’s AutoDetail algorithm would drop fewer track points.  The eXplorist was lazy here, leaving a 0.75mi gap between track points.  This resulted in a straight line through the curves, making it look like I drove through people’s lawns.  On the other hand, the PN-30 hugged the curves.

This is not to say the PN-30 is perfect.  Below is a place where the PN-30’s track was a little off.  I was in the left lane of the road, but the track was off in the grass.

Assuming Google’s imagery was registered correctly, this would be an error of 20-22ft by the GPS receiver.  I consider this within reason.  I don’t expect more than 10m/30ft accuracy from a consumer handheld GPSr.

And now a final example of the smooth curvy nature of the PN-30’s tracklog compared to the eX210’s jagged tracklog.  This is the intersection of Shales Parkway and US20.  The intersection has been reconfigured, so I was not actually driving in the grass.  The road has been widened.

Because the PN-30 records a much more accurate and smoother tracklog, I want to use it on my bike.  I am now in the market for a PN-series bike mount.  The eX210 gets much better battery life, sits nicely in the mount on my handlebars, and has a very legible screen.  The tracklog of the PN-30 is so much better that I want to at least try a few rides with it on the handlebars.  I don’t think the screen legibility and battery life will be an issue, but if they are, I can always change back to the eX210.